Our day, however, was not quite ended. We must return to camp. The thicket had been hard to conquer by daylight. Now it was an impenetrable wall of night and thorns. Across the brook looked more open and we decided to go over, but when we got there it proved a trackless, swampy place, dark and full of pitfalls and vines. Eddie, being small and woods-broken could work his way through pretty well, but after a few discouragements I decided to wade down the brook and through the shallow pond above the dam. At least it could not be so deadly dark there.
It was heart-breaking business. I went slopping and plunging among stumps and stones and holes. I mistook logs for shadows and shadows for logs with pathetic results. The pond that had seemed small and shallow by daylight was big enough and deep enough now. A good deal of the way I went on my hands and knees, but not from choice. A nearby owl hooted at me. Bats darted back and forth close to my face. If I had not been a moral coward I should have called for help. Eddie had already reached camp when I arrived and had so far recovered his spiritual status that he jeered at my condition. I resolved then not to mention the sluice and the landing net at all—ever. I needed an immediate change of garments, of course—the third since morning.[5] It had been a hard, eventful day. Such days make camping remembered—and worth while.
Chapter Twenty-one
Oh, it's well to live high as you can, my boy,
Wherever you happen to roam,
But it's better to have enough bacon and beans
To take the poor wanderers home.
Chapter Twenty-one
By this time we had reached trout diet per se. I don't know what per se means, but I have often seen it used and it seems to fit this case. Of course we were not entirely out of other things. We had flour for flapjacks, some cornmeal for mush and Johnnie-cake, and enough bacon to impart flavor to the fish. Also, we were not wholly without beans—long may they wave—the woods without them would be a wilderness indeed. But in the matter of meat diet it was trout per se, as I have said, unless that means we did not always have them; in which case I will discard those words. We did. We had fried trout, broiled trout, boiled trout, baked trout, trout on a stick and trout chowder. We may have had them other ways—I don't remember. I know I began to imagine that I was sprouting fins and gills, and daily I felt for the new bumps on my head which I was certain must result from this continuous absorption of brain food. There were several new bumps, but when I called Eddie's attention to them, he said they were merely the result of butting my head so frequently against logs and stumps and other portions of the scenery. Then he treated them with liniment and new skin.
Speaking of food, I believe I have not mentioned the beefsteak which we brought with us into the woods. It was Eddie's idea, and he was its self-appointed guardian and protector. That was proper, only I think he protected it too long. It was a nice sirloin when we started—thick and juicy and of a deep rich tone. Eddie said a little age would improve it, and I suppose he was right—he most always is. He said we would appreciate it more, too, a little later, which seemed a sound doctrine.