Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
They are "jacking" or "floating" for deer, showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to attract any antlered buck or graceful doe which may come forth from the screen of the forest to drink at this quiet hour amid the tangled grasses and lily-pads at the pond's brink.
Lily-pads are floating on the stream which makes the central part of the picture; large herds of the Palaeotherium, the ancient Pachyderm, reconstructed with such accuracy by Cuvier, are feeding along its banks; and a tall bird of the Heron or Pelican kind stands watching by the water's edge.
In the open spaces of water between the lily-pads the fat indolent gold-fish mouthed at the crumbs, stirring the silence with little sucking sounds, and sending tiny ripples widening on all sides. One alone, dingy yellow in color, moped apart from his fellows, and took no interest in the banquet. "That one's a cynic," said Miss Rathbawne presently.
There were lily-pads to look after, too, bird-shadows and iridescent dragon flies, sunset lights to deepen and spread afar, and, at night, all the starry hosts of heaven to receive and give back, in luminous mist, to the waiting dusk. Dawn came to the river while the earth still slept; it was day upon the waters while night lingered upon the shore.
One June day, as he and his mother were fishing for lily-pads, each of them out on the end of a big log, a boy came down the steep bank that rose almost from the water's edge. He wasn't a very attractive boy. His clothes were dirty and torn and so was his face. His hat was gone, and his hair had not seen a comb for weeks.
He was still staring at those lily-pads when a great deep voice said: "Chug-a-rum! Chug-a-rum! Don't you know it isn't polite to stare at people?" That voice was so unexpected and so deep that Peter was startled. He jumped, started to run, then stopped. He wanted to run, but curiosity wouldn't let him.
So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines, that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall. Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp, where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the water that gleamed between the lily-pads.
The sole companion of the doe was her only child, a charming little fawn, whose brown coat was just beginning to be mottled with the beautiful spots which make this young creature as lovely as the gazelle. The buck, its father, had been that night on a long tramp across the mountain to Clear Pond, and had not yet returned: he went ostensibly to feed on the succulent lily-pads there.
Cricket Frog leaped nimbly into the water and began to swim among the lily-pads while Chirpy watched him and admired his skill. All at once Chirpy heard a splash. And he was just about to ask Mr. Cricket Frog what it could be, when he noticed something queer about his new friend. He was no longer swimming. He was floating, motionless, upon the water.
"I didn't!" "You did!" "I didn't! It wasn't your Frog; it was mine!" "Chugarum!" said Grandfather Frog to Jerry Muskrat, as they peeped out from under some lily-pads. "I didn't know I belonged to anybody. I really didn't. Did you?" "No," replied Jerry, his eyes sparkling with excitement as he watched Longlegs and Whitetail, "it's news to me."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking