Children of the Wild

"I think I'd _like_ to be a bird," murmured the Babe, wistfully gazing up at the dark green, feathery top of the great pine, certain of whose branches were tossing and waving ex...

In the brown, balsam-smelling log cabin on the shores of Silverwater, loveliest and loneliest of wilderness lakes, the Babe's great thirst for information seemed in a fair way t...

"My gracious! What's that?" cried the Babe, and nearly jumped out of his boots. A gray thing had come right at him, with an ugly, scurrying rush. The bushes and bracken being th...

It was too hot and clear and still that morning for the most expert of fishermen to cast his fly with any hope of success. The broad pale-green lily pads lay motionless on the u...

Of course, under Uncle Andy's precise instructions he had settled himself in the most comfortable position possible before starting upon the tremendous undertaking of keeping pe...

They were exploring the high slopes of the farther shore of Silverwater. It had been an unusually long trip for the Babe's short legs, and Uncle Andy had considerately called a...

Across the still surface of Silverwater, a-gleam in the amber and violet dusk, came a deep booming call, hollow and melancholy and indescribably wild. _Tooh-hoo-oo-whooh-ooh-oo_...

Out across the shining expanse of Silverwater, now lying unruffled by any breath of wind, went flickering a little blue butterfly, as blue as if a gentian blossom had taken to i...

Casting his flies across the eddying mouth of one of those cold streams which feed the crystal bosom of Silverwater, Uncle Andy had landed a magnificent pink-bellied trout--five...

The first of the twilight over Silverwater. So ethereal were the thin washes of palest orange and apple-green reflection spreading over the surface of the lake, out beyond the f...

There had been a film of glass-clear ice that morning all round the shores of Silverwater. It had melted as the sun climbed high into the bland October blue; but in the air rema...

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 distinguis...

"Gee!" said the Babe, slipping closer to Uncle Andy, where they sat together on a log by the water. "I'm glad that's away over there! What is it, Uncle Andy?"

"Why, don't you know what _that_ is yet?" Said Uncle Andy with a superior air. "That's old Dagger Bill, the big black-and-white loon. Sounds as if he was terribly amused, doesn'...

"With your notions of skunks," answered Uncle Andy, "you're going to get yourself into a heap of trouble one of these days. I'd better tell you about what happened once when a s...