world in which we played.

Whatever the mental stimulus my brother derived from his home in
Philadelphia, the foundation of the physical strength that stood him in
such good stead in the campaigns of his later years he derived from
those early days at Point Pleasant. The cottage we lived in was an old
two-story frame building, to which my father had added two small
sleeping-rooms. Outside there was a vine-covered porch and within a
great stone fireplace flanked by cupboards, from which during those
happy days I know Richard and I, openly and covertly, must have
extracted tons of hardtack and cake. The little house was called
"Vagabond's Rest," and a haven of rest and peace and content it
certainly proved for many years to the Davis family. From here it was
that my father started forth in the early mornings on his all-day
fishing excursions, while my mother sat on the sunlit porch and wrote
novels and mended the badly rent garments of her very active sons.
After a seven-o'clock breakfast at the Curtis House our energies never
ceased until night closed in on us and from sheer exhaustion we dropped
unconscious into our patch-quilted cots. All day long we swam or
rowed, or sailed, or played ball, or camped out, or ate enormous
meals--anything so long as our activities were ceaseless and our
breathing apparatus given no rest. About a mile up the river there was
an island--it's a very small, prettily wooded, sandy-beached little
place, but it seemed big enough in those days. Robert Louis Stevenson
made it famous by rechristening it Treasure Island, and writing the new
name and his own on a bulkhead that had been built to shore up one of
its fast disappearing sandy banks. But that is very modern history and
to us it has always been "The Island." In our day, long before
Stevenson had ever heard of the Manasquan, Richard and I had discovered
this tight little piece of land, found great treasures there, and, hand
in hand, had slept in a six-by-six tent while the lions and tigers
growled at us from the surrounding forests.

As I recall these days of my boyhood I find the recollections of our
life at Point Pleasant much more distinct than those we spent in
Philadelphia. For Richard these days were especially welcome. They
meant a respite from the studies which were a constant menace to
himself and his parents; and the freedom of the open country, the
ocean, the many sports on land and on the river gave his body the
con