"Say, boys, don't you think it's about time?"

"Boys, it's gettin' daylight in the east!"

"No, it ain't. That's the moon."

At last the first faint light of the sun appeared, and Lincoln rose, fed the horses, and harnessed them while the other boys got everything else in readiness.

Mr. Jennings came out soon, and Mrs. Jennings got some hot coffee for them, and before the sun was anywhere near the horizon, they said good-by and were off. Mr. Jennings shouted many directions about the road, while Mrs. Jennings told them again to be careful on the water.

To tell the truth, the boys were a little f.a.gged at first, but at last as the sun rose, the robins began to chatter, and the bobolinks began to ring their fairy bells, and the boys broke into song. For the first hour or two the road was familiar and excited no interest, but then they came upon new roads, new fields, and new villages. Streams curved down the slopes and ran musically across the road, as if on purpose to water their horses. Wells beside the fences under silver-leaf maples invited them to stop and drink and lunch. Boys they didn't know, on their way to work, stopped and looked at them enviously. How glorious it all was!

The sun grew hot, and at eleven o'clock they drew up in a beautiful grove of oaks, beside a swift and sparkling little river, for dinner and to rest their sweaty team. They concluded to eat doughnuts and drink milk for that meal, and this gave them time to fish a little and swim a good deal, while the horses munched hay under the trees.

After a good long rest, they hitched the team in again and started on toward the west. They had still half-way (twenty-five miles) to go. The way grew stranger. The land, more broken and treeless, seemed very wonderful to them. They came into a region full of dry lake-beds, and Bert, who had a taste for geology, explained the cause of the valleys so level at the bottom, and pointed out the old-time limits of the water. As night began to fall, it seemed they had been a week on the way.

At last, just as the sun was setting, they saw a dark belt of woods ahead of them and came to a narrow river, which the farmers said was the outlet of the lake. They pushed on faster, for the roads were better, and just at dusk they drove into the little village street which led down to the lake, to which their hungry eyes went out first of all.

How glorious it looked, with its waves lapping the gravelly beach, and the dark groves of trees standing purple-black against the orange sky.

They sat and gazed at it for several minutes without saying a word.

Finally Rance said, with a sigh, "Oh, wouldn't I like to jump into that water!"

"Well, this won't do. We must get a camp," said Milton; and they pulled the team into a road leading along the east sh.o.r.e of the lake.

"Where can a fellow camp?" Bert called to a young man who met them, with a pair of oars on his back.

"Anywhere down in the woods." He pointed to the south.

They soon reached a densely wooded sh.o.r.e where no one stood guard, and drove along an old wood road to a superb camping-place near the lake sh.o.r.e under a fine oak grove.

"Whoa!" yelled Milton.

All hands leaped out. Milton and Lincoln took care of the horses. Bert seized an axe and chopped on one side of two saplings, bent them together, tied them, cleared away the brush around them, and with Rance's help drew the tent cloth over them--this was the camp! While they dug up the bedding and put it in place, Rance built a fire and set some coffee boiling.

By the time they sat down to eat their bread and coffee and cold chicken, the grove was dark. The smoke rose in a billowy ma.s.s, vanishing in the dark, cool shadows of the oaks above. A breeze was rising. Below them they could hear the lap of the waves on the bowlders. It was all so fine, so enjoyable, that it seemed a dream from which they were in danger of waking.

After eating, they all took hold of the boat and eased it down the bank into the water.

"Now, who's goin' to catch the fish for breakfast?" asked Bert.

"I will," replied Rance, who was a "lucky" fisherman. "I'll have some fish by sun-up--see if I don't."

Their beds were hay, with abundant quilts and blankets spread above, and as Lincoln lay looking out of the tent door at the smoke curling up, hearing the horses chewing and an owl hooting, it seemed gloriously like the stories he had read, and the dreams he had had of sometime being free from care and free from toil, far in the wilderness.

"I wish I could do this all the time," he said to Milton, who was looking at the fire, his chin resting in his palms.

"I can tell better after a week of it," retorted Milton.

To a boy like Lincoln or Rance, that evening was worth the whole journey, that strange, delicious hour in the deepening darkness, when everything seemed of some sweet, remembered far-off world--they were in truth living as their savage ancestry lived, close to nature's mystery.

The pensiveness did not prevent Milton from hitting Bert a tremendous slap with a boot-leg, saying, "h.e.l.lo! that mosquito pretty near had you that time."

And Bert, familiar with Milton's pranks, turned upon him, and a rough and tumble tussle went on till Rance cried out: "Look out there! You'll be tippin' over my b.u.t.ter!"

At last the rustle of the leaves over their heads died out in dreams and the boys fell asleep, deliciously tired, full of plans for the next day.

Morning dawned, cool and bright, and Bert was stirring before sunrise.

Rance was out in the boat before the pink had come upon the lake, while Milton was "skirmishing" for some milk.

How delicious that breakfast! Newly fried perch, new milk with bread and potatoes from home--but the freedom, the strange familiarity of it all! There in the dim, sweet woods, with the smoke curling up into the leafy ma.s.ses above, the sunlight just dropping upon the lake, the killdee, the robin, and the blue jay crying in the still, cool morning air. This was indeed life. The hot cornfields were far away.

Breakfast having been eaten to the last sc.r.a.p of fish, they made a rush for the lake and the boat. There it lay, moving a little on the light waves, a frail little yellow craft without keel or rudder, but something to float in, anyhow. There rippled the lake six miles long, cool and sparkling, and boats were getting out into the mid-water like huge "skimmer-bugs,"[105-1] carrying fisherman to their tasks.

While the other boys fished for perch and ba.s.s for dinner, Lincoln studied the sh.o.r.e. The beach which was their boat-landing was made up of fine, varicolored bowlders, many of them round as cannon b.a.l.l.s, and Lincoln thought of the thousands of years they been rolling and grinding there, rounding each other and polishing each other till they glistened like garnets and rubies. And then the sand!

He waded out into the clear yellow waters and examined the bottom, which was set in tiny waves beautifully regular, the miniature reflexes of the water in motion. It made him think of the little wind waves in the snow, which he had often wondered at in winter.

Growing tired of this, he returned to the bank, and lying down on the gra.s.s gave himself up to the rest and freedom and beauty of the day. He no longer felt like "making the most of it." It seemed as if he were always to live like this.

The others came in after awhile with a few ba.s.s and many perch which were beautifully marked in pearl and gray, to correspond with the sand bottom, though the boys didn't know that. There were no large fish so near sh.o.r.e, and they lacked the courage to go far out, for the whitecaps glittered now and then in mid-water.

They ate every "smidgin'" of the fish at dinner, and their larder looked desperately bare. They went out into the deeper water, all feeling a little timorous, as the little boat began to rock on the waves.

Lincoln was fascinated with the water, which was so clear that he could see fish swimming far below. The boat seemed floating in the air. At times they pa.s.sed above strange and beautiful forests of weeds and gra.s.ses, jungles which scared him, for he remembered the story of a man who had been caught and drowned by just such clinging weeds, and besides, what monsters these mysterious places might conceal!

Other boats came around them. Sailboats pa.s.sed, and the little steamer, the pride of the lake, pa.s.sed over to "the island." Yachts that seemed to the boys immense went by, loaded with merrymakers. Everything was as strange, as exciting, as if they were in a new world.

Rance was much taken by the sailboats. "I'm going to rig a sail on our boat, or die tryin'," he declared.

He spent the whole afternoon at this work while the other boys played ball and shot at a target, and by night was ready for a sail, though the others were skeptical of results.

That second night was less restful. The mosquitoes bit and a loud thunderstorm pa.s.sed over. As they heard the roar of the falling rain on the tent and the wet spatter in their faces, and heard the water drip-drop on their bread-box, Milton and Lincoln wished themselves at home.

It grew cooler toward morning and the mosquitoes left, so that they all slept like bear cubs, rising fresh and rested.

It was a little discouraging at first. Everything was wet and the bread was inclined to be mouldy and tasted of the box; but the birds were singing, the sky was bright and cool, and a fresh western wind was blowing.

Rance was eager to sail, and as soon as he had put away the breakfast, he shouldered his mast.

"Come on, boys, now for the boat."

"I guess not," said Milton.

The boat was soon rigged with a little triangular sail, with an oar to steer by, lashed in with wires. Lincoln finally had courage to get in, and with beating heart Rance pushed off.

The sail caught the breeze, and the boat began to move.

"Hurrah!" Rance threw water on the sail; where he learned _that_ was a mystery. The effect was felt at once. The cloth swelled, became impervious to the wind, and the boat swept steadily forward.

Lincoln was cautious. "That is all right--the question is, can we get back?"