Two miles below the deserted house, we stopped opposite another marshy bank, where a rude skiff lay tied to a shaky fence projecting far out into the reeds. Pushing our way in, we beached in the slimy shore-mud and scrambled upon the land, where the tall grass was now as sloppy with dew as though it had been rained upon. It was getting quite dark now, but through a cleft in the hills the moon was seen to be just rising above a cloud-bathed horizon, and a small house, neat-looking, though destitute of paint, was sharply silhouetted against the lightening sky, at the head of a gentle slope. By the time we had waded through a quarter of a mile of thriving timothy we were wet to the skin below the knees and dusted all over with pollen.
Seven children, mostly boys, and gently step-laddered down from fourteen years, greeted us at the summit with a loud "Hello!" in shrill unison. They stood in a huddle by the woodpile, holding down and admonishing a very mild-looking collie, which they evidently imagined was filled with an overweening desire instantly to devour us. "Hello there! who be ye?" shouted the oldest lad and the spokesman of the party. He was a tall, spare boy, and by the light of the rising moon we could see he was sharp-featured, good-natured, and intelligent.
"Well," said the Doctor, bantering, "that's what we'd like to know. You tell us who you are, and we'll tell you who we are. Now that's fair, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir," replied the boy, respectfully, as he touched his rimless straw hat; "our name's Smith; all 'cept that boy there," pointing to a sturdy little twelve-year-old, "an' he's a Bixby, he is."
"The Smith family's a big one, I should say," the Doctor remarked, as he audibly counted the party.
"Oh, this ain't all on 'em, sir; there's two in the house, a-hidin' 'cause o' strangers, besides the baby, which ma and pa has with 'em inter Packwaukee, a-shoppin'. This is Smith's Island, sir. Didn't ye ever hear o' Smith's Island?"
We acknowledged our ignorance, up to this time, of the existence of any such feature in the geography of Wisconsin. But the lad, now joined by the others, who had by this time vanquished their bashfulness and all wanted to talk at once, assured us that we were actually on Smith's Island; that Smith's Island had an area of one hundred acres, was surrounded on the east by the river, and everywhere else by either a bayou or a marsh that had to be crossed with a boat in the spring; that there were three families of Smiths there, and this group represented but one branch of the clan.
"We're all Smiths, sir, but this boy, who's a Bixby; an' he's our cousin and only a-visitin'."
After having gained a thorough knowledge of the topography and population of Smith's Island, we ventured to ask whether it was presumable that the parental Smiths, when they returned home from the village, would be willing to entertain us for the night.
"Guess not, sir," replied the spokesman, the idea appearing to strike him humorously; "there's so many of us now, sir, that we're packed in pretty close, an' the Bixby boy has to sleep atop o' the orgin. But I think Uncle Jim might; he kept a tramp over night once, an' give him his breakfus', too, in the bargain."