ii6 BEACH GRASS 



often pictured the early settlers coming back to 

 town in their boats from a day's fishing, painfully 

 pulling at the clumsy oars against a head wind or 

 tide, and mistaking the wide outlet of this creek 

 for the m.ain river. In a few rods more, the 

 rapidly narrowing creek would show them that 

 their labor had been in vain. An English oak 

 with small leaves and long peduncled acorns 

 stands near here, a descendent perhaps of one 

 planted by the early settlers. 



The rough and very little-travelled road be- 

 yond the bridge through the salt marshes is over- 

 flowed by the tide at the full of the moon, and 

 I have occasionally been obliged to wade through 

 icy waters. In winter when all is tight frozen 

 my usual route is across the marshes and smaller 

 creeks to the foot of Sagamore Pond, the upper 

 end of which is within a third of a mile of my 

 house. Towards night in severe weather, the ex- 

 pansion of the ice in freezing, cracks it with loud, 

 booming explosions which travel over the pond 

 in all directions. It is an enjoyable sound, one 

 of the interesting sounds of Nature. Aside from 

 its associations with the broad expanse of frozen 



