for no reason, he remembered a very hot spring day when he was going for green onions and lettuce to Miss Hallie Rains’s. On the American side of the river the woods were wet and cold, drifts of snow still lying underneath the bushes, but on the sandy road which skirted the Canadian shore the sun was hot as if through a burning glass. He walked along the road carrying his coat, taking off his hat now and again to mop his forehead. The sunlight entered his bones, making them feel awake and limber. A fat old man, he was, feeling limber. He said to himself, “If I was a seed I’d sprout.”
On the gate to the Rains farm it said “Sea Gull Ontario Post Office.” He went around to the back yard without meeting anyone. Half a dozen white ducks with orange feet were walking about in front of the milk shed.
He heard the voices of men farther up the hill in the fields, and the voice of a woman in the kitchen, probably that of Miss Hallie. He crossed the kitchen porch that was low, almost on a level with the ground, and tapped at the screen door, his basket on his arm.
Miss Hallie made him go into the front room, while she set his basket on the kitchen table. She had been talking with her sister, Mrs. Eddie Smith, who nodded at him pleasantly and went outdoors, humming. The front room was papered with a green satin stripe, light green, dark green, and hung with crayon portraits of the family. There was a small organ. The portiere between it and the next room was made of strings of wooden beads all hanging straight and parallel to the floor, and giving the illusion of a material. Miss Hallie came in with a glass of dandelion wine and a piece of cake, warm from the oven, on a white dish. She was glad to see him. He told her all the news from the other shore as he sipped his wine. It was fine, delicately fine, and cold. A breeze from the kitchen swung the bead portiere, which rattled lightly. And there was Miss Hallie looking at him, her eyes brown and kind behind the thick lenses of her spectacles. There she was.
River
IN THE SHALLOWS the boat grounded, and it began to rain again. The children lifted their faces and sniffed the dampness, and Scotty put on his rubber cap that made him look like a devil. The Dominie stepped overboard with his shoes on and took the narrow painter over his shoulder. The boat lifted, floating lightly. Edith wanted to get out and push; she took her sandals off. But the twins wouldn’t let her.
“It’s probably over your head,” said Scott.
Edith said, “Pooh.”
The boat slipped through the rushes, the round green stems bent and rose behind them unharmed in a wall. They scraped softly against the sides of the boat, making a prolonged, firm “hush.” The rain thickened, and the Dominie’s back under the yellow poncho looked very high and large.
When the rushes ended and they came to the deep place between the rushes and the shore, the Dominie stepped back into the boat, which rocked under him, sending long ripples in arcs all over the still water. The rain seemed to stop. He took an oar and paddled to the exact center of the pool, dropped the small muddy anchor, and sat down.
They baited their hooks and the Dominie set the minnow bucket under the thwart. “To keep the sun off it,” he said. The twins smiled.
Edith listened to the quiet. It was made up of little noises. There was the clicking of the reels as they all let out their lines and hunted for bottom, and reeled in a little. There was Scotty talking to his minnow, which he had dropped twice and was still working over. There was the water lipping the bottom of the boat. It was not cold, but it was very wet. Scott finally hooked his minnow, holding the little cold body carefully in his left hand and passing the point of the blue steel hook under the chin and up through the nose. The minnow did not wink or quiver, and when he dropped it overboard it gave a little flip with its tail and swam down out of sight.
“You’Ve got a bite,” said Edith.
‘Weed,” said John, reeling in.
The weed was a bright shiny green. It was twined about the hook and the minnow was about three inches above it on the line. John detached the minnow and threw it away with a wide sweep of his arm. They heard it splash, and then, almost immediately, another splash as a gull swooped for it and got it. The Dominie passed the minnow bucket without comment. The gull was a little Napoleon with bright red feet and a body the color of the cloudy sky.
The Dominie filled his pipe, tamping the tobacco with the tip of his little finger, and lighted it. When he bent his head to shield the match some water on the brim of his hat rolled off in round drops. His glasses were dry, but his brown beard and mustachios were dewed with wet.
Edith said, “There goes the Elva.”
The boys lifted their eyes from their lines and watched the small white boat steaming far down-channel, its straight prow lifted and the two decks slanting backward as if to shed the rain. The shore was near them, rushes, tag alder, and Indian plum. Now in late June the leaves were summer foliage, thick and dark. There was a long pile of pulpwood on the beach, cut during the winter and waiting for some schooner like the Our Son to take it on downstream. They knew that it was five o’clock because of the Elva.
The rain began again and settled to a quiet steady downpour. Scott began to sing.
“Shut up,” said John cheerfully, “you’ll scare the fish.”
“Sounds in the air don’t scare the fish,” said Scotty. “It’s your big feet. Not right, sir?”
“Perfectly right,” said the Dominie. Scott went on singing and the others joined. They sang, “Oh, the ocean waves may roll,” and the raindrops, hitting the water on all sides of them, sounded like dried peas thrown on leather. Edith put out her tongue and began to lick the rain from the corners of her cheeks.
The Dominie looked at his wet children and they smiled back at him. They could hardly be any wetter, he thought, but they looked healthy enough. Even the pallor of the little girl had a healthy brightness. Her hair held the water from her head except near her face and the back of her neck where the locks were pasted to the skin. The Dominie took his pipe from between his teeth to say, “Her hair hung down upon her face Like seaweed on a clam.”
They did not catch a single fish.
It was a good deal after six when they passed through the reeds again and regained the open river. The sky was a great pearly dome, reflected on the water whitely, and the shores were dark. The rain had stopped at last, the water was smooth. Edith sat in the prow because she weighed the least, where she looked over the Dominie’s back at the two boys and, beyond them, at the American shore. They were heading for Canada.
“Why didn’t they bite?” said Scott. “Wasn’t the water cold enough? I hate to be skunked.”
“Probably too early in the season,” said John. “They haven’t had time to grow up yet.”
“Oh, you,” said Scott. “We didn’t catch them all, last year.” He added, to the Dominie, “Deadhead ahead on your right, sir.”
The Dominie swerved, but the boat hit something, dully. The children saw it as it came alongside, the body of a man revolving a little, slowly, in the water. The brown, pale face was upturned, the water flowing in thin milky layers over it. The Dominie lunged and caught it by the coat. The boat tipped, and the boys leaned hard to starboard to steady it.
“It’s old Nick, all right,” said the Dominie, “turning
