down the shore
the land rose more and more, and at last we stood at the edge of the
highest rocks of all and looked far down at the sea, dashing its white
spray high over the ledges that quiet day. What could it be in winter
when there was a storm and the great waves came thundering in?

After we had explored the shore to our hearts' content and were tired,
we rested for a while in the shadow of some gnarled pitch-pines which
stood close together, as near the sea as they dared. They looked like a
band of outlaws; they were such wild-looking trees. They seemed very
old, and as if their savage fights with the winter winds had made them
hard-hearted. And yet the little wild-flowers and the thin green
grass-blades were growing fearlessly close around their feet; and there
were some comfortable birds'-nests in safe corners of their rough
branches.

When we went back to the house at the cove we had to wait some time for
Mr. Dockum. We succeeded in making friends with the children, and gave
them some candy and the rest of our lunch, which luckily had been even
more abundant than usual. They looked thin and pitiful, but even in that
lonely place, where they so seldom saw a stranger or even a neighbor,
they showed that there was an evident effort to make them look like
other children, and they were neatly dressed, though there could be no
mistake about their being very poor. One forlorn little soul, with
honest gray eyes and a sweet, shy smile, showed us a string of beads
which she wore round her neck; there were perhaps two dozen of them,
blue and white, on a bit of twine, and they were the dearest things in
all her world. When we came away we were so glad that we could give the
man more than he asked us for taking care of the horse, and his thanks
touched us.

"I hope ye may never know what it is to earn every dollar as hard as I
have. I never earned any money as easy as this before. I don't feel as
if I ought to take it. I've done the best I could," said the man, with
the tears coming into his eyes, and a huskiness in his voice. "I've done
the best I could, and I'm willin' and my woman is, but everything seems
to have been ag'in' us; we never seem to get forehanded. It looks
sometimes as if the Lord had forgot us, but my woman she never wants me
to say that; she says He ain't, and that we might be worse off,--but I
don' know. I haven't had my health; that's hendered me most. I'm a
boat-builder by trade, but the business's