n6 We Go A-Fishing 



of Patchogue, we could not imagine ourselves 

 upon a Swiss lake, for the hills in the back- 

 ground were too far off to dominate the town ; 

 moreover, the air was better than ever blew 

 over Lake Geneva. 



A fishing expedition to us who live nearly at 

 the other end of the Great South Bay, means 

 a day's trip, as a rule, and as usual we get 

 fairly off before we begin to take stock of the 

 necessaries that have been left behind. It is a 

 twelve-mile sail to the cinder-beds, as our 

 fishing-grounds are called, and as we are pretty 

 sure to have to beat against the wind one way, 

 it is called a thirty-mile sail there and back. 

 There are five of us in the boat, not counting 

 the children, and to two of our friends the trip 

 is a novel one in every respect ; they had never 

 been on the bay before, they had never seen a 

 bluefish caught, and they had serious doubts 

 as to whether a day on the water might not 

 end in disaster. One of the ladies had braved 

 the terrors of a thirty-mile sail, notwithstand- 

 ing the fact that when she went last to Europe 

 she was so sea-sick that "everything came out 

 of her except her immortal soul." Sailing on 



