ms with mallet and marline, and if you turn ten
bandsmen of the Mariposa band on to your hand pump on the bow of the
lower decks--float? why, what else can she do?

Then, if you stuff in hemlock into the embers of the fire that you were
raking out, till it hums and crackles under the boiler, it won't be
long before you hear the propeller thud thudding at the stern again, and
before the long roar of the steam whistle echoes over to the town.

And so the Mariposa Belle, with all steam up again and with the long
train of sparks careering from the funnel, is heading for the town.

But no Christie Johnson at the wheel in the pilot house this time.

"Smith! Get Smith!" is the cry.

Can he take her in? Well, now! Ask a man who has had steamers sink on
him in half the lakes from Temiscaming to the Bay, if he can take her
in? Ask a man who has run a York boat down the rapids of the Moose when
the ice is moving, if he can grip the steering wheel of the Mariposa
Belle? So there she steams safe and sound to the town wharf!

Look at the lights and the crowd! If only the federal census taker could
count us now! Hear them calling and shouting back and forward from the
deck to the shore! Listen! There is the rattle of the shore ropes as
they get them ready, and there's the Mariposa band,--actually forming
in a circle on the upper deck just as she docks, and the leader with his
baton,--one--two--ready now,--

"O CAN-A-DA!"

FOUR. The Ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Drone

The Church of England in Mariposa is on a side street, where the maple
trees are thickest, a little up the hill from the heart of the town. The
trees above the church and the grass plot that was once the cemetery,
till they made the new one (the Necropolis, over the brow of the hill),
fill out the whole corner. Down behind the church, with only the driving
shed and a lane between, is the rectory. It is a little brick house with
odd angles. There is a hedge and a little gate, and a weeping ash tree
with red berries.

At the side of the rectory, churchward, is a little grass lawn with low
hedges and at the side of that two wild plum trees, that are practically
always in white blossom. Underneath them is a rustic table and chairs,
and it is here that you may see Rural Dean Drone, the incumbent of the
Church of England Church, sitting, in the chequered light of the plum
tress that is neither sun nor shadow. Generally you will find him
reading, and when I tel