He spent much of his time fishing on the river in the summer and early fall until the ducks began to come in. During the game seasons he acted as host, guide and “pusher” for duck hunters, who sometimes spent weeks with him. They had rare sport on the big marsh, but were compelled to suffer some hardships at the Colonel’s house. He did the cooking, or rather he heated the things that were eaten, and some of them baffled analysis. One of his guests once told of a “mud-hen hash” that the Colonel had compounded, in which there were many feathers, and of some “snapping turtle soup” where all was lost but the adjective. The complaining visitor had slept on the floor, with a bag of shelled corn for a pillow, and the unholy mess, with a cup of doubtful coffee, had been served for breakfast, but he soon got “broken in” and learned to put up with these things if he wanted to shoot ducks with the Colonel. The various dishes, when cooked for the first time, could usually be identified, but succeeding compositions were culinary by-products, and afforded few clues to their component parts, except to a continuous and very observant guest. I once ate some “fish chowder” with the Colonel, which, if it had been called almost anything else, would have been really very good. I never knew the ingredients, and doubt if its author could have reconstructed it, or have given an accurate account of its contents. Some one has aptly said, “if you want to be happy don’t inquire into things,” and the injunction seemed quite applicable to the Colonel’s fare. There are many accidents—both happy and sad—in cookery. A wise cook is never free with recipes, for, in any art, formula dissipates mystery that is often essential to appreciation. Some cooks enter where angels fear to tread, and when the trip is successful the glory is properly theirs. Their task is thankless, and malediction is upon them when they fail. They are in contact with elemental instincts, and their occupation is perilous, for they are between an animal and its meat. One stormy night we sat before the crackling fire. The loose clapboards rattled outside and the big trees were grumbling in the wind. Water dripped from the leaky roof and little streams crept across the floor. I had come down the river in a small rowboat, and intended to spend a week fishing for bass in the stream and sketching in the big marsh. “You must pa’don the appeahance of things ’round heah,” remarked the Colonel. “Theah is a lot of fixin’ up to be done, and the weatheh has been so pleasant lately that that infe’nal Mussey has had to wo’k out doahs. If this weatheh stays bad he will come in heah an’ straighten things up.”