"I wonder why the ocean doesn't keep still sometimes, and not be moving its edge about all the time," said Davy, after watching the waves that constantly rolled up on the beach and then rolled back again, looking like creamy soap-suds.
"That wouldn't do at all!" said a Wave that rolled almost up to his feet. "The beach gets mussed, you see, and we have to smooth it off again. The sea is always tidy;" and here the Wave broke with a little, murmuring laugh, and rolled back again, all in a foam.
Davy was so astonished that it almost took away his breath. A talking Wave was certainly the most marvellous thing he had met with, and in an instant he was lying flat on his face, trembling with eagerness, and waiting for the next Wave to roll up on the shore.
It came in a moment, and gently whispered, "If we didn't wet the sand once in a while there wouldn't be any nuts on the beach-trees,—no nuts on the trees, and no shells on the shore;" and here this Wave broke in its turn into foam, and ran back into the sea.
"This is perfectly delicious!" said Davy, joyfully, and as the next Wave rolled up to him he softly asked, "Do you know the Whale?"
"Know him!" cried the Wave, passionately; "I should think I did! Many a time I've been spanked by his horrid old tail. The nasty, blundering, floundering, walloping old"—and here the end of the sentence dribbled away in a sort of washy whisper.
"Such a mouth!" said the next Wave, taking up the story. "Like a fishing-smack lined with red morocco! And such a temper! I wouldn't be so crusty for all"—but just here the Wave toppled over as usual, and the rest of the sentence ran back into the sea.
"Once," said the next Wave, still scolding about the Whale,—"once he got so far up on the shore that he couldn't get back into the water for a long time, and he blamed me for it, and called me names. He said I was a mean, low tide;" but just as Davy was eagerly listening for the rest of the story this Wave, like the rest, broke into foam and washed away.
"It's really too ridiculous, the way they break off their sentences!" cried Davy, impatiently.
"Is it, indeed!" said a big Wave, coming in with a rush. "Perhaps you'd like to get acquainted with an angry sea!"