Here could be seen the ospreys, sailing in graceful pairs above the
herrings' or the old wives' shoals, taking with elegance and
conscientiousness the daily animal food that even man demands, with all
his sentiments and gospels. There the canvas-back duck, in a little
flock, broke the Sabbath to dive for the wild celery that grows beneath
the sound. In yonder tree the bald eagle was starting out upon his
Algerine work of vehemence and piety, to intercept the hawk and steal
his cargo. The wild swan might be those faint, far birds flying so high
over Kedge's Straits, in the south, and the black loon, spreading his
wings like a demon, disappears close to the cat-boat, and rises no more
till memory has forgotten him.
Levin Dennis steered close to a point where he had been wont to scatter
food for the black ducks, and draw them to the gunner's ambush.
Sheldrakes and goosanders, coots and gulls, whifflers and dippers, made
the best of Sunday, and bathed and wrote their winged penmanship on the
white sheet of water.
Poor Jack Wonnell returning, with something on his face between a grin
and a tear, said:
"Levin, didn't I never harm nobody?"
"Not as I ever heard about, Jack. They say you ain't got no sense, but
you never fight nobody. Everybody kin git along with you, Jack!"
"No they can't, Levin. Meshach Milburn hates the ground I tread on. If
he know'd I was in love with little Roxy he'd marry her to a nigger.
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