^^c Sa^ of t^e S.iX\xb 



the philosophizing ; I disagreed, however, as to the 

 reahty of the crabs and the woodchucks ; for it was 

 not the attributes and powers of these creatures that 

 she really disbelieved in, but the very existence of 

 the creatures themselves, — along /ler seashore, and 

 upon the farm that s/ie visited. 



"As for fiddler crabs and chewinks and wood- 

 chucks — tilings,'' she did not see them. Certainly 

 not. Yet a fiddler crab is as real an entity as a 

 thousand-acre marsh, — and in its way as interesting. 

 It is a sorry soul that looks for nothing out of doors 

 but fiddler crabs, and insists upon their fiddling ; that 

 never sees the sky-blue, the sea-blue, and the green 

 of the rolling hills. I shall never forget a moonrise 

 over the Maurice River marshes that I witnessed 

 one night in early June. It was a peculiarly solemn 

 sight, and one of the profoundly beautiful experiences 

 of my life, there in the wide, weird silence of the half 

 sea-land, with the tide at flood. Nor shall I ever 

 forget two or three of the stops which I made in the 

 marshes that day to watch the fiddler crabs. Nor 

 shall I forget how they fiddled. For fiddle they did, 

 just as they used to years ago, when they and I lived 

 on these marshes together. 



201 



