l6o LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



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 man. Here, on the Great South Bay, 

 we seem to be particularly favored in the mat- 

 ter of sunsets, for certainly more than half our 

 days end with one of these color displays as 

 changing as it is indescribable. We have 

 grown so used to these wonderful pictures that 

 adjectives and superlatives have long ago 

 been used up ; some one points now and then 

 to a particularly exquisite blending of gold 

 and silver, and the rest of the party nod in 

 silence. By the time we reach our harbor, the 

 sun has gone down with the breeze, and we 

 drift slowly into the little slip. The village is 

 at supper, and my friend, the Cap'n, who 

 stands on the dock, is the only one to greet us. 

 He peers curiously at the wood, and seems 



