where on the peak of the Storm King, whence he sails down upon us, with a turn up the bend of the ravine, by a propulsion which I cannot easily understand. It must be "od-io force," or the exercise of my motto (Will is might), for he stirs not a wing, and the three miles are done like an arrow-flight. Eagles are sacred among sportsmen, and this one has evidently no fear of being shot; though Ward, whose gun is inevitable, said it was hard not to bring him down, sometimes, when his white head and snowy tail sailed along so temptingly within reach. Of course I plead—spare the King!
The ice has a very flattering way of making a man's farm seem larger—extending out Idlewild some acres into the Hudson—and my boy, Grinnell, who is skating just now, on this apparently new permanency of meadow, expects me down every moment to witness his progress in the art. I would resume it myself—for, being "split up a good way," as the boys used to say of my long legs, I was among the fast ones on Frog Pond, in Latin-school days—but, like a churn that makes no butter by gently being carried along, I have a liver that requires an inward exercise beyond skates. Churning and horse-trotting for butter and bile! So, a look at my boy's new accomplishment, and then to the saddle, to take a churn. Yours.
