THE BEACH. 
53 
soon met one of these wreckers, — a regular Cape Cod 
man, with whom we parleyed, with a bleached and 
weather-beaten face, within w'hose wrinkles I distin¬ 
guished no particular feature. It was like an old sail 
endowed with life, — a hanging-cliff of weather-beaten 
flesh, — like one of the clay bowlders which occurred in 
that sand-bank- He had on a hat which had seen salt 
water, and a coat of maify pieces and colors, though it 
was mainly the color of the beach, as if it had been 
sanded. His variegated back — for his coat had many 
patches, even between the shoulders — was a rich study 
to us, when we had passed him and looked round. It 
might have been dishonorable for him to have so many 
scars behind, it is true, if he had not had many more 
and more serious ones in front. He looked as if he 
sometimes saw a doughnut, but never descended to com¬ 
fort ; too grave to laugh, too tough to cry ; as indifferent 
as a clam, — like a sea-clam with hat on and legs, that was 
out walking the strand. He may have been one of the 
Pilgrims, — Peregrine White, at least, — who has kept 
on the back side of the Cape, and let the centuries go 
by. He was looking for wrecks, old logs, water-logged 
and covered with barnacles, or bits of boards and joists, 
even chips which he drew out of the reach of the tide, 
and stacked up to dry. When the log was too large to 
carry far, he cut it up where the last wave had left it, or 
rolling it a few feet, appropriated it by sticking two sticks 
into the ground crosswise above it. Some rotten trunk, 
which in Maine cumbers the ground, and is, perchance, 
thrown into the water on purpose, is here thus carefully 
picked up, split and dried, and husbanded. Before win¬ 
ter the wrecker painfully carries these things up the bank 
on his shoulders by a long diagonal slanting path made 
