Joe's struggles with an English education were indeed tragically pathetic. His attempts with aspirates were a continual humiliation to himself and a joy to the whole school. No wonder he “no lak dat school.” Besides, Joe was a creature of the open fields. His French Canadian father, Joe Gagneau, “Ol' Joe,” was a survival of a bygone age, the glorious golden age of the river and the bush, of the shanty and the raft, of the axe and the gun, the age of Canadian romance, of daring deed, of wild adventure. “An' it ees half-hour too queek,” persisted Joe. “Come on hup to de dam.” A little worn path invited their feet from the curving road, and following their feet, they found themselves upon a steep embankment which dammed the waters into a pond that formed the driving power for the grist mill standing near. At the farther end of the pond a cedar bush interposed a barrier to the sight and suggested mysterious things beyond. Back of the cedar barrier a woods of great trees, spruce, balsam, with tall elms and maples on the higher ground beyond, offered deeper mysteries and delights unutterable. They knew well the cedar swamp and the woods beyond. Partridges drummed there, rabbits darted along their beaten runways, and Joe had seen a woodcock, that shyest of all shy birds, disappear in glancing, shadowy flight, a ghostly, silent denizen of the ghostly, silent spaces of the forest. Even as they gazed upon that inviting line of woods, the boys could see and hear the bluejays flash in swift flight from tree to tree and scream their joy of rage and love. From the farther side of the pond two boys put out in a flat-bottomed boat. “There's big Ben and Mop,” cried Larry eagerly. “Hello, Ben,” he called across the pond. “Goin' to school?” “Yap,” cried Mop, so denominated from the quantity and cut of the hair that crowned his head. Ben was at the oars which creaked and thumped between the pins, but were steadily driving the snub-nosed craft on its toilsome way past the boys. “Hello, Ben,” cried Larry. “Take us in too.” “All right,” said Ben, heading the boat for the bank. “Let me take an oar, Ben,” said Larry, whose experience upon the world of waters was not any too wide. “Here, where you goin',” cried Mop, as the boat slowly but surely pointed toward the cedars. “You stop pulling, Ben. Now, Larry, pull around again. There now, she's right. Pull, Ben.” But Ben sat rigid with his eyes intent upon the cedars. “What's the matter, Ben?” said Larry. Still Ben sat with fixed gaze. “By gum, he's in, boys,” said Ben in a low voice. “I thought he had his nest in one of them stubs.” “What is it--in what stub?” inquired Larry, his voice shrill with excitement. “That big middle stub, there,” said Ben. “It's a woodpecker. Say, let's pull down and see it.” Under Mop's direction the old scow gradually made its way toward the big stub.