quite extinguished by the
bellowing of the brazen horns of the "cotillon band" on the deck of our
expected steamer, as she rounded to from the upper piers at which she
had been taking in excursionists. This caused a stir in the crowd under
the awning, many of whom were fathers of families taking their wives and
children out for a rare holiday. The smallest babies had not been left
at home, but were there in all their primary scarletude, set off by the
whitest of lace-frilled caps trimmed with the bluest of ribbons. And now
came the time for these small choristers to take up the "wondrous tale";
for the big horns had ceased to wrangle, and the crushing and rushing of
the crowd woke up infancy to a sense of its wrongs and a consciousness
of the necessity for action.

There were some nice-looking girls around, neatly dressed, too, though
by no means in their Sunday-best; for _la petite New-Yorkaise_ is aware
of the mishaps to be encountered by those who venture far out to sea in
ships. They had sweethearts with them, for the most part, or brothers,
or cousins, mayhap: but they were sadly neglected by these protectors,
as we stood under the awning on the pier; for the male mind was full of
fishing, and the male hands were employed in making up tackle with a
most unscientific kind of skill.

And now the final rush came, as the steamer made fast alongside the
outermost of the boats already lying at the pier, across the decks of
which our heterogeneous crowd began to make its way with as little
scrambling as possible, on account of the petticoat-hoops, which
are capital monitors in a turmoil. Women swayed their babies like
balancing-poles, as they tottered along the gangway-plank. Men tried to
secure themselves from being brushed into eternity by the powerful sweep
of skirts. My own personal reminiscence of this transit from the wharf
to the gallant bark of our choice is melancholy and vague, being marked
chiefly to memory by the complicated curse bestowed upon me by a hideous
old Irish-woman, whose oranges I accidentally upset in the crowd, and by
whom I was subsequently derided with buffo song and scurrilous dance as
long as the steamer remained within hearing and sight.

Away we are steaming down the bay, at last, a motley party of men,
women, and children of all sizes and sorts: husbands, wives, milliners
and their lovers; young men who have brought no young women with them,
because they have come for fishing and fishing