ysician to
betake himself upon a long, a very long, vacation.

It was while we were in perplexed consideration as to where to go and
what to do, that the magazine article appeared--devoted to
houseboating. It was a most fetching production with a picture that
appealed to every overwrought nerve. There was a charming bit of water
with trees hanging over; a sky all soft and blue (you knew it was soft
and blue just as you knew that the air was soft and cool; just as you
knew that a drowsy peace and quiet was brooding over all); and there,
in the midst, idly floated a houseboat with a woman idly swinging in a
hammock and a man idly fishing from the back porch.

That article opened a new field for our consideration. Landlubbers of
the landlubbers though we were, its water-gypsy charm yet sank deep. We
thirsted for more. We haunted the libraries until we had exhausted the
literature of houseboating.

And what a dangerously attractive literature we found! How the cares
and responsibilities of life fell away when people went a-houseboating!
What peace unutterable fell upon the worn and weary soul as it drifted
lazily on, far from the noise and the toil and the reek of the world!
All times were calm; all waters kind. The days rolled on in
ever-changing scenes of beauty; the nights, star-gemmed and mystic,
were filled with music and the witchery of the sea.

It made good reading. It made altogether too good reading. We did not
see that then. We did not know that most of the literature of
houseboating is the work of people with plenty of imagination and no
houseboats.

We resolved to build a houseboat. There was excitement in the mere
decision; there was more when our friends came to hear of it. Their
marked disapproval made our new departure seem almost indecorous. It
was too late; the tide had us; and disapproval only gave zest to the
project.

As a first step, we proceeded to rechristen ourselves from a nautical
standpoint. The little mother was so hopelessly what the boatmen call a
fair-weather sailor that her weakness named her, and she became Lady
Fairweather. The daughter-wife, after immuring herself for half a day
with nautical dictionaries and chocolate creams, could not tell whether
she was Rudderina or Maratima; she finally concluded that she was
Nautica. It required neither time nor confectionery to enable these two
members of the family to rename the third. They viewed the strut of
plain Mr. So-and-So at the p