In the earliest April days of open water, when the blackbirds, on every bordering elm and water maple, were filling the air with a jangle of harsh and liquid notes, and the frogs, among the drift of floating weeds, were purring an unremitting croak, Job took Nathan out on the marshes, and instructed him in the art of shooting the great pickerel now come to spawn in the warm shallows.
"Never shoot at 'em," said he, when a shot from his smooth-bore had turned an enormous fellow's white belly to the sun, and he quickly lifted the fish into the canoe; "if you do, you won't hit 'em. Always shoot under, a mite or more, accordin' to the depth o' water."
Powder and lead were too precious to waste much of them on fish, so the old hunter made his pupil a hornbeam bow and arrows with spiked heads. With these weapons the boy soon became so skilled that he kept the table well supplied with this agreeable variation of its frugal fare.
Song-birds came in fewer numbers in those days of wide wildernesses than now, but there were bluebirds and song sparrows enough to enliven the clearing with sweet songs, and little Martha found squirrel cups blooming in the warmest corners of the field. As the days grew longer and warmer they grew busier, for Seth was diligently getting his crops in among the black stumps.
Job, having foreseen his friend's need of some sort of water craft when the lake should open, had fashioned for him a log canoe from the trunk of a great pine, and modelled it as gracefully as his own birch, though it was many times a heavier, as it was a steadier, craft.
One pleasant afternoon in early May, when the lake was quite clear of ice, Seth and his son, with Job as their instructor in the art of canoe navigation, made a trip in the new boat. They paddled down the creek, now a broad bit of water from the spring overflow. When they came to the lake, rippled with a brisk northern breeze, they found their visit well timed, for a rare and pretty sight was before them, so rare and pretty that Job paddled back with all speed for the mother and daughter that they, too, might see it.
A mile below the mouth of the creek a large vessel was coming, under all sail, with the British flag flying bravely above the white cloud of canvas. They could hear the inspiring strains of martial music, and, when the noble vessel swept past not half a mile away, they could see the gayly dressed officers and the blue-jacketed sailors swarming on her deck.