I refused to return to this temple of wisdom, and digging a hole into the haymow, secreted myself therein, pulling the hole in after me.  Here I would remain during school hours, watching through a crevice cut in the side of the barn, my father who made the air resound with threats of what he would do if I did not at once return to my education mill.  Here I was often joined by a congenial spirit, and we played cards which were regarded as the emissaries of Satan by my religious parents; then we would sally forth with masked faces and wooden guns, and inspired by dime novels, overthrow the walls of children’s playhouses, throw rocks against the schoolhouse, bully the small boys almost into fits, hook the neighbors’ eggs, corn, melons and apples, which we devoured at leisure in a hidden hut in the woods.

When the spirit moved, we would “swipe” a neighbor’s skiff and go floating and paddling beneath the overarching trees of Mill River, lazily watching the muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat; then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes for a mud-eel for its dinner.

Then we would imitate those animal murderers, by catching some fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites.  It was delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the flute-like melodies of the mockingbird of the north.

We would watch the delicate traceries of the water gardens through which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit confidence in the protection of their sharp spinacles, presenting to all enemies an impervious array of bayonets; the shark-like pickerel endeavoring to swallow every living thing; the lazy barvel, everlastingly sucking his sustenance from the animalculae around him; the turtles, snapping at everything in sight with impunity relying upon the impregnable defense of their coats-of-mail.

On one of these occasions we were aroused from our Arcadian dream by a frightful roar, and the destruction of all things seemed at hand.  A young cyclone had struck the fire over which we had cooked our fish, fanning it into a furious conflagration.  We climbed a tall oak, and soon, as far as the eye could reach, all the hills and woodlands seemed wrapped in flames.  Frantic farmers were seen flagellating the excited oxen and horses, who, with tails in air, were dragging the ploughs, making furrows around the houses and barns, which were nearly all located in pastures rendered dry as tinder by that extraordinary summer’s heat.