CHAPTER IX 

 MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS 



WHO has not wondered/' I asked, many 

 years ago, " as he has seen the red rim 

 of the sun sink down in the sea, where 

 the little brood of Mother Carey's chickens skim- 

 ming round the vessel would sleep that night?" 

 Here on the waves, no doubt, but what a bed ! 

 You have seen them, or you will see them the first 

 time you cross the ocean, far out of sight of land 

 a little band of small dark birds, veering, glan- 

 cing, skimming the heaving sea like swallows, or rid- 

 ing the great waves up and down, from crest to 

 trough, as easily as Bobolink rides the swaying clo- 

 ver billows in the meadow behind the barn. 



I have stood at the prow and watched them as 

 the huge steamer ploughed her way into the dark- 

 ening ocean. Down in the depths beneath me the 

 porpoises were playing, as if the speeding ship, 

 with its mighty engines, were only another porpoise 

 playing tag with them, and off on the gray sea 

 ahead, where the circle of night seemed to be closing 

 in, this little flock of stormy petrels, Mother Carey's 

 chickens, rising, falling with the heave and sag of 

 the sea, so far, for such little wings, from the shore ! 



