106 



WINTER 



bridge and skim an oyster-shell over to the opposite 

 end ! The best that I could do was to throw my 

 voice across and hear it echo from the long, hollow 

 barn on the other bank. It would seem to me to strike 

 the barn in the middle, leap from end to end like a 

 creature caged, and then bound back to me faint and 

 frightened from across the dark tide. 



I feared the river. Oh, but I loved it, too. Its 

 tides were always rising or falling going down to 

 the Delaware Bay and on to the sea. And in from 

 the bay, or out to the bay, with white sails set, the 

 big boats were always moving. And when they had 

 gone, out over the wide water the gulls or the fish 



hawks would sail, or a great blue heron, with wings 

 like the fans of an old Dutch mill, would beat pon- 

 derously across. 



I loved the river. I loved the sound of the calk- 

 ing-maul and the adze in the shipyard, and the 

 smell of the chips and tarred oakum ; the chatter of 



