little pools for the
curiosities of the sea-side. Here are shells, and shells, and
shells,--from the great conch, which you put up to your ear to hear
the sound of the sea within, to the tiny things which we find stored
away in little round cases, which are all fastened together in a
string, like the rattles of a snake.

In the shallow pools that have been left by the tide we may find a
crab or two, perhaps, some jelly-fish, star-fish, and those wonderful
living flowers, the sea-anemones. And then we will watch the great
gulls sweeping about in the air, and if we are lucky, we may see an
army of little fiddler-crabs marching along, each one with one claw in
the air. We may gather sea-side diamonds; we may, perhaps, go in and
bathe, and who can tell everything that we may do on the shores of the
grand old ocean!

[Illustration]

And if we ever get among the fishermen, then we are sure to have good
times of still another kind. Then we shall see the men who live by the
sea, and on the sea. We shall wander along the shore, and look at
their fishing-vessels, which seem so small when they are on the water,
but which loom up high above our heads when they are drawn up on the
shore--some with their clumsy-looking rudders hauled up out of
danger, and others with rudder and keel resting together on the rough
beach. Anchors, buoys, bits of chains, and hawsers lie about the
shore, while nets are hanging at the doors of the fishermen's
cottages, some hung up to dry and some hung up to mend.

Here we may often watch the fishermen putting out to sea in their
dirty, but strong, little vessels, which go bouncing away on the
waves, their big sails appearing so much too large for the boats that
it seems to us, every now and then, as if they must certainly topple
over. And then, at other times, we will see the fishermen returning,
and will be on the beach when the boats are drawn up on the sand, and
the fish, some white, some gray, some black, but all glittering and
smooth, are tumbled into baskets and carried up to the houses to be
salted down, or sent away fresh for the markets.

Then the gulls come circling about the scene, and the ducks that live
at the fishermen's houses come waddling down to see about any little
fishes that may be thrown away upon the sand; and men with tarpaulin
coats and flannel shirts sit on old anchors and lean up against the
boats, smoking short pipes while they talk about cod, and mackerel,
and mainsail