it on the sand and watch the Water Babies, whom the
policemen send to jail if they so much as walk along the beach
without their stockings on. These Water Babies were not in a
bottle--like the ones you'll read about in the book--but I think
there was a bottle or two in some of them, from the way they
acted. But one of them was in a pickle, for Father Neptune caught
her in his under-tow--which you must not mix up with his
under-toe, something with which only the mermaids are
familiar--and a life-guard had to swim out and bring her in. And a
few minutes after that I saw a real beach-comber. I had read about
them in the South Sea Islands, but had never seen one before. This
one sat under a striped parasol, with a mirror between her knees,
and combed and combed her hair until it was quite dry again. I was
disappointed in her knees, because I was hoping, at first, she
wouldn't have any, but would be a mermaid who had come up on the
sand to sun herself and would have a long and tapering tail
covered with scales like a tarpon's. But all she had was
beach-shoes tied with silk ribbons, and I preferred watching the
water. For when I watch the ocean I always feel like Mr. Hood and
wish I was at least three small boys, so that I could pull off my
three pairs of shoes and stockings and go paddling up to my six
bare knees and let the rollers slap against my three startled
little tummies and have thirty toes to step on the squids and
star-fish with. And when I went back to the board-walk and watched
all the gulls (I don't think I ever saw so many of 'em in one
place at once) I couldn't help thinking it was too bad the Pilgrim
Fathers didn't wait for three centuries and land at a bright and
lively place like this, since it would have made them so much
jollier and fizzier. They'd probably have turned the _Mayflower_
into a diving-float and we'd never have had any Blue Laws to break
and that curious thing known as The New England Conscience to keep
us from being as happy as we feel we ought to be."

_Sunday the Twenty-Fourth_

Harvest is on us, and Casa Grande hums like a beehive. There are three
extra "hands" to feed, and Whinnie is going about with a moody eye
because Struthers is directing more attention than necessary toward
one of the smooth-spoken cutthroats now nesting in our bunk-house. His
name is Cuba Sebeck and in times of peace he professes to be a
horse