“You’ve got a church here too,” continued Bruce.
“Yas—a meetin-house.”
“What persuasion is that meeting-house?” asked Bruce, in an anxious tone of voice, as though the fortunes of the whole party depended on the answer.
“Wal, mostly Baptist,” said the old man, “though not all. Were kine o’ cut off, an live mostly to ourselves. But Tancook ain’t sich a bad place, arter all, and we manage to grub along.”
“It’s a fine bay around here,” said Bruce, with a grand, patronizing sweep of his right arm, which seemed meant to include all creation.
“Yas,” said the old man; “there ain’t nothin like it nowhar. We’ve got three hundred and sixty-five islands, of all shapes an sizes, in this here bay—one for every day in the year. This here’s the biggest, an the smallest isn’t more than a yard long. Yas, it’s a fine bay, an a great harbor.”
“Three hundred and sixty-five islands!” exclaimed Bruce, in a tone of surprise. “Is it possible? And one for every day in the year! How extraordinary! But is there really that exact number, or is it only fancy?”
“Really an truly,” said the old man, with whom this was evidently the deepest conviction of his mind. “O, yas, thar’s no mistake or doubt about it. They’ve all been counted, over an over; yas, over an over—over an over.”
“It’s very strange,” said Bruce. “It’s most extraordinary; and now I dare say,” he continued, in an insinuating way, “I dare say that, among so many islands, some of them are well worth a visit. This island of yours is a perfect wonder—so fertile, so beautiful! Are there any others that are like this?”
“Wal, not to say jest like this; but they’re fine islands, many of them, an curous, too. Thar’s some that’s only islands at high tide, bein connected with the main land by narrer beaches an shoals at low tide: an then, agin, thar’s others that’s only islands at low’ tide, bein completely kivered up by the water at high tide; and so it goes; an some’s cleared an inhabited, like this; an some’s wild, an kivered with woods; an some has only one family on it; an some’s cultivated, but has no one livin on them; an so we’ve got all sorts, you see, an they’re all well wuth visitin. Thar’s Dead Man’s Island, an Quaker Island, an Oak Island, an Maple Island, an Ironbound;” and the old man went on to enumerate dozens of names in addition to these, out of which no individual one made any impression on the minds of his hearers.