WE GO A-FISHING. 1 09 



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 neces- 

 saries that have been left behind. It is a 

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

 ing 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, notwith- 

 standing the fact that when she went last to 

 Europe she was so sea-sick that " every thing 

 came out of her except her immortal soul." 

 Sailing on our bay is somewhat dangerous to 

 sea-sick people, because it is so shallow that a 

 breeze makes a sea in less time than it takes to 

 tell it ; because the water is like a mill-pond in 

 the morning is no promise that it may not be 

 like the " raging main " by afternoon. Es- 



