"No. I get a few now and then, but don't calculate on them any longer. It was my luck with canvas-backs that got me into my duck-shooting ways. I was cuffed and patted on the back the same day on their account."
In response to their laughing expressions of curiosity he resumed: "I was but a little chap at the time; still I believed I could shoot ducks, but my father wouldn't trust me with either a gun or boat, and my only chance was to circumvent the old man. So one night I hid the gun outside the house, climbed out of a window as soon as it was light, and paddled round a point where I would not be seen, and I tell you I had a grand time. I did not come in till the middle of the afternoon, but I reached a point when I must have my dinner, no matter what came before it. The old man was waiting for me, and he cuffed me well. I didn't say a word, but went to my mother, and she, mother-like, comforted me with a big dinner which she had kept for me. I was content to throw the cuffing in, and still feel that I had the best of the bargain. An elder brother began to chaff me and ask, 'Where are your ducks?' 'Better go and look under the seat in the stern-sheets before you make any more faces,' I answered, huffily. I suppose he thought at first I wanted to get rid of him, but he had just enough curiosity to go and see, and he pulled out sixteen canvas-backs. The old man was reconciled at once, for I had made better wages than he that day; and from that time on I've had all the duck-shooting I've wanted."
"That's a form of argument to which the world always yields," said
Leonard, laughing.
"How many kinds of wild-ducks do we have here in the bay, that you can shoot so many?" Maggie asked.
"I've never counted 'em up. The doctor can tell you, perhaps."
"I've prepared the skins of twenty-four different kinds that were shot in this vicinity," replied Dr. Marvin.
"Don't you and Mrs. Marvin dissect the birds also?" queried Leonard.
"Mr. Marks," said Mr. Clifford, "I think you once had a rather severe experience while out upon the river. Won't you tell us about it?"
"Yes. My favorite sport came nigh being the death of me, and it always makes me shiver to think of it. I started out one spring morning at five o'clock, and did not get home till two o'clock the next morning, and not a mouthful did I have to eat. I had fair success during the day, but was bothered by the quantities of ice running, and a high wind. About four o'clock in the afternoon I concluded to return home, for I was tired and hungry. I was then out in the river off Plum Point. I saw an opening leading south, and paddled into it, but had not gone far before the wind drove the ice in upon me, and blocked the passage. There I was, helpless, and it began to blow a gale. The wind held the ice immovable on the west shore, even though the tide was running out. For a time I thought the boat would be crushed by the grinding cakes in spite of all I could do. If it had, I'd 'a been drowned at once, but I worked like a Trojan, shouting, meanwhile, loud enough to raise the dead. No one seemed to hear or notice me. At last I made my way to a cake that was heavy enough to bear my weight, and on this I pulled up the boat, and lay down exhausted. It was now almost night, and I was too tired to shout any more. There on that mass of ice I stayed till two o'clock the next morning. I thought I'd freeze to death, if I did not drown. I shouted from time to time, till I found it was of no use, and then gave my thoughts to keeping awake and warm enough to live. I knew that my chance would be with the next turn of the tide, when the ice would move with it, and also the wind, up the river. So it turned out. I was at last able to break my way through the loosened ice to Plain Point, and then had a two-mile walk home; and I can tell you that it never seemed so like home before."
"Oh, Burt, please don't go out again when the ice is running," was his mother's comment on the story.