ever lazy along a river-bank in May, and just live, and fish,
and smoke, and do nothing else? If you have not, you have missed a very
great pleasure. If you fail to catch many fish, it doesn't matter much.
There is a certain spell in the air which defies _ennui_, and a kind of
tonic steals into your blood which makes it tingle through your veins,
much as the rising sap in the young trees, I imagine. You rise in the
morning and bathe your eyes open in a near-by spring, whose crystal cool
water is like the touch of a healing hand. Then comes breakfast of
bacon, coffee, and good, light bread. Then your pipe comes as naturally
as a deep breath of the forest-scented air, and you take your rod and
minnows and wander up the bank through the weeds and the dewy grass.
Under the shadow of that old, half-sunken log is where the bass stay.
The water is deep and clear, and your hook sinks with a low gurgle, like
an infant's laughter. What matters it whether a bite comes at once, or
not? You sit in a hollow formed by a curving tree-root, rest your back
against the tree-trunk, and are very contented. The other side of the
stream is lined with endless stretches of trees,--sycamore, elm, dogwood
with their starry eyes peering in innate vanity over the bank into the
mirror beneath them, and underbrush of all descriptions. Where the tide
has once been, and receded, is a stretch of yellow clay, now glistening
from the dews of night. After a while the sun strikes this, and the wet
surface glows like gold. Then your wandering eye--for you have forgotten
your cork--observes a bubble as it rises and bursts midway across the
stream, and you idly watch the widening circle which radiates from it.
Then in the centre of the circle the tiniest dark spot appears, which
gradually assumes the shape of a black, shining head. It remains
stationary for a while, then slowly moves to the opposite bank. A
disc-like shell is lifted, two broad feet dig their claws into the mud,
and Mr. Turtle drags himself up high and dry for a sunning.

The delightful silence is suddenly broken by the harshest of
chattering, and a crested kingfisher descends like a shot from some
dead limb high up in the very tree under which you are sitting, and,
skimming low over the surface of the water, finally disappears without
his prey. Then the pole is almost jerked from your careless hands, and,
if you have luck, a fine bass is floundering at your feet in a few
moments. Then another s