“You go cut me an alder pole,” said he, with decision. “That thing ain't no better'n a spear o' grass.” I ran up the shore, glad of the chance he had given me to conceal my laughter. I cut a long, stout pole among the bushes, and returned, trimming it as I ran. “Willie, hurry up!” said he, with an eager look on his face, as if it were one 8051 again. “There,” said he, trying the pole, “that's a reg'lar stun-lifter. I can sass 'em back now. Put on the hook an' line.” In a moment he gave his bait a fling, and assumed that alert and eager attitude so familiar to me. “Tut, tut!” said he, with a lively twitch. “I dare ye to do it ag'in.” Soon the rod sprang upward, and a wriggling trout rose in the air, swung above the head of Uncle Eb, and fell to the earth behind him. “There, by gravy! that's what I call fun,” said he. “No, I don't want to torment 'em there 'n the water; 'taint fair. I'd ruther fetch 'em right out.” I unhooked the fish for him. “Look here, you go on 'bout yer 8052 business,” he added. “I can bait my own hook.” I left him and began to whip my way down the brook. It was good fishing, but the scene was by far the best part of it. What was there in those lovely and familiar shores to keep my heart so busy? The crows, hurrying like boys let out of school, seemed to denounce me as an alien. A crane flew over my head, crunkling a fierce complaint of me, and the startled kingfisher was most inhospitable. A small, bare-footed boy passed me, fishing on the farther bank. He had a happy face, and mine—well, I turned away for very shame of it. The boy looked at me critically, as if I were a trespasser, and I remembered how I felt years ago, when I saw a stranger on the brook. 8053 I remembered how, as a boy, I used to long for a watch-chain, and how once Uncle Eb hung his upon my coat, and said I could “call it mine.” So it goes all through life. We are the veriest children, and there is nothing one may really own. He may call it his for a little while, just to satisfy him. The whole matter of deeds and titles had become now a kind of baby's play. You may think you own the land, and you pass on; but there it is, while others, full of the same old illusion, take your place. I followed the brook to where it idled on, bordered with buttercups, in a great meadow. The music and the color halted me, and I lay on my back in the tall grass for a little while, and looked up at the sky and listened. There under the clover tops I could 8054 hear the low, sweet music of many wings—the continuous treble of the honey-bee in chord with flashes of deep bass from the wings of that big, wild, improvident cousin of his.