ean in their ears, and
great ships with their towering masts before their eyes. They had the
wharf for bustle, confusion, excitement,--and for this they loved it;
but the beach that stretched beyond they had for quiet, and there, for
miles and miles, curious shells and pretty pebbles, fish-bones and crabs
and sand, sea-weed fine and fair, and the old sycamores, the old dead
trees, in the tops of whose white branches the halcyon built its nest.
Well the children knew the winter days, so bright and mild, when the
brave birds were breeding. Well they knew when the young kingfisher
would begin to make his royal progress, with such safe dignity
descending, branch by branch, until he could no longer resist Nature,
but must dash out in a "fine frenzy" for the bounding waves!

Silas Swift, Dexter's namesake, was a grave, sturdy, somewhat
heavy-looking fellow, whose brain teemed with thoughts and projects of
which his slow-moving body offered no suggestion. Whoever prophesied of
them did so at his hazard. Let him play at his will, and the children
even were amazed. But this could not happen every day. Set him at work,
and the sanguine were in despair. This was because, when work must be
done, he deliberated, and did the thing that must be; so that, while
misapprehension fretted gently sometimes because of his dulness, he was
preparing for that which was not hoped. Celerity enough when he had come
to a decision, but no sign or token till he had come to that.

The first exercise of his imagination trusted to the inspection of
others was in behalf of Columbia Dexter, with intent to moderate her
grief over a dead kitten which they buried in the sand under the
sycamore-tree, the procession carrying banners furled and decorated with
badges of mourning. Silas made a monument then and there in the high
noon of a halcyon day: carved on a pine board which had served for a
bier was the face of Tabby, surrounded with devices intended to
represent the duration of her virtues. His work consoled Columbia, and
inspired him to a more ambitious enterprise, namely, the carving of the
same in a block of gypsum, which work of art Dexter obtaining sight of
declared that it would have done credit to an artist, and set it on his
mantel-shelf between two precious household cards lettered in gilt as
follows "_Union is Strength_," and "_Principles, not Men_."

I suppose no children ever led a happier life,--the special joy of
childhood being in sport, a