XIII
A Dawn Experiment
I have tried dawn fishing, and found it wanting. I have tried dawn hunting in the woods, after "partridges," and found it not all that Jonathan, in his buoyant enthusiasm, appears to think it. And so, when he grew eloquent regarding the delights of dawn hunting on the marshes, I was not easily fired. I even referred, though very considerately, to some of our previous experiences in affairs of this nature, and confessed a certain reluctance to experiment further along these lines.
"Well, you have had a run of hard luck," he admitted tolerantly, "but you'll find the plover-shooting different. I know you won't be sorry."
I do not mean to be narrow or prejudiced, and so I consented, though rather hesitatingly, to try one more dawn adventure.
We packed up our guns, ammunition, extra wraps, rubber boots, and alarm clock. These five things are essential—nay, six are necessary to real content, and the sixth is a bottle of tar and sweet oil. But of that more anon.
Thus equipped, we went down to a tiny cottage on the shore. We reached the village at dusk, stopped at "the store" to buy bread and butter and fruit, then went on to the little white house that we knew would always be ready to receive us. It has served us as a hunting-lodge many times before, and has always treated us well.
There is something very pleasant about going back to a well-known place of this sort. It offers the joy of home and the joy of camping, the charm of strangeness and the charm of familiarity. We light the candles and look about. Ah, yes! There are the magazines we left last winter when we came down for the duck-shooting, there is the bottle of ink we got to fill our pens one stormy day last spring in the trout season, when the downpour quenched the zeal even of Jonathan. In the pantry are the jars of sugar and salt and cereals and tea and coffee and bacon; in the kitchen are the oil stoves ready to light; in the dining-room are the ashes of our last fire.
Contentedly I set about making tea and arranging the supper-table, while Jonathan took a basket and pitcher and went off to a neighbor for eggs and milk. We made a fire on the hearth, toasted bread over the embers, and supped frugally but very cozily.
Afterwards came the setting of the alarm clock—a matter of critical importance.