Fishermans Luck | Page 7

befall people in real life.
What do these tame ducks really know of the adventure of living? If the
weather is bad, they are snugly housed. If it is cold, there is a furnace in
the cellar. If they are hungry, the shops are near at hand. It is all as dull,
flat, stale, and unprofitable as adding up a column of figures. They

might as well be brought up in an incubator.
But when man abides in tents, after the manner of the early patriarchs,
the face of the world is renewed. The vagaries of the clouds become
significant. You watch the sky with a lover's look, eager to know
whether it will smile or frown. When you lie at night upon your bed of
boughs and hear the rain pattering on the canvas close above your head,
you wonder whether it is a long storm or only a shower.
The rising wind shakes the tent-flaps. Are the pegs well driven down
and the cords firmly fastened? You fall asleep again and wake later, to
hear the rain drumming still more loudly on the tight cloth, and the big
breeze snoring through the forest, and the waves plunging along the
beach. A stormy day? Well, you must cut plenty of wood and keep the
camp-fire glowing, for it will be hard to start it up again, if you let it get
too low. There is little use in fishing or hunting in such a storm. But
there is plenty to do in the camp: guns to be cleaned, tackle to be put in
order, clothes to be mended, a good story of adventure to be read, a
belated letter to be written to some poor wretch in a summer hotel, a
game of hearts or cribbage to be played, or a hunting-trip to be planned
for the return of fair weather. The tent is perfectly dry. A little trench
dug around it carries off the surplus water, and luckily it is pitched with
the side to the lake, so that you get the pleasant heat of the fire without
the unendurable smoke. Cooking in the rain has its disadvantages. But
how good the supper tastes when it is served up on a tin plate, with an
empty box for a table and a roll of blankets at the foot of the bed for a
seat!
A day, two days, three days, the storm may continue, according to your
luck. I have been out in the woods for a fortnight without a drop of rain
or a sign of dust. Again, I have tented on the shore of a big lake for a
week, waiting for an obstinate tempest to pass by.
Look now, just at nightfall: is there not a little lifting and breaking of
the clouds in the west, a little shifting of the wind toward a better
quarter? You go to bed with cheerful hopes. A dozen times in the
darkness you are half awake, and listening drowsily to the sounds of
the storm. Are they waxing or waning? Is that louder pattering a new
burst of rain, or is it only the plumping of the big drops as they are
shaken from the trees? See, the dawn has come, and the gray light
glimmers through the canvas. In a little while you will know your fate.

Look! There is a patch of bright yellow radiance on the peak of the tent.
The shadow of a leaf dances over it. The sun must be shining. Good
luck! and up with you, for it is a glorious morning.
The woods are glistening as fresh and fair as if they had been new-
created overnight. The water sparkles, and tiny waves are dancing and
splashing all along the shore. Scarlet berries of the mountain- ash hang
around the lake. A pair of kingfishers dart back and forth across the bay,
in flashes of living blue. A black eagle swings silently around his circle,
far up in the cloudless sky. The air is full of pleasant sounds, but there
is no noise. The world is full of joyful life, but there is no crowd and no
confusion. There is no factory chimney to darken the day with its
smoke, no trolley-car to split the silence with its shriek and smite the
indignant ear with the clanging of its impudent bell. No lumberman's
axe has robbed the encircling forests of their glory of great trees. No
fires have swept over the hills and left behind them the desolation of a
bristly landscape. All is fresh and sweet, calm and clear and bright.
'Twas rather a rude jest of Nature, that tempest of yesterday. But if you
have taken it in good part, you are all the more ready for her caressing
mood to-day.