ain and the crew we watch. A
drift-wood fire should always have children to tend it; for there is
something childlike about it, unlike the steadier glow of walnut logs.
It has a coaxing, infantine way of playing with the oddly shaped bits
of wood we give it, and of deserting one to caress with flickering
impulse another; and at night, when it needs to be extinguished, it is
as hard to put to rest as a nursery of children, for some bright little
head is constantly springing up anew, from its pillow of ashes. And, in
turn, what endless delight children find in the manipulation of a fire!

What a variety of playthings, too, in this fuel of ours; such
inexplicable pieces, treenails and tholepins, trucks and sheaves, the
lid of a locker, and a broken handspike. These larger fragments are
from spars and planks and knees. Some were dropped overboard in this
quiet harbor; others may have floated from Fayal or Hispaniola,
Mozambique or Zanzibar. This eagle figure-head, chipped and battered,
but still possessing highly aquiline features and a single eye, may
have tangled its curved beak in the vast weed-beds of the Sargasso Sea,
or dipped it in the Sea of Milk. Tell us your story, O heroic but
dilapidated bird! and perhaps song or legend may find in it themes that
shall be immortal.

The eagle is silent, and I suspect, Annie, that he is but a plain,
home-bred fowl after all. But what shall we say to this piece of plank,
hung with barnacles that look large enough for the fabled
barnacle-goose to emerge from? Observe this fragment a little. Another
piece is secured to it, not neatly, as with proper tools, but clumsily,
with many nails of different sizes, driven unevenly and with their
heads battered awry. Wedged clumsily in between these pieces, and
secured by a supplementary nail, is a bit of broken rope. Let us touch
that rope tenderly; for who knows what despairing hands may last have
clutched it when this rude raft was made? It may, indeed, have been the
handiwork of children, on the Penobscot or the St. Mary's River. But
its Condition betokens voyages yet longer; and it may just as well have
come from the stranded "Golden Rule" on Roncador Reef,--that
picturesque shipwreck where (as a rescued woman told me) the eyes of
the people in their despair seemed full of sublime resignation, so that
there was no confusion or outcry, and even gamblers and harlots looked
death in the face as nobly, for all that could be seen, as the sain