We found the Harmony lower and warmer than we had left it, almost deserted by trout, but otherwise as beautiful and picturesque as ever. We lingered round the falls, and listened to the noisy cascade, drank from the ice-cold spring, shot a few ducks on the lower stretch of water, killed a dozen fine trout at the upper _shute_, and indulged in the luxury of laziness.
Don had been heretofore as active as any member of the party, often up the first and to bed the last; frequently rousing the guides from their slumbers by a loon-like call, repeated until they appeared; but on our first morning at the Harmony he positively refused to get up, and to my persistent entreaties, replied in a despondent voice:
“It is no use; you give me no rest, keep me up every night till eleven, work me to death all day, and let the flies and mosquitoes annoy me without cessation. I will stand it no longer, and intend to sleep as late as I please.”
“But, Don, breakfast is ready, and you will lose it.”
“Then I shall have a second breakfast. You feed me on pork, and trout, and ducks, till I am tired of them, and get no nourishment from the endless repetition.”
“I have made a beautiful omelet this morning, and it will be ruined.”
“Then make me another--we have plenty of eggs--or I will make it for myself.”
“But you will miss the morning’s fishing.”
“I do not care. I have caught trout enough to last my lifetime, and I will have a little rest.”
With that he turned over, incontinently went to sleep, and no efforts on our parts, nor shouts from the guides, who with delight imitated the cry with which he had been accustomed to wake them, could rouse him till eleven o’clock. Apparently much refreshed, he eat a light lunch preparatory to a more substantial dinner, the hour for which had almost arrived. Getting up at eleven o’clock in the woods is equivalent to sleeping till four in the afternoon in the city.
Somewhat moved by his complaints, and having plenty of leisure-time, I devoted myself to providing for dinner the best our larder afforded: soup made from preserved vegetables furnishing the first course; trout, larded and fried, the second; broiled duck, garnished with thin pieces of pork, the third; and such entremets as boiled rice, chow-chow, and the like, closing with a dessert of that remarkable and ill-named preparation called corn-starch, one of the most valuable discoveries for the city-bred explorer of the woods.