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Entered according to Act of Congress, in June, 1867, by J. W. Burke & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia.
Yol. I.
AT THE SEA-SIDE.
AST week we gave our
readers an extract from
ilWl&r Mrs. llowitt’s delightful
story, “ The Children's
mV ” Year ,” and promised to
wljC refer to it again. After
uk Herbert and Meggy had
/y$ been living in the country
/' for some months, they were
so unfortunate as to contract tha*
disagreeable complaint, whooping
cough. It was during the hot sum
mer months, and the two children
suffered great inconvenience from
it, but they bore it quite patiently,
as we trust all of the little readers
of the Weekly will do, when they
are so unfortunate as to be ill.
After they began to get better
their mamma determined to take
them to the sea-side, for the sake of
the sea-air, which is very excellent
for sick people. The ride to Has
tings, the town on the sea-coast
where they were to spend a month,
was greatly enjoyed by the child
ren, who thought they would never
have tired of looking at the scenes
through which they passed.
At length they reached their des
tination, and the children enjoyed
their first view of the ocean. The
railroad station was some distance
from the town,«go that they made
the last few miles of their journey in a
coach. For a short distance, the road ran
along the margin of the sea. The setting
sun shone in warm crimson light upon
the moving water, and the tide coming
in, with a fresh breeze, made the water
still more animated. Herbert had never
seen anything which pleased him so
much ; the delight which lie had in the
beautiful noon-day landscape was nothing
to his astonished pleasure now.
MACON, G-A., MARCH 28, 1868.
“ Only look at those beautiful waves—
are they billows, mamma?” he asked.
“Look how they come dashing and tumb
ling up! Oh, how Ido love the sea!”
The children’s happiness was increased
by finding that the house in which they
were to lodge was close by the sea.—
V, \
There was nothing but the pebbly beach
between them and the water. They
could stand at the window of their little
room and look out at the sea; they could
hear its roar as plainly as if they stood
beside it.
“It roars like a thousand dragons!”
said Herbert enthusiastically. “I shut
my eyes and fancy it is dragons. I love
to hear! I did not think that the sea
was so grand!”
The next morning the sun shone as
bright as possible. The tide was again
coming in, and as soon as breakfast was
over, the children went out with Martha.
They went to buy, for each, a little wood
en spade to dig in the sand with ; but this
they soon found to be a very useless
thing, for there was no sand scarce
ly to dig in. They bought also, for
a little old-fashioned odd-look
ing wooden basket, in which to col
let sea-weed and shells, and these
were very useful whenever they
went out.
When the tide went down, they
found treasures at every step ; there
were shells, and sea-weed, and star
fish, and those little black, bladder
like weeds shaped like a little hand
k barrow, which the children at Has
tings called “money purses.” Meg
gy, who was not nearly as strong
[as Herbert, found it very fatiguing
Jto walk on the beach, so she and
Martha, the maid, sat and rested
whilst Herbert wandered about near
: to them, looking for treasures and
j wonders.
Everything was wonderful both
to him and Meggy; but nothing
pleased him more than the sea it
self. He used to go out with his
sister Mary, w T hcn the tide was
either coming in or at its height,
and walk close to its margin, 01
stand and watch it. There was, to
his mind, indescribable beauty in one
great wave rolling up after another, com
ing up with such power and grandeur,
and then, just as it reached its extreme
limit, heaving itself up, and giving a
plunge, head forward as it were, and
tumbling like a cascade fringed with spray
headlong upon the shingle, and then roll
ing back again with a rattling shaling
sound.
The children spent a month very pleas-
No. 39