Part 24 (2/2)

A Cork s.h.i.+p

Sailing a good boat in the sea is not the best fun, but there is a kind of boat which is very easily made as you sit on the beach, and which is useful to play with when wading, and afterward to throw stones at. You take a piece of cork for the hull. Cut a line down the middle underneath and wedge a strip of slate in for a keel to keep her steady. Fix a piece of driftwood for a mast, and thread a piece of paper on that for a sail.

Wet Clothes

When wading it is just as well not to get your clothes wet if you can help it. Clothes that are made wet with seawater, which probably has a little sand in it, are as uncomfortable as crumbs in bed. There is no reason why you should get them wet if you wade wisely. Sitting among the rocks, running through the water, and jumping the little crisping waves are the best ways to get soaked.

Rocks

Seaside places where there are rocks and a great stretch of sand are the best. Rocks make paddling twice as exciting, because of the interesting things in the little pools--the anemones, and seaweeds, and sh.e.l.ls, and crabs, and shrimps, and perhaps little fish. Sometimes these pools are quite hot. To enjoy the rocks properly you want a net.

Sand Castles, and Other Sand Games

To make full use of the sands a spade is necessary and a pail important. The favorite thing to make is a castle and a moat, and although the water rarely is willing to stay in the moat it is well to pour some in. The castle may also have a wall round it and all kinds of other buildings within the wall. Abbeys are also made, and great houses with carefully arranged gardens, and villages, and churches.

Railways with towns and stations here and there along the line are easily made, and there is the fun of being the train when the line is finished. The train is a good thing to be, because the same person is usually engineer and conductor as well. Collisions are interesting now and then. The disadvantage of a railway on crowded sands is that pa.s.sers-by injure the line and sometimes destroy, by a movement of the foot, a whole terminus; it is therefore better at small watering-places that few people have yet discovered. If an active game is wanted as well as mere digging and building, a sand fort is the best thing to make, because then it has to be held and besieged, and perhaps captured. In all sand operations stones are useful to mark boundaries.

Burying one another in the sand is good at the time, but gritty afterward.

Seaweed

Seaweed and sh.e.l.ls make good collections, but there is no use in carrying live fish home in pails. The fun is in catching the fish, not is keeping it; and some landladies dislike having the bath-room used as an aquarium. On wet days seaweed can be stuck on cards or in a book. The best way to get it to spread out and not crease on a card, is to float the little pieces in a basin and slip the card underneath them in the water. When the seaweed has settled on it, take the card out and leave it to dry. The seaweed will then be found to be stuck, except perhaps in places here and there, which can be made sure by inserting a little touch of gum. It is the smaller, colored kinds of seaweed that one treats in this way; and it is well to leave them for a day in the sun before was.h.i.+ng and preparing, as this brings out their color. The ordinary large kind of seaweed is useful as a barometer. A piece hung by the door will tell when rain is coming by growing moist and soft.

Sh.e.l.l Work

A good use for little sh.e.l.ls is to cover small boxes with them. The sh.e.l.ls are arranged in a simple pattern and fastened on with glue. If the sh.e.l.ls are not empty and clean, boil them, and scrub them with an old tooth-brush.

Good Seaside Friends

So many interesting things are to be seen at the seaside that there is no need to be always at play. Fishermen will come in with their boats, which need pulling up; or a net that has been dropped near the sh.o.r.e will be drawn in from the beach, and you can perhaps help. If the town is not merely a watering-place but also a seaport, it is, of course, better, because then there will be the life of the harbor to watch. To be friends with a lighthouse man is almost as good a thing as can happen; and if there is both a lighthouse and a s.h.i.+pbuilder's you could hardly be more fortunate.

IN THE COUNTRY

This chapter has been written more for readers who live in a town and visit the country only during the holidays than for those whose home is always there. Regular country dwellers do not need to be told many of the things that follow; but none the less there may be a few to find them useful. The princ.i.p.al special attractions of the country are--

In the spring Birds' nests.

” June Bee-swarming and hay-making.

” July Sheep-was.h.i.+ng and shearing.

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