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Casting his flies across the eddying mouth of one of those cold streams which feed the crystal bosom of Silverwater, Uncle Andy had landed a magnificent pink-bellied trout five pounds, if an ounce! "Hi, but isn't he a whopper?" he cried exultantly, holding up his prize for the inspection of the Babe, who had been watching the struggle breathlessly. "A whopper?" repeated the Babe doubtfully.
"Oh," said Uncle Andy, "you mustn't go so far as that. Bill tells lots of interesting things that are true enough as far as they go. You must learn to discriminate." The Child did not know what "discriminate" meant, and he was at the moment too depressed to ask. But he resolved firmly to learn it, whatever it was, rather than be so deceived again. A stiffish breeze was blowing over Silverwater.
Besides, only to-day I am reading where that big doctor in Cincinnati, Ohio Silverwater says it is not a disease which you could catch from somebody else until after they have actually got down sick with it. Yes, sir, she sits right there telling me good-by. 'Mr. Lobel, she says to me I had just handed her her check 'Mr. Lobel, she says, 'always to you, she says, 'I should be grateful.
But the Babe refused to be drawn, so presently, with a comprehending grin, he went on: "It's rather a small affair for crows, you know, this colony of theirs here on Silverwater. I suppose they've been crowded out from the places they really prefer, along the skirts of the settlements on the other side of the Ridge. They would rather live always somewhere near the farms and the cleared fields.
They were exploring the high slopes of the farther shore of Silverwater. He knew that the Babe would trudge on till he dropped in his tracks before acknowledging that he was tired.
Uncle Andy made a despairing gesture. "Oh," he murmured wearily, "a fellow has to be so careful what he says to you! The next time I make a metaphorical remark in your presence, I'll draw a diagram to go with it!" The Babe looked puzzled. He was on the point of asking what "a metaphorical" was, and also "a diagram"; but he inferred that there were no whales, after all, in Silverwater.
Young as he was, and city-born, the lure of the wild had nevertheless already caught him, and the information that he thirsted for so insatiably was all about the furred or finned or feathered kindreds of the wild. And here by Silverwater, alone with his Uncle Andy and big Bill Pringle, the guide, his natural talent for asking questions was not so firmly discouraged as it was at home.
He squatted himself on the moss before the log, where he could stare straight up into Uncle Andy's face with his blue, steady, expectant eyes. "It was a long way off from Silverwater," began Uncle Andy in a far-away voice, and with a far-away look in his eyes, "that the whale calf was born.
Bill the Guide would go off to the lumber camps beyond the Ottanoonsis, and Silverwater would be left to the snow and the solitude of winter. His heart tightened with homesickness.
There had been a film of glass-clear ice that morning all round the shores of Silverwater. It had melted as the sun climbed high into the bland October blue; but in the air remained, even at midday, a crispness, a tang, which set the Child's blood tingling.
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