A black duck came over, just above our heads, with wings whirring like small airplane propellers, as she bore straight out toward the middle of the pond. We were passing a high place along the shore when a dark object, a mere spot of black, seemed to move off at the side of us against the white line of the pebbles, and I found that I was already being sent silently toward it. My pulse quickened, for the thing moved very slowly; and behind it a lesser blur that also moved--very slowly; so deep was the darkness of the overhanging trees, however, that the nose of the canoe ploughed softly into the sand beside the creatures, and I had not made out the fat old porcupine, and, creeping a foot or two behind her, as if he might catch up by to-morrow, perhaps, the baby porky. The old mother was feeding on bits of lily-pads washed up along the shore, picking them from among the stones with her paws as if she intended to finish her supper by to-morrow, perhaps, when her baby had covered the foot or two of space between them and caught up with her. She was so intent on this serious and deliberate business that she never looked up as I stopped beside her; she only grunted and chattered her teeth; but I disturbed the baby, apparently, for he speeded up, and pretty soon came alongside his mother, who turned savagely upon him and told him to mind his manners, which he did by humping into a little heap, sticking his head down between two stones, and raying the young quills out across his back in a fan of spines. He didn’t budge for about five minutes. Then he hurried again--right up beside the old one--a thing so highly improper in porkypinedom, and so deleterious to porkypine health, that she turned and, with another growl, humped her fat little porky again into a quiet and becoming bunch of quills. This time she read him a lecture on the “Whole Duty of Children.” It was in the porcupine-pig language, and her teeth clicked so that I am not sure I got it verbatim, but I think she said, quite distinctly: “A child should always say what’s true, And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table: _At least as far as he is able_”-- for, seeing him so obediently and properly humped, she repented her of her severity and, reaching out with her left paw, picked up a nice, whole lily-pad and, turning half around, handed it to him as much as to say, “There, now; but chew it up very thoroughly, as you did the handle of the carving-knife in the camp last night.” It was a sweet glimpse into the family life of the woods; and as the canoe backed off and turned again down-stream I was saying to myself: “Every night my prayers I say, And get my dinner every day, And every day that I’ve been good I get an orange after food”-- or a nice, round lily-pad.