. Roof and meadow . .He took oyster number two, flopped it into theempty tub, scoured it around on the muddybottom, looked it over as carefully as he haddone stringy number one, and swallowed sandy,muddy number two with just as much relish. This was too much. I cuffed him and tookaway the tub. This I suppose was wrong, forI understand you must never oppose crazy per-sons. Well, Mux helped himself to oyster num-ber three. There was no water, no tub. Butwhat were oysters for if not to be washed?And who was he but Frocyon lotor—Frocyon^^the washer? Can the leopard change hisspots or the racoon hi
. Roof and meadow . .He took oyster number two, flopped it into theempty tub, scoured it around on the muddybottom, looked it over as carefully as he haddone stringy number one, and swallowed sandy,muddy number two with just as much relish. This was too much. I cuffed him and tookaway the tub. This I suppose was wrong, forI understand you must never oppose crazy per-sons. Well, Mux helped himself to oyster num-ber three. There was no water, no tub. Butwhat were oysters for if not to be washed?And who was he but Frocyon lotor—Frocyon^^the washer? Can the leopard change hisspots or the racoon his habits ? Can he ? Shallhe? I could almost hear him muttering underhis breath, ^^To be, or not to be: that is thequestion. Then he darted a triumphantly ma-licious glance at me, retreated to the back of hiscage, thrust his oyster out of sight beneath thestraw of his bed, and washed it—washed the oys-ter in the straw, washed it into a fistful of sticksand chaff, and gloated as he swallowed it. [119] EACOON CEEEK. KACOON CREEK Into the wode to her the briddes sing. 0 kYER the creek, and clearing it by a little, hung a snow-white, stirless mist, its undersurface even and parallel with the face of thewater, its upper surface peaked and billowed half-way to the tops of the shore-skirting trees. As I dipped along, my head was enveloped inthe cloud 5 but bending over the skiff, I could seefar up the stream between a mist-ceiling and awater-floor, as through a long, low room. Howdeep and dark seemed the water! And the[123] trees how remote, aerial, and floating! as ifgrowing in the skies, with no roots fast hold ofthe earth. Filling the valley, conforming toevery bend and stretch of the creek, lay thebreath of the water, motionless and sheeted, aspirit stream, hovering over the sluggish currenta moment, before it should float upward andmelt away. It was cold, too, as a wraith mightbe, colder than the water, for the June sun hadnot yet risen over the swamp. At the bridge where the
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1904
