sed girl
from the Alleghany valleys who sweeps with her polka-muslin the
floors of these generous hotels has an idyl of her own, which she is
rehearsing with young Jefferson Jones or little Madison Addison. In
the golden afternoons they ride together--not in the fine turn-outs
supplied by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, but in guiltless
country wagons guided by Jersey Jehus, where close propinquity is a
delightful necessity. Ten miles of uninterrupted beach spread before
them, which the ocean, transformed for the purpose into a temporary
Haussmann, is rolling into a marble boulevard for their use twice a
day. On the hard level the wheels scarcely leave a trace. The ride
seems like eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, and the
landscape is so impressively similar: everywhere the plunging surf,
the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with foliage sliced off sharp and
flat by the keen east wind--their stems twisted like a dishclout or
like the olives around Florence.
[Illustration: A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.]
Or she goes with Jefferson and Madison on a "crabbing" hunt. Out in
a boat at the "Thoroughfare," near the railroad bridge, you lean over
the side and see the dark glassy forms moving on the bottom. It is
shallow, and a short bit of string will reach them. The bait is a
morsel of raw beefsteak from the butcher's, and no hook is necessary.
They make for the titbit with strange monkey-like motions, and nip it
with their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck it into their mouths;
and so you bring them up into blue air, sprawling and astonished, but
tenacious. You can put them through their paces where they roost under
water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on
their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a
freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious
girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of her skill
in crab-catching, besides being quite unnecessarily gracious to Mr.
Jefferson Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, who must have been reading
Plutarch, did a sly thing indeed. The boat having been drawn unnoted
into deeper water, a cunning negro boy who was aboard contrived
to slide down one side without remark, and the next trophy of the
feminine chase was a red _boiled_ crab, artificially attached to a
chocolate caramel, and landed with mingled feelings by the pretty
fisherwoman. Then what a tumult of laughter, feigned an
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