gratified them, since its going was something like burning the bridge
between them and civilization.
They came back to camp wonderfully refreshed, glad-hearted, and
ravenous; and they soon had the camp-fire blazing up again. Huck found a
spring of clear cold water close by, and the boys made cups of broad oak
or hickory leaves, and felt that water, sweetened with such a wildwood
charm as that, would be a good enough substitute for coffee. While Joe
was slicing bacon for breakfast, Tom and Huck asked him to hold on a
minute; they stepped to a promising nook in the river-bank and threw in
their lines; almost immediately they had reward. Joe had not had time
to get impatient before they were back again with some handsome bass,
a couple of sun-perch and a small catfish provisions enough for quite a
family. They fried the fish with the bacon, and were astonished; for
no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did not know that the
quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is caught the better
he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce open-air sleeping,
open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient of hunger make, too.
They lay around in the shade, after breakfast, while Huck had a smoke,
and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition. They
tramped gayly along, over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush,
among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the
ground with a drooping regalia of grape-vines. Now and then they came
upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled with flowers.
They found plenty of things to be delighted with, but nothing to be
astonished at. They discovered that the island was about three miles
long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to
was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards
wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the middle
of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too hungry to
stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and then threw
themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon began to drag,
and then died. The stillness, the solemnity that brooded in the woods,
and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the spirits of the boys.
They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing crept upon them. This
took dim shape, presently it was budding homesickness. Even Finn the
Red-Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps and empty hogsheads. But they
were all ashamed of their weakness, and none was brave enough to speak
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