For half a mile down-stream there is barely a current. Then comes a
break of a dozen yards just below the perched-up bridge, and the stream
divides, one part rushing like a mill-race, and the other spreading
itself softly around the roots of leaning willows, oozing through beds
of water-plants, and creeping under masses of wild grapes and
underbrush. Below this is a broad pasture fringed with another and
larger growth of willows. Here the weeds are breast-high, and in early
autumn they burst into purple asters, and white immortelles, and
goldenrod, and flaming sumac.
If a painter had a lifetime to spare, and loved this sort of
material,--the willows, hillsides, and winding stream,--he would grow
old and weary before he could paint it all; and yet no two of his
compositions need be alike. I have tied my boat under these same willows
for ten years back, and I have not yet exhausted one corner of this
neglected pasture.
There may be those who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and
selecting of flies, the joining of rods, the prospective comfort in high
water-boots, the creel with the leather strap,--every crease in it a
reminder of some day without care or fret,--all this may bring the flush
to the cheek and the eager kindling of the eye, and a certain sort of
rest and happiness may come with it; but--they have never gone
a-sketching! Hauled up on the wet bank in the long grass is your boat,
with the frayed end of the painter tied around some willow that offers a
helping root.
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