r close by, and the boys made cups of broad
oak or hickory leaves, and felt that water, sweetened with such a
wildwood charm as that, would be a good enough substitute for coffee.
While Joe was slicing bacon for breakfast, Tom and Huck asked him to
hold on a minute; they stepped to a promising nook in the river-bank
and threw in their lines; almost immediately they had reward. Joe had
not had time to get impatient before they were back again with some
handsome bass, a couple of sun-perch and a small catfish--provisions
enough for quite a family. They fried the fish with the bacon, and were
astonished; for no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did
not know that the quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is
caught the better he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce
open-air sleeping, open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient
of hunger make, too.

They lay around in the shade, after breakfast, while Huck had a smoke,
and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition. They
tramped gayly along, over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush,
among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the
ground with a drooping regalia of grape-vines. Now and then they came
upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled with flowers.

They found plenty of things to be delighted with, but nothing to be
astonished at. They discovered that the island was about three miles
long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to
was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards
wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the
middle of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too
hungry to stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and
then threw themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon
began to drag, and then died. The stillness, the solemnity that brooded
in the woods, and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the
spirits of the boys. They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing
crept upon them. This took dim shape, presently--it was budding
homesickness. Even Finn the Red-Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps
and empty hogsheads. But they were all ashamed of their weakness, and
none was brave enough to speak his thought.

For some time, now, the boys had been dully conscious of a peculiar
sound in the distance, just as one sometimes is of the ticking of a
clock w