The mountains were too big, as yet, for Little Sunshine. Her baby eyes did not take them in. She saw them, of course, but she was evidently much more interested in the nuts overhead, and the fishes under water. And when the boat reached “The Bower,” she thought it more amusing still.
“The Bower,” so called, was a curious place, where the canal grew so narrow, and the trees so big, that the overarching boughs met in the middle, forming a natural arbour,—only of water, not land,—under which the boat swept for a good many yards. You had to stoop your head to avoid being caught by the branches, and the ferns and moss on either bank grew so close to your hand, that you could snatch at them as you swept by, which Little Sunshine thought the greatest fun in the world.
“Mamma, let me do it. Please, let Sunny do it her own self.”
To do a thing “all my own self” is always a great attraction to this independent little person, and her mamma allows it whenever possible. Still there are some things which mamma may do, and little people may not, and this was one of them. It was obliged to be forbidden as dangerous, and Little Sunshine clouded over almost to tears. But she never worries her mamma for things, well aware that “No,” means no, and “Yes,” yes; and that neither are subject to alteration. And the boat being speedily rowed out of temptation’s way into the open loch again, she soon found another amusement.
On the loch, besides water-fowl, such as wild ducks, teal, and the like, lived a colony of geese. They had once been tame geese belonging to the farm, but they had emigrated, and turned into wild geese, making their nests wherever they liked, and bringing up their families in freedom and seclusion. As to catching them like ordinary geese, it was hopeless; whenever wanted for the table they had to be shot like game. This catastrophe had not happened lately, and they swam merrily about,—a flock of nine large, white, lively, independent birds, which could be seen far off, sailing about like a fleet of ships on the quiet waters of the loch. They would allow you to row within a reasonable distance of them, just so close and no closer, then off they flew in a body, with a great screeching and flapping of wings,—geese, even wild geese, being rather unwieldy birds.
Their chief haunt was a tiny island just at the mouth of the canal, and there papa rowed, just to have a look at them, for one was to be shot for the Michaelmas dinner. (It never was, by the by, and, for all I know, still sails cheerfully upon its native loch.)
“Oh, the ducks—the ducks!” (Sunny calls all water-birds ducks.) She clapped her hands, and away they flew, right over her head, at once frightening and delighting her; then watched them longingly until they dropped down again, and settled in the farthest corner of the loch.
“Might Sunny go after them? Might Sunny have a dear little duck to play with?”
The hopelessness of which desire might have made her turn melancholy again, only just then appeared, rowing with great energy, bristling with fishing-rods, and crowded with little people as well as “grown-ups,” the big boat. It was so busy that it hardly condescended to notice the little pleasure-boat, with only idle people, sailing about in the sunshine, and doing nothing more useful than catching water-lilies and frightening geese.
Still the little boat greeted the large one with an impertinent hail of “Ship ahoy! what ship’s that?” and took in a cargo of small boys, who, as it was past one o’clock, were wanted home to the nursery dinner. And papa rowed the whole lot of them back to the pier, where everybody was safely landed. Nobody tumbled in, and nobody was drowned,—which mamma thought, on the whole, was a great deal to be thankful for.