hen the first
arbutus is just beside that, and I'll join you there."

"Well"--I assent grudgingly--"only, really, I'd be just as happy if you'd
fish the whole thing and let me go right on down--"

"No, you wouldn't. Now, remember to sneak before you get to that rock.
Drop in six feet above it and let the current do the rest. They're awfully
shy. I expect you to get at least one there, and two down at the bend." He
trudges off to his brush-fishing and leaves me bound in honor to extract a
trout from under that rock. I deposit my boxes in the meadow above it, and
"sneak" down. The sneak of a trout fisherman is like no other form of
locomotion, and I am convinced that the human frame was not evolved with
it in mind. But I resort to it in deference to Jonathan's prejudices--in
deference, also, to the fact that when I do not the trout seldom bite. And
Jonathan is so trustfully counting on my getting that trout!

I did get him. I dropped in my line, as per directions, and let the
current do the rest; had the thrill of feeling the line suddenly caught
and drawn under the rock, held, then wiggled slightly; I struck, felt the
weight, drew back steadily, and in a few moments there was a flopping in
the grass behind me.

So that was off my mind.

I strung him on a twig of wild cherry, gathered up my boxes, and wandered
along the faint path, back of the patch of brush where, I knew, Jonathan
was cheerfully threading his line through tangles of twig, briar, and
vine, compared with which the needle's eye is as a yawning barn door.
Jonathan's attitude toward brush-fishing is something which I respect
without understanding. Down one long field I went, where the brook ran in
shallow gayety, and there, ahead, was the bend, a sudden curve of water,
deepening under the roots of an overhanging hemlock. I climbed the stone
wall beside, glanced at the water--very trouty water indeed--glanced at the
hill-pasture above--very arbutusy indeed--laid down my rod and my trout and
my box, and ran up the low bank to a clump of bay and berry-bushes that I
thought I remembered.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Yes! There it was! I had remembered! Ah! The dear
things!

When you first find arbutus, there is only one thing to do:--lie right down
beside it. Its fragrance as it grows is different from what it is after it
is picked, because with the sweetness of the blossoms is mingled the good
smell of the earth and of the woody twigs and of the dried grass and