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��Ten Days in Nantucket.
��a creature. Bessie wondered how such a lovely irridescent thing could be poison to the touch. Tom promised to study up about it when he should begin his winter studies, whereupon his mother said that if he would tell her Avhat he should learn about it she would wTite it out for the benefit of them all. The next morning they all started from the wharf at nine o'clock in the miniature steamer, " Island Belle," for Wauwinet, a place seven miles from the town. Miss Ray had become interested in the pretty Indian names which she had heard, and was struck with this, which she learned was the name of -an old Indian Chief who once controlled a large eastern part of the island. In .an hour they landed on the beach at Wauwinet. They found it decorated with its rows of scallop shells, some of which they gathered as they walked along. Some of the party made use of this still-water bathing, while others ran across the island, some three hundred yards, to enjoy the surf-bathing there. Tom was so delighted with this novelty of two beaches, separated by such a narrow strip of land, that he was con- tinually going back and forth to try the water in both places. He only wished that he could go up a little farther where he had been told the land was only one hundred yards wide — the narrowest part of the island. After a shore dinner at the Wauwinet House, and another stroll on the beaches, they started for the town on the yacht "Lilian," which twice a day went back and forth. The wind was unfavorable, so they were obliged to go fourteen miles instead of seven, thus using two hours instead of one for the sail. On their way they passed the places known as Polpis, Quidnet, and Coatue. Mr. Gordon was so much im- pressed wnth the advantages of Coatue that he noted the fact in his note-book ;
��while his wife became so much inter- ested in the nautical expressions used that she declared that she should get Bowditch's " Navigation " and see if she could find those terms in it ; she must know more of navigation than she did. As they landed at the wharf they heard " Billy " Clark crying out that the New Bedford band would give a grand concert at Surf Side the next day. Now as this kind of music had been the chief thing which they had missed among the pleasures of Nan- tucket, of course they must go and hear it. So the next afternoon, at two o'clock, they were on the cars of the narrow-gauge railroad, bound for the Surf Side hotel, which they reached in fifteen minutes, passing on the way a station of the life-saving service department. They spent an hour or two seated on the bluff overlooking the grand surf-beach, and enjoying the strains of music as they came from the hotel behind them. It must be con- fessed that Mr. Gordon was so inter- ested in noting the characteristics of this part of the island with an eye to business, that he did not lose himself either in the music of the band or the ocean. On his way back to town, when he expressed his desire to build a cot- tage for himself on that very spot, Surf Side, Mrs. Gordon would not assent to any such a proposition ; for she had settled in her own mind that there was no place like Brant Point, where she and Bessie had been that forenoon ; for did not the keeper of the lighthouse there tell her, when she was at the top of it, that on that spot was built the first lighthouse in the United States, in 1 746 ? That was enough for her surely. The matter was still under discussion when Miss Ray told them to wait until they had visited 'Sconset be- fore they should decide the question.
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