“You make me laugh like a loon on loon tablets!”

“I am no more lonely than the loon on the pond that laughs so loud.”

“Non...I am DANCING IN MY NUDDY-PANTS!!!'And we both laughed like loons on loon tablets. I danced for ages round the house in my nuddy-pants. Also, I did this brilliant thing-I danced in the front window just for a second whilst Mr. Across the Road was drawing his curtains. He will never be sure if he saw a mirage or not. That is the kind of person I am. Not really the kind of person who goes and raises elks in Whakatane.”

“See. I told you I would get that boy to the alter eventually. All I had to do was pretend I was a loon.”

“The spruce and cedar on its shores, hung with gray lichens, looked at a distance like the ghosts of trees. Ducks were sailing here and there on its surface, and a solitary loon, like a more living wave, — a vital spot on the lake's surface, — laughed and frolicked, and showed its straight leg, for our amusement.”

“It is spruce and pine and hemlock country, deerfly and punkie and blackfly country, wool and four-wheel-drive country, loon and osprey and raven country. My kind of country.”