SAND DUNES 



sea room enough to manoeuvre away from the 

 lee shore, and he was wrecked on the beach 

 at high tide. The poor man begged for farm- 

 ing work again, for there was no probability of 

 saving his schooner, which, with every pound 

 of the surf, settled deeper and deeper in the 

 sand. Less than a year later she was buried 

 to the deck. 



In the seventies I used occasionally to take 

 the long walk from Magnolia to Coffin's Beach, 

 which lies the other side of the Essex River 

 from Ipswich, to spend a solitary day among 

 its strange dunes and on its long flat beach. 

 As I lay in my blind there, intent on shooting 

 the wandering shore birds, I often thought of 

 the tale of Coffin's farm. When the old 

 farmer was on his death-bed he gathered his 

 sons about him and gave them his farm, and 

 at the same time bade them never to cut the 

 woods that lay between the farm and the sea. 

 Scarcely was the old man buried than his 

 words were forgotten by the thoughtless sons, 

 who, instead of going farther afield for their 

 wood, took that nearest at hand. As a result 

 of their disobedience the winds were no longer 

 restrained, the sand blew in and overwhelmed 

 the fair fields, and now the tops only of a 



27 



