Thunder Point.

We said there ain't no home like Thunder Point after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but Thunder Point don't. It’s mostly the air, like so clean that you can taste it, except there ain’t nothing to taste. Air don’t smell like that at home, that air without smoke and steam. When the lake birds talk in the night-time, the water holds its breath and listens to them. The loons echo on the far mountains, sounding like hundreds carrying on after dark. A boat’ll go by sometimes, making waves and tossing all the water around, stirring up the mud ‘til you can’t see nothing at the bottom. The lake’s got a mind of her own, as well, never standing still, save in the early morning, smooth as glass. Sometimes there’s fishes, perch and minnow and trout, flashing under the dock with slimy scales. Next the turtles’d clackity-clack against the bottom of the dock, looking for water-bugs. It’s mighty peaceful there, when it’s just you and the critters and the open sky, full of birds and bugs and clouds. The sky is so wide open as to be endless, ain’t no end to it until the mountains eat it up. The dock herself ain’t big, just planks laid side-by-side, floating on logs in the water. No telling how old she is, been there since afore I saw her, anyway. The camp men use her to launch the motor-boat, which the children use for water-skiing in the hot of the summer. She’s sort of lonesome from far away, rising up out of the lake by herself. But no-how is she lonesome in fact. The boards is worn with all the feet on them over the years, worn with splinters and smooth spots. The dock’s ropes is old and frayed and gray and tired, hanging with they loose ends in the water, all swolled up. I learned all my good knots, setting there in the sun, dragging my feet in the lake. Ain’t nothing nicer on a summer day than to drag your feet in a pretty little lake, your friends all around you. Laying out for an idle spell in the sun and hearing the wood birds chatter and sing is pretty near heaven. I swear by that dock that every summer I finds myself longing for the worn wood beneath my bare feet, the soft of the mud and the clatter of the birds in the air.

--Lindsey

(Essay assignment; using ‘Huck Fin’ language.)