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Show llvames- . .'wv- -,-"? '-'V.". s V.'" ?'? 'swsvm,A tt. .y' , . ' , . ' . , ' '' u r - ' ' ' ' ' S i '? ' 'y" " '' ff 4 i . " ' A Quiet Reach of the Thames. ON A QUIET reach of the Thames my friend's houseboat house-boat Is tethered to two posts as If It never meant to go nway, Fullerton J. Waldo writes from London to the Philadelphia Ledger. Just above the mooring !aoe the old, gnarled Charon wlvj for a penny plies his trade has dug up ancient Eritisli poetry anil Itoman spearheads in the (el-nursing mud. Rut we did not now require his professional service, for across the river to meet us came like a shaft of light his amateur rival. ("Rival," of course, if you run the word back to Its origin, means one who dwells on the bank of a stream.) She was a girl with hair of burnished bur-nished gold bobbed and filleted, who bent manwise to the oars, in her yellow yel-low sweater nnd white skirt, a naiad of the rushes who seemed to have risen ris-en out of the stream, iu own authen-- authen-- ' "i f tic spirit. The houseboat Itself, white-painted, held aloft under Its striped canopy and iver soft red rugs, a hanging garden of geranium baskets, with vines whose tendrils delicately wared on the soft whisper of the breeze. " A clutter of canoes and punts gently fretted the Hunting platform below, as though upon a river of Cathay. In the l'ving room, radiant with violas and roses and geraniums, the filmy snow of the curtains was parted by a fireplace and over it a clock restored the sense of time that elsewhere was pleasantly absent or negligible. Met a Flying Man. Two railed gangways led ashore and no sooner had I put my modest luggage aboard than to the shore we went, to find the golf links close at hand, whore the fat sheep grazed. A young and debonair Englishman met us there, and I learned to my surprise that he was accidental. He was a flying man, and something wrong with Ihe engine compelled him to volplane clown to a paddock next the golf course. " 'Tis an ill wind ;hat has blown me good," I thought, as I shook bands with this Rrushwood boy angel unnwnres. The larks were singing, and I paused often with cleok or lofter in midair to hear the sound. I think I care more for George Meredith's "Lark Ascending" Ascend-ing" than I do for Shelley's "unpremeditated" "unpremedi-tated" singer, but if I had to choose between thorn I would take them both. Such overflowing bil'fuls of ecstasy, rom such a little bird! And he presently pres-ently went off (it seemed) in company with the procession, with his day-old wings and feet like those of the Platypus Platy-pus that you may Gee in a Strand window win-dow devoted to New South Wales. Dather did more than circle about and pride himself. When the young and 'foolish dog attached if one may say so to the boat started to swim the river to look for rats a-plenty in the farther bank, the male swan would steer down upon his snuffling head as ruthlessly as Horatio Lord Nelson on the track of a French frigate, and If a rescue party did not at orce pole shoutingly to his salvation in a punt it went hard with the furred s vimmer in battle with the feathered, who, from his superior height, had something of the advantage of mounted policciuen over a pedestrian. Antics of Water pabies. Suddenly Mother Swan swish' il her head about and said something in a hissing undertone to the Indiscernible ear of one of the gray fluffs for out it sprawled from its snug shelter and into the darkling Thames it tumbled cn its back. Quick as a mBge it righted right-ed itself. Here was a fine chance for little paddling brother to get aboard but alas ! though he could swim better bet-ter than the sturdy British schoolboys round the bend, he could not climb, and so he cuddled In the lee of his mother like a tug that noses a lordly lord-ly ocean liner. In the performance of these darling little web-footed water babies using their mother for an excursion steamer as audaciously as a land baby rides "pick-a-back" in the nursery, there was a ludicrous resemblance to the holiday trippers who were overcrowding overcrowd-ing the small but ambitious river steamers from lock to lock. But the swan's babies, trying to make a neck like mother's were undulant as serpents ser-pents and restless as weathercocks, in their curiosity, whereas 'Arry and 'Ar-riet 'Ar-riet often sat with their backs to the river oblivious to everything but love's young dreams. As the rose flush of the sky paled to lime yellow on the way to the few shcrt hours of night the family sat down to dinner, and there the cook, a ! dignified parishioner, had fixed for ; me the gentleman from America a great bowl of geranium petals, blue flowers and white carnations. "Are you sure," she had asked her mistress anxiously, "that these are just the colors of his country? I would like so much to please him. You see we owe so much to America !" with a disreputable troupe of sparrow-hawks, sparrow-hawks, singing to them still, as an opera tenor might chant for a company com-pany of songless tramps. Can it be that nn English links, with Fnul Potter Pot-ter cattle nnd Daubigny pools and willows wil-lows round nbout, ever henrs a harsh word over a golf ball sliced or stymied or in obstinate hiding? - Above us airplanes purred and were vigilant unceasingly. And in my heart I blessed them, and with my hand I waved them greetings that I hope they saw. In a single group on the way to the links I had beheld seven captive "sausage" balloons as though a benevolent constitutional monarchy had sent all those things that a plain American might have an afternoon of sport. What close neighbors are the implements of war and of peace in the old world today! We walked back to the boat, through a garden plot brimming with blue violas, vi-olas, and there was a tiny cemetery with more violas in a glass on the grave of a cygnet born the day before. Mother Bird Had Done Murder. Then we met the mother bird, the murderess. In stately circles she was swimming round the boat, a swan more lovely to look upon than nny that bore Lohengrin and heard his tributary song. The day before four cygnets were hatched out. Three of them were with her now the fourth, she had decided, with nn unruffled calm I doubt not, was one too-many. So she had slain It. Tranquilly enough the bereaved family was taking its outing so soon nfter the funeral! Father was the advance guard, like a cruiser bringing in a transport ship and lesser craft. Two gray fluff balls were on the mother's back, In a warm cradle deep and soft between be-tween her wings. They arched and stretched their necks as they saw her doing, and took in all the view, and peered over the side with a remarkable remark-able air of detachment at their small brother paddling desperately to keep up |