228 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



beside some green wharf, their days of usefulness over? 

 I remember hoping, as I watched them pass out to 

 sea, that they would not share the fate of the unknown 

 craft which lay buried in the sands a mile down the 

 coast. It was said that she came ashore in the "Great 

 Storm" of 1814 (or thereabouts). Nothing was left 

 of her in our day but her sturdy ribs, which thrust up a 

 few feet above the sand, outlining her shape, and were 

 only visible at low water. On a stormy day, when the 

 seas were high, I used to stand at the head of the 

 beach and try to picture how she drove up on the 

 shore, shuddering deliciously as each great wave came 

 pounding down on all that was left of her oaken frame. 

 When I read in the newspaper of a wreck I thought of 

 her, and I think of her to this day on such occasions, 

 thrusting up black and dripping ribs above the wet 

 sands at low water, or vanishing beneath the pounding 

 foam of the breakers. 



If you take the shore line train from Boston to New 

 York, you pass through a sleepy old town in Connecti- 

 cut where a spur track with rusty rails runs out to the 

 wharves, and moored to these wharves are side-wheel 

 steamers which once plied the Sound. It served 

 somebody's purpose or pocket better to discontinue 

 the line, and with its cessation and the cessation of 

 work in the ship yards close by, the old town passed 

 into a state of salty somnolence. The harbour is 

 glassy and still, opening out to the blue waters of the 



