4. The gabled porch, with woodbine green, Though many a rood might stretch between, 5. No rocks across the pathway lie, 6. Perhaps some lover trod the way, With shaking knees and leaping heart; With sinuous sweep or sudden start. 9. Truants from love, we dream of wrath; OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. XIV. SEINE-FISHING OFF SOUTHAMPTON. SOME OME one put into my hand a bunch of dried seamoss. It was still fragrant of the sea, and the rare salt perfume brought to my mind a scene of nine years ago, when, an eager child, I watched seine-fishing on the Southampton beach. 2. The village of Southampton is situated on the northeast end of Long Island, about half a mile from the sea. It may be reached by sailing up Shinnycock Bay, which is a mile from the village proper, or by taking the stage at Sag Harbor and riding through dense woods, fragrant with wild honeysuckle, past shallow pools, starred over with water-lilies, to the door of the Southampton store and post-office. 3. The village consists of one long street, extending at right angles with the beach; from this street, branch several roads that lead to the neighboring farms. On one side is the sea, on two sides a line of hills, and on the other are the woods. From one of these hills is a beautiful view of the ocean, the Sound, and the woodland and grain fields between. 4. One summer morning, a boy in a blue shirt drove through the village, blowing upon a long tin horn. He drove the whole length of the street, turned up the road past the old windmill, past the fields in which the farmers were at work, and, having made a complete circuit, returned to the village. 5. As the first shrill notes fell upon the ear, the men stopped their work to listen; then, saying to one another, "A shoal of fish!" they hurried to the house. At the sound of the horn, the women wiped the flour from their hands, or carried the cream back to the spring-house, or set the broom in the corner. The children hailed the noise with cries of joy, and, putting aside their work or play, ran for a pail or a spade. 6. Soon, almost every house was vacant; and men, women, and children, were hastening to the beach. Here all was bustle and confusion. The women were quality of the fish, exchanging friendly greetings and bits of news, and selecting a comfortable place among the sand-hills where they might sit and view the scene. 7. The children played beside the water, letting the great waves come near enough to wet their bare feet and legs, then darted back with screams of laughter, just in time to escape a thorough drenching. 8. The men were busy with the seine, which lay in great white heaps upon the sand. They stretched it out and spread it upon the beach, and, untangling the long ropes attached to one side, they coiled them around stakes that were driven in the ground. The net was large, and, when this was done, the end stakes were almost half a mile apart. 9. They were now ready to launch the boats and carry out the seine. This was a beautiful sight; the boats were large and strong, and each had six oarsmen. The fishermen carried the boats to the edge of the water, pushed them through the breakers that dashed up over their heads, and then waded out with the oars, and the .ends of the ropes attached to the other side of the seine. 10. The people on the shore gave a shout, as the six boats moved off together. They watched the wet oars, gleaming like silver in the sunlight, and the ropes on the stakes, slowly unwinding, as the seine was drawn farther and farther down the beach until it finally disappeared in the water. 11. There was nothing to do now upon shore but to wait. The men seemed a little restless; some whittled bits of wood into boats for the children; some slept; and some visited the lunch baskets. It was near noon, when the fish were first seen, and hot dinners were a secondary consideration. The fish were thought to be mackerel, still they might prove only fit to enrich the soil. 12. Out at sea, the fishermen rowed in the direction 41 of the shoal, until they passed through and beyond it, drawing the seine through the water by the ropes whose ends were held in the boats. Then they turned back toward the shore, shortening the ropes, thus drawing the seine over so that it was almost doubled. As they rowed nearer land, a signal was given, and the men began to pull in the ropes from that side, to keep the two edges of the seine together. 13. The boats ran up on the sand; the women and children gathered round in eager expectation; the fishermen came to lend the aid of their brawny arms; a great wave lifted the heavy net, and, at last, with one desperate pull, it was drawn high up on the beach. 14. The next work was to unfold it; and then went up a cry of pleasure and admiration; for there, on the dazzling white sand, in a flood of golden sunlight, with the great blue ocean stretching before, lay hundreds and hundreds of mackerel, all shining silver and green. Scattered among them were shells and crabs and star-fish and long fronds of sea-moss; stretched out in hideous beauty was a large sting-ray, and, not far from it, a very. young shark. 15. The women took what they wanted, in their baskets, and went home. Some of the men stayed to sort and divide the fish, shoveling those fit for food into a wagon, to be sold, and carting the others for manure. The younger children filled their pails with sea-water, -placing in them shells and little fish, or decked their hats with sea-weed, or buried crabs in the sand. The older boys pelted the sting-ray with pebbles, and killed the young shark with their sticks. At last, even they were tired, and turned away. 16. Then the men waded out with the seine, washed it in the sea, and spread it on the sand-hills to dry, where dragged high up on the shore and turned bottom upward, and then the weary men, shouldering their oars, trudged homeward. 17. The crested waves rose higher and higher, carrying the refuse back to the sea, and effacing the marks of the footsteps. The sun sank lower and lower, till the seine gleamed like a net-work of rubies, and the boat keels were touched with fire. like a 18. Over the ocean rose the round red moon, great scarlet blossom, and the pale stars looked like daisies. Slowly the light turned to yellow gold, and marked a radiant pathway on the water; paler and paler grew the light, until the stars were yellow, and sea and sand and sky were bathed in silver. - Clara Hunter. XV. THE STRANGER ON THE SILL. BETWEEN broad fields of wheat and corn Is the lowly home where I was born; The peach-tree leans against the wall, 2. There is the barn, and, as of yore, I can smell the hay from the open door, But the stranger comes,- oh! painful proof,- 3. There is the orchard, -the very trees Where my childhood knew long hours of ease, |