e--La-u-na--The
trembling fawn--The fishing sport--The ducking frolic--Sneak and the
panther.

It was now the first week in May. Every vestige of winter had long
since disappeared, and the verdure of a rich soil and mild temperature
was fast enrobing the earth with the freshest and most pleasing of
colours. Instead of the dreary expanse of ice that had covered the
river, its waters now murmured musically by in the early morn--its
curling eddies running along the sedgy shore, while the rising sun
slowly dissipated the floating mists; and the inspiring notes of all
the wild variety of birds, contributed to invest the scene with such
charms as the God of nature only can impart, and which may only be
fully enjoyed and justly appreciated by guileless and unsophisticated
mortals.

Glenn rambled forth, and, partaking the harmony that pervaded the
earth, air, and waters, his breast swelled with a blissful exultation
that can never be known amid the grating voices of contending men, or
experienced in crowded cities, where many confused sounds vibrate
harshly and distracting on the ear. He stood in his little garden
among the flowers that Mary had planted, and watched the humming-birds
poised among the trembling leaves, their tiny wings still unruffled by
the dew, while their slender beaks inhaled the sweet moisture of the
variegated blossoms. Long he regarded the enchanting scene,
unconscious of the flight of time, and alike regardless of the past
and the future in his all-absorbing admiration of the present, wherein
he deemed he was not far remote from that Presence to which time and
eternity are obedient--when his phantasm was abruptly and
unceremoniously put to flight by his man Joe, who rushed out of the
house with a long rod in his hand; yawning and rubbing his eyes, as if
he had been startled from his morning slumber but a moment before.

"What's the matter?" demanded Glenn.

"It was a wapper!" said Joe.

"What was?"

"The fish."

"Where?" asked Glenn.

"I'll tell you. I dreamt I was sitting on a rock, down at the ferry,
with this rod in my hand, fishing for perch, when a thundering big
catfish, as long as I am, took hold. I dreamt he pulled and I
pulled--sometimes he had me in the water up to my knees, and sometimes
I got him out on dry land. But he always flounced and kicked back
again. Yet he couldn't escape, because the hook was still in his
mouth, and when he jumped into the river I jumped to the rod, an