Just before the Perkins Institution closed for the summer, it was
arranged that my teacher and I should spend our vacation at Brewster,
on Cape Cod, with our dear friend, Mrs. Hopkins. I was delighted, for my
mind was full of the prospective joys and of the wonderful stories I had
heard about the sea.
My most vivid recollection of that summer is the ocean. I had always
lived far inland and had never had so much as a whiff of salt air; but
I had read in a big book called "Our World" a description of the ocean
which filled me with wonder and an intense longing to touch the
mighty sea and feel it roar. So my little heart leaped high with eager
excitement when I knew that my wish was at last to be realized.
No sooner had I been helped into my bathing-suit than I sprang out upon
the warm sand and without thought of fear plunged into the cool water.
I felt the great billows rock and sink. The buoyant motion of the water
filled me with an exquisite, quivering joy. Suddenly my ecstasy gave
place to terror; for my foot struck against a rock and the next instant
there was a rush of water over my head. I thrust out my hands to grasp
some support, I clutched at the water and at the seaweed which the waves
tossed in my face. But all my frantic efforts were in vain. The waves
seemed to be playing a game with me, and tossed me from one to another
in their wild frolic. It was fearful! The good, firm earth had slipped
from my feet, and everything seemed shut out from this strange,
all-enveloping element--life, air, warmth and love. At last, however,
the sea, as if weary of its new toy, threw me back on the shore, and in
another instant I was clasped in my teacher's arms. Oh, the comfort
of the long, tender embrace! As soon as I had recovered from my panic
sufficiently to say anything, I demanded: "Who put salt in the water?"
After I had recovered from my first experience in the water, I thought
it great fun to sit on a big rock in my bathing-suit and feel wave after
wave dash against the rock, sending up a shower of spray which quite
covered me. I felt the pebbles rattling as the waves threw their
ponderous weight against the shore; the whole beach seemed racked by
their terrific onset, and the air throbbed with their pulsations. The
breakers would swoop back to gather themselves for a mightier leap, and
I clung to the rock, tense, fascinated, as I felt the dash and roar of
the rushing sea!
I could never stay long enough on the shore. The tang of the untainted,
fresh and free sea air was like a cool, quieting thought, and the shells
and pebbles and the seaweed with tiny living creatures attached to it
never lost their fascination for me. One day Miss Sullivan attracted
my attention to a strange object which she had captured basking in the
shallow water. It was a great horseshoe crab--the first one I had ever
seen. I felt of him and thought it very strange that he should carry
his house on his back. It suddenly occurred to me that he might make a
delightful pet; so I seized him by the tail with both hands and carried
him home. This feat pleased me highly, as his body was very heavy, and
it took all my strength to drag him half a mile. I would not leave Miss
Sullivan in peace until she had put the crab in a trough near the well
where I was confident he would be secure. But next morning I went to the
trough, and lo, he had disappeared! Nobody knew where he had gone, or
how he had escaped. My disappointment was bitter at the time; but little
by little I came to realize that it was not kind or wise to force this
poor dumb creature out of his element, and after awhile I felt happy in
the thought that perhaps he had returned to the sea.