The Sandman: His Sea Stories

This special edition is published by arrangement with the publisher of the regular edition, The Page Company. CADMUS BOOKS E. M. HALE AND COMPANY CHICAGO Copyright, 1908 By The Page Company All rights reserved Made in U.S.A.

nce upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.
Once, more than a hundred years ago, when ships still came to that wharf, the brig Industry came sailing into that river. For she was one of the ships that used to come to that wharf, and she used to sail from it to India and China, and she always brought back silks and cloth of goats' hair and camels' hair shawls and sets of china and pretty lacquered tables and trays, and things carved out of ebony and ivory and teakwood, and logs of teakwood and tea and spices. And she had just got back from those far countries and Captain Solomon and all the sailors were very glad to get back. For it was more than a year since she had sailed out of the little river, and they hadn't seen their families for all that long time. And a year is a pretty long time for a man to be sailing on the great ocean and not to see his wife and his dear little boys and girls.