For boys there are all sorts of real camping-out, fishing and hunting parties, and it's almost enough to set their sisters wild with envy. Nevertheless, "we girls"—four of us—succeeded one year in having a deal of holiday enjoyment all by ourselves out of the old sea. This is how we did it, what sort of place it was, and how we lived:
We engaged a room in a cottage close to the sea, not fifty miles from Boston. We paid one dollar per day for a medium-sized chamber, with the privilege of parlor, dining-room, kitchen, kitchen utensils, and china. Our cottage had fine sea-views from three sides, and roomy balconies all around, where the salt breezes came up fresh and strong. We had a large closet for our one trunk, not a Saratoga and not full of finery, for we had run away from work, company, fashion. We spent whole days in Balmoral and calico redingotes.
We took with us a few pounds of Graham flour, some fresh eggs, pickles, tumbler of jelly, plenty of delicately corned beef,—boiled and pressed,—salt and pepper and French mustard; some tea and coffee and condensed milk. Fresh vegetables, milk and fruits, could be obtained from neighbors; and fun it was to be one's own milkmaid and market merchant; but still more fun to play gypsy and forage for light driftwood for firing. Then, at a pinch, there were a baker and a fish-man within easy reach.
The place was quiet, and nobody disturbed us, by day or by night; and it was delightful to go to sleep, lulled by the music of the waves and pleasant breeze.
We took turns presiding over the meals of the day, and none but the day's caterer had any thought or care about that day's bill of fare.
The oldest of our party was "Aunty True," one of the real folks, and a confirmed Grahamite. The next in age was Helen Chapman, the head and front of the quartette; a good botanist and geologist, and acquainted with all manner of things that live in the sea, and from her we had delightful object lessons fresh from Nature. Next came I, and then Jo, the youngest of us, a girl of fifteen, ready to run wild on the least excuse. She was fairly quelled and awe-struck, however, at her first sight of the sea. "You'll never get me to go into that!" she exclaimed, fairly shuddering. Yet that very day she was enjoying, bare-foot, the cool, soft sand, and playing with the foamy wavelets as the tide came in. But she screamed like an Indian if but invited to plunge beneath the curling surf. There was every day fresh fun in the water,—we frolicked like fishes in their own element. And what ludicrous sights we enjoyed watching the bathers who came from the hotels and boarding-houses,—whole family parties, big and little!
Our party had fine weather, for in our ten days there was only a half day of cloud and rain; but it would have been a fresh delight to see the ocean in a storm.
The last of our pleasures was watching the sun rise out of the sea, a crimson streak, growing into the great red sun!
C. N. Eff.
Charleston, S. C.