Home > Authors Index > Frank R Stockton > Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy > This page
Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, stories by Frank R Stockton |
||
The Sea-Side |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
The ocean is so wonderful itself, that it invests with some of its peculiar interest the very sands and rocks that lie upon its edges. There is always something to see at the sea-side; whether you walk along the lonely coast; go down among the fishermen, and their nets and boats; or pass along the sands, lively with crowds of many-colored bathers. But if there was nothing but the grand old ocean itself, it would be enough. Whether it is calm and quiet, just rolling in steadily upon the shore, in long lines of waves, which come sweeping and curling upon the beach and then breaking, spread far out over the sand--or whether the storm-waves, tossing high their lofty heads, come rushing madly upon the coast, dashing themselves upon the sands and thundering up against the rocks, the sea is grand! What a tremendous thing an ocean is! Ever in powerful motion; so wonderful and awful in its unknown depths, and stretching so far, far, far away! But, even on the coasts of this great ocean, our days seem all too short, as we search among the rocks and in the 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! 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 mainsails and booms; and, best of all, the delightful sea-breeze comes sweeping in, browning our cheeks, reddening our blood, and giving us such a splendid appetite that even the fishermen themselves could not throw us very far into the shade, at meal-times. As for bathing in the sea, plunging into the surf, with the waves breaking over your head and the water dashing and sparkling all about you, I need not say much about that. I might as well try to describe the pleasure of eating a saucer of strawberries-and-cream, and you know I could not do it. There are nations who never see the ocean, nor have anything to do with it. They have not even a name for it. They are to be pitied for many things, but for nothing more than this. |
||