“The committee on refreshments will please report,” said Mr. Pearl, when he had put down his load.
Mr. McCarthy reported by laying out three pieces of cheese, half a dozen crackers, and a bit of dried beef.
The Pearl called “Mr. Barker,” and when the animal stood up before him, said: “The chair respectfully suggests that without food it will soon have no leg to stand on. You should cultivate the virtue of thoughtfulness. Do not wait to be told, Mr. Barker, but always consider what is to be done, and do it.”
If the Pearl had advice to give he invariably addressed it to “Mr. Barker,” and so it came to us through the dog, as one might say, and was never lost upon us.
Mr. McCarthy and I hurried away, while Mr.
Pearl got a fire going. We were both ashamed that the idea of increasing our stores had not occurred to us. We returned soon with eggs and bacon, and new bread and coffee, and all needed appliances.
“I move that the report be laid on the table,” said Mr. Pearl, as he began to warm the spider.
I think always with a grateful heart of that supper, which we ate in the cool twilight, with a knoll for a table, and, for a cloth, a mat of grass interwoven with white clover blossoms. It was quite dusk when we launched the canoe and resumed our journey.
Had I words fit for beauty and delight, I should try to tell of our night journey on the river—of the wondrous flattery of moon and shadow, of wet banks showered with “barbaric pearl,” of geese that sailed by, magnified to swanlike size, of a little village on the shore, whose painted boards shone like white marble and filled the eye with illusions of splendor and grand proportion.
When we were over the last carry at Mill Pond the hand-made gentleman fell asleep, but we kept on with a steady stroke of the paddles. I would not be the first to speak of stopping, for every stroke brought me nearer home, and the thought of it!—worth all the misery and peril I had known. Near two o'clock we got out on the shore, a mile below the Mill House, and lay down with our blankets and went to sleep.