698 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 4, 1907. 
Pencilings at Mud Lake. 
“Mud Lake, what an uneuphonious name!" I 
think 1 hear some one say. Y-e-s, but I love 
the lake. It holds no secrets from me. It is 
my comforter in sorrow, my companion in joy. 
“Where is Mud Lake?” That matters not at 
all. You must prove yourself worthy before I 
will disclose the whereabouts of my possession. 
Once I took a friend to my lake, and as we 
worked our skiff through the reeds which fringe 
the shore lie exclaimed, “My, what a pesky mud 
hole!” True; later he reversed his opinion, but 
his first statement rankled in my mind. I never 
forgave him. I think we are all jealous in o'ur 
lives; I know that I am. Near my boyhood 
home a spring bubbled out from under a lichened 
rock, the rill it formed laughed for a brief 
moment then tumbled to its death in a nearby 
river. Nowhere else did the violets grow quite 
so large or bloom quite as profusely. To me 
the spot was a sort of shrine to be visite’d only 
upon state occasions. Well, in an evil moment 
I took a couple of girl cousins to see the spring. 
The water was “bitter,” the banks a “quagmire,” 
and the violets “not half so sweet as pansies.” 
That happened nearly thirty years ago when I 
was but a mere boy, still I have hardly forgiven 
Jennie yet. 
Perhaps Mud Lake is not quite so beautiful 
in others’ eyes as it is in mine. Perhaps the red¬ 
wings are dressed just as resplendently elsewhere 
and sing just as enthusiastically. Perhaps the 
Indian-dipper grows as profusely in other reedy 
tarns, lifting its odd-shaped head above the wav¬ 
ing marsh grass. The water lilies and the cat 
tails and the trees along the shore, the chewinks 
and the yellow throats, the red squirrels and chip¬ 
munks, perhaps there are as many and just as 
fine elsewhere, but even then you would not have 
Mud Lake. There is but one Mud Lake. Do 
you understand ? 
I was but half awake and no discordant, jang¬ 
ling alarm had aroused me. The gray half light 
of May’s early morning filled the little tent. I 
listened in vain for a familiar sound. I heard 
not the fall of hurrying feet upon the resound¬ 
ing pavement; my ears were not deafened by the 
brain-racking staccato note of many typewriters. 
Where was I? Slowly the mantle of sense-numb¬ 
ing sleep was dissipated. The full, rich note of 
the white throat welled out on the stillness, fill¬ 
ing all the world with music, and was. answered 
with the song sparrow’s ebullitions song. I was 
camped on the shore of Mud Lake and that 
elusive murmur which filled my ears was the sound 
of its wavelets kissing the reeds along the shore. 
I thought of broken appointments, of lost busi¬ 
ness opportunities and waiting people. Let them 
wait. Is not my life mine? 
How poor the rich and. how ignorant the wise. 
A few men like Thoreau and Emerson, poor as 
the world counts riches, but rich as God meas¬ 
ures, lived their lives in a vain attempt to lead 
the multitude out into freedom. Slaves we are, 
slaves of the twentieth century god—business. 
The spectre which makes us all cowards is 
poverty. Poverty, there is but one kind of 
poverty after all and that is poverty of the soul. 
You remember Breton’s picture of the peasant 
girl standing, bareheaded, barefooted, sickle in 
hand, her head thrown back, her lips apart, her 
face aglow and her eyes gleamimr, watching the 
singing lark in the sky. A certain wealthv man 
once said, “1 would give all mv riches just to 
see and hear for ten minutes what that sirl sees 
and hears.” That peasant girl was rich and that 
rich man was poor. 
An hour of the day is none and I still lie 
dreaming and moralizing. One by one the birds 
have joined the chorus opened by the white 
throat till the very air seems pulsing, throbbing 
with sweet sounds. I am loath to get up. I 
lie bathed in bird music as it were until I seem 
to hear Robert Herrick sav: 
’“Get up, get up, for shame! The blooming morn 
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. 
See how Aurora throws her fair 
Fresh quilted colors through the air; 
Get up, slug-a-bed, and see 
The dew bespangling herb and tree!” 
So I get up and potter about the fire getting 
breakfast, pausing oft to gaze at the birds which 
everywhere flit about me. Not even the thought 
of the lusty bass out yonder in the lake can 
hurry me. I am resolved that cloying haste shall 
not mar these halcyon days. A black and white 
creeper, careless of the perpendicular, dashes 
headforemost down the bole of an ancient oak 
tree in a nerve-racking manner. The only thing 
it has in common with the other warblers is the 
habit of dashing here and there in quest of in¬ 
sects. Writers describe its song as “weak,” 
“feeble,” etc., but to me. its “Weachy, weachy, 
weachy, ’twee, ’twee, ’tweet’’ is highly satisfactory 
and fits in with the other sounds of the May 
morning. 
I drank my coffee leisurely, stopping oft to 
watch the squirrels or locate some feathered 
songster. The woods were running over with 
music and one must be phlegmatic indeed who 
would be unimpressed by the sweet sounds. I 
wandered down to the lake. Hepaticas, spring 
beauties, violets, white hearts, and even the re¬ 
tiring arbutus pressed to my path seeking recog¬ 
nition. 
Out on the lake I idled away the morning. 
Ostensibly I was fishing, but the taking of a 
bass now and then was only an incident; really 
I was dreaming a dreamy day away. Over head 
the sun smiled out of a blue sky. A hawk, so 
distant as to appear very small, swung in 
majestic circles, widening or narrowing as suited 
the whim of the bird. So I allowed him to 
rule me these May days. Whim, caprice and 
words of that ilk appeal to me. We are 
bound down by iron laws and rules until no 
man dare be true to himself. Slaves are we, 
slaves of custom. Why should I blush because 
men say I idle away time? There is such a 
thing as profitable idleness, a lesson which we of 
this generation need to learn. 
Tiring of fishing I pulled my boat out of the 
water and sauntered over the pine and oak clac 
hills. You know where we got that word saun¬ 
ter, do you not? “From idle people who rovec 
about the country, in the Middle Ages, anc 
asked charity under pretense of going a la SainU 
Terre-, to the Holy Land.” The thought is in 
expressibly sweet to me. As Thoreau has wel 
said, “They who never go to the Holy Land ii 
their walks, as they pretend, are indeed inert 
idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go then 
are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean.' 
I threw myself down beneath a tree whicl 
had been scarred and twisted by many a winter’: 
storm and lay upon the soft pine needles unti 
hunger bade me bestir myself, then returning tc 
the boat I took the two bass I had saved fron 
the spoils of the morning and returned over the 
hills to camp, leaving the boat where I beachec 
it, for who knows but that it will be just where 
T want it when the whim next seizes me to gt 
fishing? 
The bass were spitted and cooked while the 
day rushed on apace, but I was not hurried bj 
the lengthening shadows, and dallied over my mea 
until the sun sank to rest behind the trees; thei 
I regained my boat and rowed out into tin 
shadows which streak the water. The little wav< 
which formed at the bow of my boat appeared 
like liquid silver; divided it floated away in ever 
widening wavelets until lost in the darkness 
From a lake to the east came the disquietin' 
cry of a loon, awakening fiendish echoes for ; 
moment. With night the shores pressed in upor 
the little boat and the lake appeared mucl 
smaller. I stayed out until the belated moor 
rose above the drowsy trees, silencing for ; 
time even the loquacious frogs, then I retira 
to- the tent and dreamed of a more beautifu 
world than the one that keeps watch over me. 
O. W. Smith. 
High Scores in Bait-Casting. 
It is reported that at one of the recent cluli 
contests of the San Francisco Fly-casting Chit 
on Stow Lake, San Francisco-, J. B. Kenniff casj 
200 feet with the regulation half-ounce toutnaj 
ment weight, and T. C. Kierulff cast 175 feeti 
It is stated that the wind was favorable in th* 
bait-casting events, but unfavorable for fly-cast 
ing; therefore, H. C. Golcher “only scored in 
feet” with the fly. 
