We crossed over towards a deep bay on the west shore, to where a stream comes cascading3 down the rocks, and leaping into the lake, as if rejoicing at finding a resting-place in its quiet bosom4. The spot where this stream enters, is in the deep shadow of the old forest trees that reach their leafy arms far out from the ledges5 on which they grow, forming an arch above, and shutting out the sunlight. Here the trout6 congregate7, to enjoy the cool water that comes down from the hills above. We approached it carefully, and Smith, by way of experiment, cast his fly across the current where the stream enters the lake. It was seized by a beautiful fish weighing, perhaps, two pounds. We did not need him, for the place where we proposed to pitch our tents for the night would afford us all the fish required, and after lifting him into the boat with the landing-net and releasing the hook from his jaw8, we returned him to the lake again.
Two miles from the head of the lake, on the east side, is a deep bay at the head of which enters a little brook that comes creeping along for a mile among the tangled9 roots of ancient hemlocks10 and spruce, singing gaily11 among the loose stones, sometimes disappearing entirely12 beneath bridges of moss14, and sometimes sparkling in the sunlight, on its way to the lake. This little stream we found swarming15 with speckled trout of the size of minnows, and at its mouth the large trout congregated16. As we rounded one of the points that shut out the view of this bay from the lake, we saw two deer feeding quietly upon the lily pads along the shore, some quarter of a mile from us. We dropped quietly back behind the point, where Smith and one of the boatmen prepared to take a shot at them. Martin took his seat in the stern with his paddle, and Smith lay stretched at length along the bottom of the boat upon boughs17 prepared for the occasion, with his rifle resting upon the forward end of the boat. It was broad daylight, and to paddle up within shooting distance of a deer under such circumstances, in plain view of an animal the most wary18, is a delicate job, but it may be done. I have more than once been thus paddled within thirty yards of a deer while feeding in the water. The wind must be blowing from the deer to the hunter, or the scent19 will alarm the animal, and he will go snorting and bounding away.
Smith and Martin passed silently out into the bay, and moved slowly towards where the deer were feeding. The boat in which we sat was permitted to float out to a position from which we could see the sportsmen as they approached the game. Slowly but steadily21 they moved, the paddle remaining in the water, sculling the little craft along as if it were a log drifting in the water. The deer occasionally raised their heads, looking all around, evidently regarding the boat as a harmless thing floating in from the lake. After gazing thus about them they stooped their heads again, and went on feeding, as if no danger were near them. The hunters drifted within seventy or eighty yards of the game, when a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow of the boat, and the report of Smith's rifle rang out sharp and clear over the lake. We saw where the ball struck the water just beyond the deer, passing directly under its belly22, possibly high enough to graze its body. At the flash and report of the rifle, the animal leaped high into the air, bounded in affright this way and that for a moment, and then straightened itself for the woods. We heard his snort as he went crashing up the hillside.
Reader, should you ever drift out to this beautiful lake, you will find on the ridge13 just above where Bog23 River comes tumbling, and roaring, and foaming24 over the rocks into the lake, the charred25 remains26 of a campfire, built against a great log that was once the trunk of a tall forest tree. If you should visit it within a year or two, you will perhaps notice some forked stakes standing27 a few feet from the place of the fire, and a bed of withered28 and dry boughs (now fresh and green). Well, our tents were stretched over those stakes, those boughs were our bed, and those charred chunks29 are the remains of our campfire, that sent a sepulchral30 light among the forest trees around.
The sounds that come upon the ear during the night in a far off place like this, are peculiar31. The old owl20 hoots32 mournfully, the frogs bellow33 hoarsely34 along the reedy shore, while the tree toads35 are quavering from among the branches of the scrubby trees that grow along the rocky banks; the whippoorwill pipes shrilly36 in the forest depths; the breeze murmurs37 among the foliage38 of the tall old pines, while the everlasting39 roar of the waters, as they go tumbling down the rocks, is always heard. However diversified40 these sounds may be, they all invite to repose41. They fall soothingly42 upon the ear, and though all are distinctly heard, yet strange as it may seem, there is a strong impression upon the mind of the deep silence pervading43 the forest. This impression is doubtless occasioned by the utter dissimilarity between the voices one hears in the day, from those which fall upon the ear in the night time. The former are all joyous44 and happy, full of gladness and merriment, full of life and animation45; the latter solemn, deep, profound, lulling46 to the senses; not sorrowful nor sad, yet still such as form a calm and quiet lullaby, under the influence of which one glides47 away into slumber48, and sleeps quietly until dawn. Then the voice of gladness breaks so tumultuously on the ear, that he must be a sluggard49 indeed who can resist their wakening influences. How beautifully the sun went down behind the hills, lighting50 up the western sky, and the fleecy clouds floating in the heavens with a blaze of glory, throwing a mantle51 of silver over the tall ranges and mountain peaks that loomed52 up in solemn grandeur53 away in the east; and how stilly, silently the stars came out from the depths above, and how brightly and truthfully they were given back from away down in depths beneath the placid55 waters. We had taken half a dozen beautiful trout from the foot of the falls where the current shoots out into the lake. We had eaten them too, and were sitting in front of our tents smoking our evening pipes.
"Spalding," said the Doctor, "How I wish our little boys were out here with us. How they would enjoy themselves among these lakes and rivers. It is a hard lot that the children of our cities have in life. They struggle up to man and womanhood against fearful odds56, and the wonder is, that they do not perish in their infancy57; that they are not blasted, as the blossoms are, when the cold east wind sweeps over the earth."
"You are right, my friend," replied Spalding. "I should like to have our little boys, and girls too, for that matter, with us for a few days out here on these lakes. It would be a lifetime to them, measuring time by the enjoyment58 it would afford them. Still their city habits might make them tire of this freedom in a week. You and I enjoy it longer, because it brings back old memories and relieves us from the toils59 of business and the restraints of conventional life. You are right too in saying that the lot of our city children is a hard one. To live imprisoned60 between long rows of brick walls, breathing an atmosphere charged with the exhalations of ten thousand cooking stoves, the dust of forges and the smoke of furnaces, machine shops, gas works, filthy61 streets, and the thousand other manufactories of villainous smells; where the summer air has no freshness, no forest odors, or sweetness gathered from fields of grain, the meadows, or the pastures. To tramp only on stone sidewalks. To know nothing of the pleasant paths beneath the spreading branches of old primeval trees; no soft grass for their little feet to press; never to wander along the streams or the little brooks62; to be strangers always to the beautiful things spread out everywhere in the country in the summer time. I always feel sad when I see the pale faces of the little children of the great cities, and marvel63 how so many of them grow up to be men and women. It is a hard lot to be cooped up in the city, vegitating, as it were, in the shade, where there is no grass for their little feet to press, no fences to climb, or fields to ramble64 over, or brooks to wade65, or running water on which to float chips, and wherein to watch the little chubs and shiners dancing and playing about, or fresh pure air to breathe, or birds to listen to. It is a thousand pities that the cities could not be emptied every summer of their little people into the free and open country, where they could run about, and sport and play, and have free range and plenty of elbow-room. It would make them so much healthier and happier, so much more cheerful; their voices of gladness would ring out so much more joyously66 in the morning, and their songs be so much more sweet at night."
I remember an anecdote67 told me of a little child, born in the great metropolis68, who had never, until her fifth summer, been outside of the paved streets of New York. Her mother had friends residing in one of the up-river towns, owning a beautiful farm overlooking the Hudson, and in early May she paid them a visit, taking her little daughter with her. Mary, of course, was delighted. Like a bird freed from its cage, she flew about here, there, everywhere, in-doors and out, among the chickens and the pigs, the turkeys and the lambs, enjoying to the full the thousand new things that her eyes rested upon all around her, and her young spirits in wild commotion69 under the bracing70 influences of the country air. "Mother! mother!" she exclaimed, as she came dashing into the parlor71, her beautiful curls floating wildly over her shoulders, and her bright eyes wide open with wonder; "Mother I mother! come out here, quick! and see this funny tree, all covered over with snow-flakes, and how sweet it smells all around it." It was a plum tree in full blossom. That little child had never seen the beautiful spring blossoms on the fruit trees.
"I have no children of my own," remarked Smith, "and, therefore, may not be regarded as the best authority in regard to the manner of treating, or rearing children; but I have often wondered at the very great mistakes people sometimes make in regard to them. There are parents who mean no wrong, and yet who make no scruple72 of deceiving them in reply to their simple questionings, forgetting, or regardless of the fact, that a false answer to their innocent inquiries73 put in good faith, and in the earnest pursuit of truth, may plant an error in their minds, which may take years of experience, and often a painful amount of ridicule74 to eradicate75. I knew a little boy years ago, a thoughtful, philosophic76 child, who speculated in his simplicity77 upon what he saw, as great philosophers do, in their wisdom, upon the various phenomena78 of Nature. His father, had a great barn, above which, as was the fashion long ago, perched upon a staff, a few feet above the ridgepole, was a weather-cock, fashioned out of a piece of board in the shape of a rooster. 'Father,' said the little boy, one day, 'what makes that rooster always point his head one way when the cold wind blows, and the other way when it is warm and pleasant?' 'He always looks towards the place where the wind comes from,' replied the father; 'when he gets too warm, and the sun is too hot for him, he turns his tail to the south, and the north wind is sure to come down, cold and chill, to cool him off.' 'Does he call the cold wind, father, and will it come when he looks, that way?' was the next inquiry80. 'Certainly,' replied his father, carelessly. That was a wrong and a foolish answer.
"That little boy, relying in his simple faith upon the wisdom and truthfulness81 of his father, believed for a long time, that the weathercock on the top of the barn, could bring the cold north, or the warm south wind, by turning upon its perch79. He was cured of his error only by being laughed at for his simplicity. Parents should never deceive their children by a careless or a wrong answer to the simple questions put to them by these little searchers after knowledge."
"I remember," said the doctor, "and it is one of the earliest incidents which my recollection has treasured, that I was out one evening in autumn, with a boy older than myself, gathering82 hazel nuts. The sun had sunk behind the hills, and the shadows of twilight83 were gathering in the valley. It was a beautiful and calm evening, the solemn stillness of which, was only broken by the 'tza! tza!' of thousands of katydids among the bushes. I asked my companion what it was that made the noise I heard, and he, supposing that I referred to sounds that came up occasionally from the lake, after listening for a moment, answered that it was made by the wild geese. In my simplicity I believed it, and it was not until I caught, the next season, a katydid while it was in the act of singing, that I discovered that the music among the hazel bushes was not made by the wild geese."
"I never respect a man or woman," said Spalding, "whose heart does not warm towards little children, who takes no pleasure nor interest in their society, who has no patience to listen to their simple thoughts expressed in their simple way. 'Mother,' said a little child of four or five years of age, one evening when the summer air was warm, and the skies were bright above, as she sat beside her mother, on a bench beneath the spreading branches of the tall old elms in front of the house; 'mother, what makes the stars come out, only after the dark has come down, and why don't the moon go up into the sky like the sun in the day time?' I listened anxiously for the reply. I knew the kind heart of that mother, how truthful54 it was, and how earnest and pure in its affection for its gentle and only darling. 'Sit here upon my lap, Mary,' said the mother, 'and I will try and explain it all so that you will understand it.' And she told the little child how God made the sun to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to rule the night; how that the stars were always in the sky, but how the superior brightness of the sun put them out in the day time; how the stars, that twinkled like little rush-lights in the heavens, were great worlds, a thousand times larger than this earth, made and placed away up in the sky, by the same great and good God who made the world we live in. Little Mary was silent and attentive84 to the simple lecture, until it was finished, and then asked, so simply and confidingly85, that I could not help smiling to think that the mind of childhood should be running upon a subject, and seeking a solution of the same question which has puzzled the profoundest philosophers through all time: 'Mother,' said the little one, 'are there people in the moon and in the stars, them great worlds that look to us so like candles in the sky?' 'That question, my child,' said the mother, 'I cannot answer.' 'I believe,' said the child, that there are people in the moon, and in all the stars.' 'Why?' asked her mother. 'Because I don't believe God would make such big and beautiful worlds without making people to live in them.' What more has the profoundest philosopher who ever lived said, to prove that those mighty86 worlds which are seen in the heavens at night, that are scattered87 all through the universe of God, rolling forever on their everlasting rounds, are peopled by living, moving, sentient88 beings?"
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1
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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cascading
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| 流注( cascade的现在分词 )； 大量落下； 大量垂悬； 梯流 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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ledges
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| n.（墙壁，悬崖等）突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 )；（平窄的）壁架；横档；（尤指）窗台 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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congregate
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| v.(使)集合，聚集 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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9
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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hemlocks
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| 由毒芹提取的毒药( hemlock的名词复数 ) | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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congregated
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| （使）集合，聚集( congregate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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chunks
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| 厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分 | |
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sepulchral
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| adj.坟墓的，阴深的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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hoots
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| 咄，啐 | |
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bellow
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| v.吼叫，怒吼；大声发出，大声喝道 | |
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hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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toads
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| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆( toad的名词复数 ) | |
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shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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diversified
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| adj.多样化的，多种经营的v.使多样化，多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 )；进入新的商业领域 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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43
pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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46
lulling
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的现在分词形式） | |
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47
glides
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| n.滑行( glide的名词复数 )；滑音；音渡；过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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48
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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49
sluggard
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| n.懒人；adj.懒惰的 | |
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50
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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51
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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52
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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53
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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54
truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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toils
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| 网 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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64
ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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73
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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75
eradicate
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| v.根除，消灭，杜绝 | |
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76
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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77
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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78
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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79
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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80
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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81
truthfulness
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| n. 符合实际 | |
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82
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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83
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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84
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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85
confidingly
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| adv.信任地 | |
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86
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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87
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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