“Mithter Kibby told me to go to Halifax, and—­I’m going!”

Next, the man who was anxious to go into partnership with me.  He would work my farm at halves, or I could buy his farm, cranberry bog, and woodland, and he would live right on there and run that place at halves; urged me to buy twelve or fourteen cows cheap in the fall and start a milk route, he to be the active partner; then he had a chance to buy a lot of “essences” cheap, and if I’d purchase a peddling-wagon, he’d put in his old horse, and we’d go halves on that business, or I could buy up a lot of calves or young pigs and he’d feed ’em and we’d go halves.

But I will not take you through my entire picture-gallery, as I have two good stories to tell you before saying good-by.

Depressing remarks have reached me about my “lakelet,” which at first was ridiculed by every one.  The struggle of evolution from the “spring hole” was severe and protracted.  Experts were summoned, their estimates of cost ranging from four hundred to one thousand dollars, and no one thought it worth while to touch it.  It was discouraging.  Venerable and enormous turtles hid in its muddy depths and snapped at the legs of the ducks as they dived, adding a limp to the waddle; frogs croaked there dismally; mosquitoes made it a camping ground and head center; big black water snakes often came to drink and lingered by the edge; the ugly horn pout was the only fish that could live there.  Depressing, in contrast with my rosy dreams!  But now the little lake is a charming reality, and the boat is built and launched.  Turtles, pout, lily roots as big as small trees, and two hundred loads of “alluvial deposit” are no longer “in it,” while carp are promised me by my friend Commissioner Blackford.  The “Tomtoolan"[2] is not a large body of water—­one hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide—­but it is a delight to me and has been grossly traduced by ignorant or envious outsiders.  The day after the “Katy-Did” was christened (a flat-bottomed boat, painted prettily with blue and gold) I invited a lady to try it with me.  Flags were fluttering from stem and stern.  We took a gayly colored horn to toot as we went, and two dippers to bail, if necessary.  It was not exactly “Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm,” but we were very jolly and not a little proud.

[Footnote 2:  Named in honor of the amateur engineers.]

A neglected knot-hole soon caused the boat to leak badly.  We had made but one circuit, when we were obliged to “hug the shore” and devote our entire energies to bailing.  “Tip her a little more,” I cried, and the next instant we were both rolled into the water.  It was an absurd experience, and after scrambling out, our clothes so heavy we could scarcely step, we vowed, between hysteric fits of laughter, to keep our tip-over a profound secret.

But the next time I went to town, friends began to smile mysteriously, asked me if I had been out on the lake yet, made sly and jocose allusions to a sudden change to Baptistic faith, and if I cordially invited them to join me in a row, would declare a preference for surf and salt water, or, if pressed, would murmur in the meanest way something about having a bath-tub at home.