"Dead Trees Love the Fire" 163 



while we gather up our implements of work. 

 The shore here presents a picture not unusual 

 at this part of the bay. For three or four 

 hundred feet from the water there is a meadow 

 filled with low bushes and blackberry vines of 

 the creeping type. Then comes a rise in the 

 ground, and a plateau stetches away to the 

 north, covered with a heavy growth of trees. 

 The spot is a superb one for a big hotel or a col- 

 ony of cottages, and undoubtedly it would long 

 ago have been used for this purpose but for the 

 distance from the railroad; it is a five-mile 

 drive to the nearest railway station, and that 

 would be a fatal waste of time to any business 

 man. One of the reasons given for the success 

 of the big hotel at Babylon is that it stands so 

 near the railroad that the New Yorker can step 

 from his train to the piazza, of the hotel. 



The shore presents this morning a beautiful 

 picture of absolute calm. At nine o'clock no- 

 thing is heard, as we stand on the little wharf 

 and survey the scene, but the distant boom of 

 the surf to the south of us on the other side 

 of the sand-bar, and the singing of the birds in 

 the woods around us. The bay sleeps quietly 



