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me. I got out amongst the drift-wood and then laid down in the bottom of the

canoe and let her float. I laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my

pipe, looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep

when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before.

And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at

the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too, every word of it. One man said

it was getting towards the long days and the short nights, now. 'Tother one said

this warn't one of the short ones, he reckoned -- and then they laughed, and he said it

over again and they laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told

him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out something brisk and said ??leave

him alone. The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his old woman -- she would

think it was pretty good; but he said that warn't nothing to some things he had

said in his time. I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped

daylight wouldn't wait more than about a week longer. After that, the talk got

further and further away, and I couldn't make out the words any more, but I could

hear the mumble; and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.??

ssssssssss

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