Rocky Point’s high tower now loomed up in the distance, and as the boat passed, Charlie told off the swinging boats, the miniature railway, the flying horses, and cages of monkeys, which attracted such hosts of men and women, boys, girls, and babies, day after day. Then the bay grew wider, and little islands rose out of its waters, and one little rock, with a stone light-house, where, Mr. Havens told them, the Keeper, whose business it was always to keep the lamp lighted at night, to warn vessels off the rocks, lived with his little son, in a small house; and one severe winter night the water rose and the ice carried away little house, man, and boy, who were fortunately rescued by a life-boat.
The children’s attention was next arrested by a school of black porpoises, see-sawing on the waves’ tops, and Jack asked—
“Why they went to school, when they had no heads nor book-straps?”
Papa explained, as well as he could, “That they went to school to learn to catch small fish, and Dame Nature was their teacher;” at which the children laughed merrily, and were interested in Papa’s account of some gentleman’s experience in raising and training fish. How they would come to get their dinner when the bell was rung for them, and of little gold rings being fastened on their fins when they were tiny fish, which were found long after upon large fish, caught in nets, showing what good sailors they were that, after going off to strange waters, they were able to find their way back to their own homes again.
The pretty villas of Newport Harbor were now visible, then the steeples of Fall River, and very soon the boat slackened its speed,—the bell rung,—the sailors rushed to throw the huge cables over the dock’s posts, and the children see Papa waving his hat to a gentleman in a large beach wagon, on the wharf, who returns the salute with such a bright, pleased look, as promises well for the longed-for visit at Bristol.