We would watch the delicate traceries of the water gardens through
which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit
confidence in the protection of their sharp spinacles, presenting to
all enemies an impervious array of bayonets; the shark-like pickerel
endeavoring to swallow every living thing; the lazy barvel,
everlastingly sucking his sustenance from the animalculae around him;
the turtles, snapping at everything in sight with impunity relying
upon the impregnable defense of their coats-of-mail.
On one of these occasions we were aroused from our Arcadian dream by
a frightful roar, and the destruction of all things seemed at hand. A
young cyclone had struck the fire over which we had cooked our fish,
fanning it into a furious conflagration. We climbed a tall oak, and
soon, as far as the eye could reach, all the hills and woodlands
seemed wrapped in flames. Frantic farmers were seen flagellating the
excited oxen and horses, who, with tails in air, were dragging the
ploughs, making furrows around the houses and barns, which were nearly
all located in pastures rendered dry as tinder by that extraordinary
summer's heat.
The cause of this disturbance was traced to us, and we barely escaped
coats of tar and feathers at the hands of the infuriated neighbors,
by the pleadings of our ever-loving mothers who promised we should go
every day to the academy and sin no more.
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