Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/275

246 be filled with commonplace. Men live by events, and so they paddle.

We had ten, fifteen, twenty days ahead, if necessary! We were rich in this. Hundreds of miles of beautiful water, splendid days, a new moon, a well-stored locker, and a boat that danced under us like a duck! So we started, dripping from the embrace of the sweet water.

We paddled about fifteen miles, when we saw a tempting nook, a pine grove above a sand-bank, with a dashing stream; and, not far withdrawn, a comfortable farm-house, where we might buy milk and eggs and bread. As we had started late, we landed for the night, and one set off for the farm-house, while the other made ready for supper.

We had a copious larder. We carried too many things, observers said. So we did; but we both liked many things when we stopped for meals. Our table was the sand-bank, with a rubber blanket spread. Olives, cheese, sardines, bacon, Liebig's extract of beef,—these looked well. Then came the farm supplies,—quarts of rich milk, a dozen eggs, two loaves of bread, and a lot of cooked green peas, thrown in by the farmer's wife; a bottle of good claret. What a dinner and supper in one! Then coffee, then a cigar, then the philosophies,—quiet talk as we