skylark if a catbird were about after breakfast?

I have bought me a boat. A boat is a good thing to have in the country,
especially if there be any water near. There is a fine beach in front of
my house. When visitors come I usually propose to give them a row. I go
down--and find the boat full of water; then I send to the house for a
dipper and prepare to bail; and, what with bailing and swabbing her
with a mop and plugging up the cracks in her sides, and struggling to
get the rudder in its place, and unlocking the rusty padlock, my
strength is so much exhausted that it is almost impossible for me to
handle the oars. Meanwhile the poor guests sit on stones around the
beach with woe-begone faces.

"My dear," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "why don't you sell that boat?"

"Sell it? Ha! ha!"

One day a Quaker lady from Philadelphia paid us a visit. She was
uncommonly dignified, and walked down to the water in the most stately
manner, as is customary with Friends. It was just twilight, deepening
into darkness, when I set about preparing the boat. Meanwhile our Friend
seated herself upon _something_ on the beach. While I was engaged in
bailing, the wind shifted, and I became sensible of an unpleasant odor;
afraid that our Friend would perceive it, too, I whispered Mrs.
Sparrowgrass to coax her off and get her farther up the beach.

"Thank thee, no, Susan; I feel a smell hereabout and I am better where I
am."

Mrs. S. came back and whispered mysteriously that our Friend was sitting
on a dead dog, at which I redoubled the bailing and got her out in deep
water as soon as possible.

Dogs have a remarkable scent. A dead setter one morning found his way to
our beach, and I towed him out in the middle of the river; but the
faithful creature came back in less than an hour--that dog's smell was
remarkable indeed.

I have bought me a fyke! A fyke is a good thing to have in the country.
A fyke is a fishnet, with long wings on each side; in shape like a
nightcap with ear lappets; in mechanism like a rat-trap. You put a stake
at the tip end of the nightcap, a stake at each end of the outspread
lappets; there are large hoops to keep the nightcap distended, sinkers
to keep the lower sides of the lappets under water, and floats as large
as muskmelons to keep the upper sides above the water. The stupid fish
come downstream, and, rubbing their noses against the wings, follow the
curve toward the fyke and swim into the trap. When they get