CHAPTER
EIGHTH
A WINTER-NIGHT’S
OUTING
Not long since I was asked—and not for the first time—if I could date the beginning of my taste for natural history pursuits or give any incident that appeared to mark a turning-point in my career.
It did not seem possible to do this, on first consideration; but a recent living over of days gone by recalled an incident which happened before I was eleven years old, and, as it was almost my first regular outing that smacked of adventure, it is probable that it impressed me more forcibly than any earlier or, indeed, later events.
Heavy and long-continued rains had resulted in a freshet, and then three bitter cold days had converted a wide reach of meadows into a frozen lake. Happier conditions could not have occurred in the small boy’s estimation, and, with boundless anticipation, we went skating.
After smooth ice, the foremost requirement is abundant room, and this we had. There was more than a square mile for each of us. The day had been perfect and the approaching night was such as Lowell so aptly describes, “all silence and all glisten.”
As the sun was setting we started a roaring fire in a sheltered nook, and securely fastening our skates without getting at all chilled, started off. Then the fun commenced. We often wandered more than a mile away, and it was not until the fire was reduced to a bed of glowing coals that we returned to our starting-point.