river stood upon a great
rock, and this rock (which was known as the swimming-rock, whence the
boys on summer evenings dove into the deep pool by its side) was a
favorite spot with John when he could get an hour or two from the
everlasting "chores." Making his way out to it over the rocks at low
water with his fish-pole, there he was content to sit and observe the
world; and there he saw a great deal of life. He always expected to
catch the legendary trout which weighed two pounds and was believed to
inhabit that pool. He always did catch horned dace and shiners, which he
despised, and sometimes he snared a monstrous sucker a foot and a half
long. But in the summer the sucker is a flabby fish, and John was not
thanked for bringing him home. He liked, however, to lie with his
face close to the water and watch the long fishes panting in the clear
depths, and occasionally he would drop a pebble near one to see how
gracefully he would scud away with one wave of the tail into deeper
water. Nothing fears the little brown boy. The yellow-bird slants his
wings, almost touches the deep water before him, and then escapes away
under the bridge to the east with a glint of sunshine on his back; the
fish-hawk comes down with a swoop, dips one wing, and, his prey having
darted under a stone, is away again over the still hill, high soaring on
even-poised pinions, keeping an eye perhaps upon the great eagle which
is sweeping the sky in widening circles.

But there is other life. A wagon rumbles over the bridge, and the farmer
and his wife, jogging along, do not know that they have startled a lazy
boy into a momentary fancy that a thunder-shower is coming up. John
can see as he lies there on a still summer day, with the fishes and
the birds for company, the road that comes down the left bank of the
river,--a hot, sandy, well-traveled road, hidden from view here and
there by trees and bushes. The chief point of interest, however, is an
enormous sycamore-tree by the roadside and in front of John's house. The
house is more than a century old, and its timbers were hewed and squared
by Captain Moses Rice (who lies in his grave on the hillside above it),
in the presence of the Red Man who killed him with arrow and tomahawk
some time after his house was set in order. The gigantic tree, struck
with a sort of leprosy, like all its species, appears much older, and of
course has its tradition. They say that it grew from a green stake which
the fir