Children of the Wild

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

The Child did not know what "discriminate" meant, and he was at the moment too depressed to ask. But he resolved firmly to learn it, whatever it was, rather than be so deceived again.

CHAPTER XII

THE BABY AND THE BEAR

A stiffish breeze was blowing over Silverwater. Close inshore, where the Babe was fishing, the water was fairly calm—just sufficiently ruffled to keep the trout from distinguishing too clearly that small, intent figure at the edge of the raft. But out in the middle of the lake the little whitecaps were chasing each other boisterously.

The raft was a tiny one, of four logs pinned together with two lengths of spruce pole. It was made for just the use which the Babe was now putting it to. A raft was so much more convenient than a boat or a canoe when the water was still and one had to make long, delicate casts in order to drop one's fly along the edges of the lily pods. But the Babe was not making long, delicate casts. On such a day as this the somewhat unsophisticated trout of Silverwater demanded no subtleties. They were hungry, and they were feeding close inshore, and the Babe was having great sport. The fish were not large, but they were clean, trim-jawed, bright fellows, some of them not far short of the half-pound; and the only blue-bottle in the ointment of the Babe's exultation was that Uncle Andy was not on hand to see his triumph. To be sure, the proof would be in the pan that night, browned in savory cornmeal after the fashion of the New Brunswick backwoods. But the Babe had in him the makings of a true sportsman, and for him a trout had just one brief moment of unmatchable perfection—the moment when it was taken off the hook and held up to be gloated over or coveted.

The raft had been anchored, carelessly enough, by running an inner corner lightly aground. The Babe's weight, slight as it was, on the outer end, together with his occasional ecstatic, though silent, hoppings up and down, had little by little sufficed to slip the haphazard mooring. This the Babe was far too absorbed to notice.

All at once, having just slipped a nice half-pounder onto the forked stick which served him instead of a fishing basket, he noticed that the wooded point which had been shutting off his view on the right seemed to have politely drawn back. His heart jumped into his throat. He turned—and there were twenty yards or so of clear water between the raft and the shore. The raft was gently but none too slowly gliding out toward the tumbling whitecaps.

Always methodical, the Babe laid his rod and his string of fish carefully down on the logs, and then stood for a second or two quite rigid. This was one of those dreadful things which, as he knew, did happen, sometimes, to other people, so that he might read about it. But that it should actually happen to him! Why, it was as if he had been reading some terrible adventure and suddenly found himself thrust trembling into the midst of it. All at once those whitecaps out in the lake seemed to be turning dreadful eyes his way and clamoring for him! He opened his mouth and gave two piercing shrieks which cut the air like saws.

"What's the matter?" shouted a very anxious voice from among the trees.

It was the voice of Uncle Andy. He had returned sooner than he was expected. And instantly the Babe's terror vanished. He knew that everything would be all right in just no time.