They make fast to a tree, in order to wait for the tide to rise a little
higher. It would be pleasant enough to float down the Kennebec on one of
these rafts, letting the river conduct you onward at its own pace,
leisurely displaying to you all the wild or ordered beauties along its
banks, and perhaps running you aground in some peculiarly picturesque
spot, for your longer enjoyment of it. Another object, perhaps, is a
solitary man paddling himself down the river in a small canoe, the light,
lonely touch of his paddle in the water making the silence seem deeper.
Every few minutes a sturgeon leaps forth, sometimes behind you, so that
you merely hear the splash, and, turning hastily around, see nothing but
the disturbed water. Sometimes he darts straight on end out of a quiet
black spot on which your eyes happen to be fixed, and, when even his tail
is clear of the surface, he falls down on his side and disappears.
On the river-bank, an Irishwoman washing some clothes, surrounded by her
children, whose babbling sounds pleasantly along the edge of the shore;
and she also answers in a sweet, kindly, and cheerful voice, though an
immoral woman, and without the certainty of bread or shelter from day to
day.
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