370 
“What in thunder is that what ye doos?” 
said Billy who was lying on his back trusting 
to the weight of his feet from allowing the 
wind to get a purchase on the windward edge 
Of the tent, and shucking us clean to the 
tempest. 
“There’s enough thunder roaring around here 
now without you adding any,” I answered and 
leaned out a bit to scrape a channel on one side 
to encourage the brook to let us alone; when 
a hailstone that felt as big as a baseball took 
me between the ear and the hair-cut and near 
jarred my eyes from the sockets; anyway they 
were easily in the position to have been knocked 
off by the proverbial stick. So Billy gets his 
revenge as 1 lay off for repairs, having no> care 
for what might happen for some little time. 
“Dreary gleams about the moorland, flying 
over etc.” 
At first, we didn’t know if it was a revolving 
light let loose from its moorings and on a tramp 
along the shore, or what.; but finally the increas¬ 
ing brightness, the dancing light striking the 
tree trunks, then the side of the tent, awakened 
us to our error and to the fact that some brave 
mortals were facing that level-rushing blue- 
blaring, sky-rending disturbance, and to our res¬ 
cue, too! 
The gleam came to a pause on the bank above, 
and a high-powered voice hailed—it needed to be. 
such to speed its way through the dazzled wind- 
torn stream to reach us—“Ahoy! come up to 
the club-house.” 
Hast ever been in circumstances dire, there 
seeming no way out, and then received a “fru- 
gu-jous” check from grandmother? There are 
times in life when it is difficult to make up 
one’s mind, hard to decide between two courses 
of action, but this time-of-our-life didn’t happen 
to be anything at all like that. The voice with 
the requisite number of revolutions reached to 
us at the exact psychological moment to get us 
going out of our insignificant woven shelter, but 
just now highly thought of and closely clung to. 
With full hearts we accepted the heart-felt in¬ 
vitation, and fell in quickly behind our two 
guides, but with knowledge gleaned from the- 
acceptanee of former heart-felt invitations to 
shore club-houses along the Delaware. I had a 
hunch of a premonition that after being a short 
time beneath this sheltering roof, no longer 
would we be troubled by our hearts being full; 
that sensation will have been appropriated by 
quite another part of our internal anatomies, 
it “bein’ jest before the Fourth” too! 
The young men of all ages who compose these 
shore-clubs, of a sure J thingness do get quanti¬ 
ties of real gladness from this life, which to so 
many mopey mortals appear merely as a wet 
sidewalk to the grave. Then to help them on 
their merry way, they have large quantities of 
the gladness sent over from the city in oaken 
receptacles bound carefully and strongly around 
with enough steel bands to keep it in until cor¬ 
rect portions of it can be put aboard individual 
crystals with a loop on the side for the club 
member — never forgetting the guest, he always 
coming first — to insert his glad hand. Then tilt¬ 
ed to a gentle, but ever-increasing, angle his eyes 
brought to a short focus within its interior, not¬ 
ing how — after the foamy crest has disappeared 
by the action of his expelled breath or other¬ 
FOREST AND STREAM 
wise—the darkness of the unstable amber within 
gradually becomes lighter and lighter, brighter 
and brighter, because of its ever-thinning quan¬ 
tity, this being due to the lips of the clubman 
within the rim of the crystal—having by long per¬ 
severing practice on his part—formed a cascade 
over which the ever-lessening and lightening flood 
pours in a steady fall until it finally will reach 
to the aforesaid interior anatomy. And he never 
pauses in his self imposed task until all trace of 
amber color has fled from before his half-shut 
eyes, and he beholds through the clear crystal 
bottom the full unstained refulgence of the day¬ 
light, or lamplight, as it may be day or night 
when he is taking his observation. And he 
knows that by his well-sustained action, and 
several more besides, he is helping to uphold 
the best traditions of his club. 
And no regret has he for the amber liquid that 
has vanished, because the gladdest fact in all 
the world to him is: There’s plenty more in 
the bar’l. 
Into the center of such a beerfest Billy and I 
were steered by our self-sacrificing rescuers in 
the grand hall of the clubhouse. I had toyed 
with the cold beaded amber joy in but small 
quantities at large intervals, but my courage did 
not fail me at the sight—if you breathe deeply 
and long the endurance is increased 30 per cent. 
—and besides I was sustained by knowing that 
my Mayflower ancestors could stow away more 
raw red rum and never let the poor Indian 
know there was any such in the surrounding 
territory. And then, too, in the six years I 
have lived up on the island, I have never tasted 
it nor sighted its frothy coronet; maybe in the 
final reckoning that will count for something. 
But my heart bled for Billy! Not so long 
from hi’s mother’s side, and she a white ribboner 
thick in the inner conspiracies of the W. C. T. 
U.! How would he fare forth from such an or¬ 
deal? Well! we both got along better than I 
had dared hope, for, after all, our hosts were 
reasonable beings whose wish it was to help and 
not to hurt us. There was a plenty of conversa¬ 
tion on the jump, into which from good fellow¬ 
ship they endeavored to draw us, but we found 
it hard to get in the talk-fest because the chief 
part and humor of it consisted in loading some 
fellow member with obloquy; all Of which was 
received in cheerful humor and the full quan¬ 
tity returned with some added; the thicker and 
tougher became the flying epithets, the broader 
became the smiles on the faces of the partici¬ 
pants and listeners. 
One of the members who had attached him¬ 
self to Billy and me to see that we should meet 
with no neglect and was doing the best he knew 
to be entertaining, plaintively told how a newly 
joined member had resigned and quit merely 
and only because somebody called him a — —. 
That reflection on the strain of a man’s ex¬ 
traction is universal among all peoples, savage 
or civilized, but I never thought any of them 
considered it in the nature of a compliment. So 
this fellow quit because it had always seemed 
that way to him, too, and no doubt he feared he 
would never be able to adjust his mental balance 
to get it at the same angle of obliquity as that 
of his club fellows. Our friendly member after 
telling of the tender soul’s squeamishness, pro¬ 
ceeded further and beyond: “Why! we don’t 
mind, we all call each other that!” Yea! that 
and other such like rugged repartee is like un¬ 
to the breath of their nostrils. 
They occupied a fine two-story and attic frame 
building that was more in the nature of a dwell¬ 
ing in its arrangement. And, surely, they one 
and all were kind and helpful to us unexpected 
guests; we appreciated it highly and liked them 
some—all but their bristly conversation. 
Having failed in their wdl-meant intention 
to transfer more of the sparkling wet from 
the keg’s interior to ours, and when the offer of 
another glass to Billy was with emphasis turned 
down, the lull glass was immediately turned up 
and emptied into the gaping bell of a —cornet, 
I guess it was—anyway, it was some kind of 
a devilish brass horn which irregularly alternate 
members had fitfully and stertorously blown 
without pause during the entire length of the 
evening’s festivities. It wasn’t “a word and a 
blow” with them, but a beer and a blow. When 
Billy declined to down that, it immediately was 
sent down the mouth of that horn which one of 
the members was holding—for a second—be¬ 
neath his arm, and it was not beneath his dignity 
to instantaneously up-end it and send all that 
horn’s contents to join his own. 
We went to bed then. 
That finished the proceedings as far as Billy 
and 1 were concerned; we were guided up¬ 
stairs to a neat chamber, ceiled and varnished, 
that contained two bedsteads, one of which was 
ours for the night. It had a spring, a good 
mattress in a fancy ticking with pillows to 
match; no sheets, no pillow cases and no laun¬ 
dry bills. 
It seemed as if my head had hardly touched 
the handkerchief spread over the pillow when I 
was broad awake and found the new day was 
likewise. The bright ball of the sun was resting 
on the horizon, and on the day before the 
Fourth that means some early, but not too early, 
rising when camping out. It is good not to be 
missing any of the sweet freshness of the morn¬ 
ing, and an early breakfast is enjoyed for the 
novelty. 
The other bed was now occupied by two re¬ 
cumbent forms. On our bed dear Billy lay as 
one dead; after many futile efforts, I succeeded 
in restoring him to consciousness when he re¬ 
warded me by beginning a hard-luck story about 
not sleeping all night long and tried to fade 
again; but as the time for sleeping was over 
for that morn, that story would not go down, so 
we proceeded to go down a story ourselves. One 
of the early birds already had the fire going 
in the range and the coffee-pot on. He cordially 
invited us to take breakfast which was declined 
with many thanks for all their hospitality and 
we came away. We were anxious about our be¬ 
longings on the beach, but, considering the storm, 
all was in good order; then shortly the good old 
campy coffee, boily-fried bacony odors began to 
take possession of the surrounding atmosphere. 
Then ours was the before breakfast joy of a 
swim on such a sparkling morning in the clear, 
tepid water of the Lenni-Lenape—the Indian 
name for the river. And not in palace nor 
grand hotel does a breakfast taste as good, nor 
is the breakfast room of such beauty of propor- 
