They were also interested to see, near by, a large white building, known as the High School-house. As they neared home Tom's eves noticed the sign of a Nantucket birds' exhibition, and a visit to that place was made.
During the walk Mrs. Gordon had been particularly interested in the large cobble-stones which the uneven streets supported in addition to the green grass, and also the peculiar Nantucket cart, with its step behind.
On their return to their boarding-place, they joined a party that had been formed to go to the Cliff, a sandy bluff about a mile north from the town, where they were told was to be found the best still-water bathing on the island. Soon they were all on the yacht "Dauntless," which hourly plied between the two places; in twenty minutes they were landed at the Cliff; and fifteen minutes later they were all revelling in the warm, refreshing water. Bessie declared that in all her large bathing experience on the north shore she had never enjoyed anything like this. Miss Ray felt that here in this warm, still water was her opportunity to learn to swim; so she accepted the kind teaching of a friend; but, alas, her efforts savored more of hard work to plough up the Atlantic ocean than of an easy, delightful pleasure bottling up knowledge for some possible future use. While Miss Ray was thus straggling with the ocean, and Bessie and Tom were sporting like two fish,—for both were at home in the water,—Mr. Gordon was looking around the Cliff with his business eye wide open. As he walked along the road back from the shore, and saw the fine views which it afforded him, he admired the judgment of Eastman Johnson, the artist, in building his summer-house and studio there. A little farther on, upon the Bluffs, the highest point on the island, he noted the house of Charles O'Conor with the little brick building close by for his library; he then decided that an island which could give such physical benefit as this was said to have given to Mr. O'Conor, would not be a bad one in which to invest. So the value of the Cliff or Bluffs he placed in his note-book for future use.
At the same time that Mr. Gordon was exploring the land Mrs. Gordon was in the office of two gallant young civil engineers, exploring the harbor! In fact she was studying a map of the surroundings of the harbor, which these young men had made to aid them in their work of building a jetty from Brant Point to the bell-buoy. As she examined it she found it hard to believe that Nantucket had ever stood next to Boston and Salem, as the third commercial town in the Commonwealth. She sympathized deeply with the people of the years gone by who had been obliged to struggle with such a looking harbor as the map revealed, and said that she should go home to learn more of the "Camels," which she honored more than ever. When they told her that probably three years more than the two that had been given to the work were needed to finish the jetty, and that there was a slight possibility that another one would be needed for the best improvement of the harbor, she thought her interest in the matter could be better kept alive If she should hunt up her old trigonometry and learn that all over again! With this idea she left the young men, whose kindness to her she fully appreciated, and went to find her party. She soon found, on the yacht ready to go back to town, all but Miss Ray; she had chosen to take one of the many carriages which she had noticed were constantly taking passengers back and forth from the town to the Cliff, at the rate of ten cents apiece.
Later in the afternoon their attention was arrested by another one of the town-criers,—Tom had learned that there were three in the town,—who was crying out that a meat-auction would be held that night at half-past six o'clock. When they were told that these meat-auctions had been the custom of the town for years, they were anxious to attend one; but another engagement at that hour prevented their so doing, much to Tom's regret.
The next day was Sunday. As Bessie and Tom were anxious to see all of the nine churches of which they had read, they were, at first, in doubt where to go; whereas their mother had no questions whatever, since she had settled in her own mind, after having reduced all sects to the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic, that the Episcopal Church was the true historic one, and, therefore, the only one for her personal interest, that she should go to the St. Paul's on Fair street. Mr. Gordon usually went to church with his wife, although he often felt that the simplicity of the early apostolic days was found more in the Congregational form of worship. This day he yielded to Tom's desire to go to the square-steepled Congregational Church on Centre street, to hear Miss Baker, who had been preaching to the congregation for three years. He entered the church with some prejudice; but soon he became so much interested in the good sermon that he really forgot that the preacher was a woman! Miss Ray and Bessie went to the Unitarian Church on Orange street, to which the beautiful-toned Spanish bell invited them. After an interesting service, on their way out they met Tom, who wished to look into the pillared church of the Methodists, near the bank, and also into the "Ave Maria" on Federal street, where the Roman Catholics worshipped. Miss Ray, being anxious to attend a Friends' meeting in their little meeting-house on Fair street, decided to do so the following Sunday, if she were in town; while Bessie said that she should hunt up then the two Baptist churches, the one on Summer street, and the other, particularly for the colored people, on Pleasant street. Their surprise that a town of a little less than four thousand inhabitants should contain so many churches was modified somewhat when they remembered that once, in 1840, the number of inhabitants was nearly ten thousand.
In the afternoon the party visited some of the burying-grounds of the town, six of which were now in use. The sight of so many unnamed graves in the Friends' cemetery, at the head of Main street, saddened Miss Ray; and she was glad to see the neat little slabs which of late years had marked the graves of their departed ones. They strolled around the Prospect Hill, or Unitarian Cemetery, near by, and wished to go into the Catholic one on the same street; but, as Mrs. Gordon was anxious to see some of the old headstones and epitaphs in the North burying-ground on North Liberty street, and their time was limited, they went there instead. When Tom saw her delight as she read on the old stones the date of 1770, 1772, and some even earlier, he said that she must go out to the ancient burial-ground on the hill near the water-works and see the grave of John Gardner, Esq., who was buried there in 1706. As he said this one of the public carriages happened to be within sight, and she proposed that they take it and go immediately to that sacred spot. When they arrived there her historic imagination knew no bounds; her soliloquy partook of the sentiment—in kind only, not in degree—which inspired Mark Twain when he wept over the grave of Adam. In the mean while, Mr. Gordon had gone to the Wannacomet Waterworks, which supplied the town with pure water from the old Washing-pond. He there noted in his note-book that this important movement in the town's welfare was another reason why investment in the island would be desirable.
As they started to go back to town from the burial-ground Tom wished that they could drive to the south-west suburbs, to see the South and also the colored burying-grounds, for he should feel better satisfied if he could sec everything of a kind that there was! But Mrs. Gordon had seen enough for one day, and so they drove to their boarding-house instead.