1 68 "Dead Trees Love the Fire" 



help one more thought of the miserable toilers 

 in town. Was I stealing a living? If so, the 

 old adage regarding stolen sweets once more 

 proved true. The children are set at work 

 carrying the wood down to the shore ready to 

 be put on board, and even the youngest, a 

 sturdy damsel of not quite four, shouts with 

 indignation if any one proposes to help her 

 along with her load. It is not four o'clock 

 when we have enough wood to fill up the sail- 

 boat, and we have to put some of it on deck. 

 It has turned out to be a pretty hot day, and 

 as there is enough breeze to take us home in 

 less than an hour, we decide for a surf-bath, 

 and the Nelly 's prow is turned over to the 

 beach a mile off. I suppose that with some 

 people the daily surf-bath from June till Octo- 

 ber might become so much a matter of course 

 as to lose half its delights. As with country 

 life, so it is with the surf, so far as I am con- 

 cerned. It is always the keenest of pleasures 

 and never more so than after a good day's hard 

 physical work. By five o'clock we make sail 

 for home, and for an hour we have before us a 

 more splendid painting than was ever made by 



