well, O Wolves!

Ahae! My heart is heavy with the things that I do not understand.

The White Seal

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, then soft be thy pillow,
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas!

Seal Lullaby

All these things happened several years ago at a place called
Novastoshnah, or North East Point, on the Island of St. Paul, away and
away in the Bering Sea. Limmershin, the Winter Wren, told me the tale
when he was blown on to the rigging of a steamer going to Japan, and I
took him down into my cabin and warmed and fed him for a couple of days
till he was fit to fly back to St. Paul's again. Limmershin is a very
quaint little bird, but he knows how to tell the truth.

Nobody comes to Novastoshnah except on business, and the only people
who have regular business there are the seals. They come in the summer
months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold gray sea.
For Novastoshnah Beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any
place in all the world.

Sea Catch knew that, and every spring would swim from whatever place
he happened to be in--would swim like a torpedo-boat straight for
Novastoshnah and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good
place on the rocks, as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was
fifteen years old, a huge gray fur seal with almost a mane on his
shoulders, and long, wicked dog teeth. When he heaved himself up on his
front flippers he stood more than four feet clear of the ground, and his
weight, if anyone had been bold enough to weigh him, was nearly seven
hundred pounds. He was scarred all over with the marks of savage fights,
but he was always ready for just one fight more. He would put his head
on one side, as though he were afraid to look his enemy in the face;
then he would shoot it out like lightning, and when the big teeth were
firmly fixed on the other seal's neck, the other seal might get away if
he could, but Sea Catch would not help him.

Yet Sea Catch never chased a beaten seal, for that was against the Rules
of the Beach. He only wa