It was a wonderful boat, one we could pole through the water far more swiftly than we could the other, and it seemed as if there could be nothing better. But we did not know. Not a great time passed when a strange thing happened. It was that I saw foolish boys make the clumsy boat we had before move in the water without a pole. We could make a boat move in the water only when we thrust down a pole to the bottom, and leaned against it and pushed; but the idle boys, playing in the one lying by the bank in the still lagoon, began pulling a flat stick through the water beside them, and the boat moved out, and then they were afraid, and yelled loudly, for they could not get back to shore. We got them back, poling with the only other boat we had. It was all most foolish, but I wondered. I saw the boys pull the flat stick through the water, and saw the boat move. I, myself, saw it. After that, I sought the flat stick the boys had used, and looked upon it and all over it carefully. It was just as any other flat stick. When all were gone into the caves or the wood I took the stick and got into the boat myself; but I carried the pole with me, and laid it in the boat, lest without it I could not get back to shore. Then I took the flat stick, and thrust it into the water, and pulled backward with it, first on one side of the boat and then the other, as we used our pole, and again the strange thing happened, for the boat moved on the water as it had done with the boys! Farther and farther it went from the land, and I took up the pole with which to push myself back, but it would not reach bottom. The flat stick had carried me too far. I was frightened. I knew not what to do. I yelled, but there was no one to hear me. I was afraid of the water. Then, in my desperation, I took the flat stick again, and pulled with it in the water, and the boat went farther, and soon, as I looked about, I saw that I was close to the wood on the other side of the lagoon. I pulled with the flat stick again, and the boat touched land again, and I climbed out and lay down upon the ground. Long I thought. Could the flat stick make the boat go back? I would try. I clambered into the boat, and turned it about with the pole, so that it pointed toward the other shore, and then took the stick and pulled with it in the water again, and was carried back to very nearly the place from which I had started. I sprang upon the bank, and yelled and leaped up and down. I wonder why it is that men always dance up and down and yell when they are happy? The other creatures do not act in that foolish way.