er
part of the summer out of doors. We often made long expeditions out into
the suburbs of Deephaven, sometimes being gone all day, and sometimes
taking a long afternoon stroll and coming home early in the evening
hungry as hunters and laden with treasure, whether we had been through
the pine woods inland or alongshore, whether we had met old friends or
made some desirable new acquaintances. We had a fashion of calling at
the farm-houses, and by the end of the season we knew as many people as
if we had lived in Deephaven all our days. We used to ask for a drink of
water; this was our unfailing introduction, and afterward there were
many interesting subjects which one could introduce, and we could always
give the latest news at the shore. It was amusing to see the curiosity
which we aroused. Many of the people came into Deephaven only on special
occasions, and I must confess that at first we were often naughty enough
to wait until we had been severely cross-questioned before we gave a
definite account of ourselves. Kate was very clever at making
unsatisfactory answers when she cared to do so. We did not understand,
for some time, with what a keen sense of enjoyment many of those people
made the acquaintance of an entirely new person who cordially gave the
full particulars about herself; but we soon learned to call this by
another name than impertinence.

I think there were no points of interest in that region which we did not
visit with conscientious faithfulness. There were cliffs and
pebble-beaches, the long sands and the short sands; there were Black
Rock and Roaring Rock, High Point and East Point, and Spouting Rock; we
went to see where a ship had been driven ashore in the night, all hands
being lost and not a piece of her left larger than an axe-handle; we
visited the spot where a ship had come ashore in the fog, and had been
left high and dry on the edge of the marsh when the tide went out; we
saw where the brig Methuselah had been wrecked, and the shore had been
golden with her cargo of lemons and oranges, which one might carry away
by the wherryful.

Inland there were not many noted localities, but we used to enjoy the
woods, and our explorations among the farms, immensely. To the westward
the land was better and the people well-to-do; but we went oftenest
toward the hills and among the poorer people. The land was uneven and
full of ledges, and the people worked hard for their living, at most
laying aside only