The Republican journal., 1912-09-05
shining out on the trees that almost meet

shining out on the trees that almost meet
overhead, dance along with US, COM
panions in our course, but projected
little in advance, like will-o-the-wisps,
or Jack-o-lanterns and l take them to be
attendant good spirits, an omen of our
safe arrival home at last.
A few yards deeper in among the
palms, and lignumvitae, and gumbo-
limbo trees, the fire. flies glitter in
swarms of dozen or more like clusters
OF children's toy electric lights. From
time to time the glow of an occasional
camp fire shows, as in silhouettes, the
calico-clad forms of Seminole Indians of
the Everglades, busy preparing their
evening meal; and their children, cog
infant of our approach by the rhythmic
thud OF our engine, peep down over the
edge of the canal banks at us furtively.
Now and then heavy splash from the
shore behind us tells of "Gaitor," as
ne slumps back into mid-stream, disturb
ed in his evening meditations by the
waves our propeller has washed up on
the bank. And for sometime after sun
down bird, a whip poor will or possibly
hooking bird, sang and allied persist
emily, and later the frogs and tree toads
carried on the refrain, deadened at inter-
walls by the harsh quacking and honking
OF wild geese passing northward far
overhead; or the "hollering" of crazy
loon, who would stick his long neck out
of the placid surface close at hand and
turn and twist it as water snake might.
Over us the sky has been alternately
brilliant with southern stars, or black
with Notwithstanding clouds; and I'M
der our bow and around US, it is note
worthy how the canal or river, as the
case may be, catches all the light there
Is, and almost glitters in contrast to the
much darker shores, and in the canal
the watery surface stretches out ahead
OF US, like stream of silver. seemingly
to lnfinity, and singularly easy to steer
course in, even though it be night, be-
tween the dark shadows that reach out
toward its center and are constantly
waving in the ripples, like menacing
arms, as the tall tree-tops on the sides
sway in the wind.
And how the wind did howl through
those palm tops way above us, though
sheltered where we were on deck, down
under the high banks, it was nearly
calm, in spite of the northerly gale still
raging, and which had forced us to come
in over the Bar at Little River Inlet last
night, and to continue by this inside pas
sage instead Of proceeding northward on
the open ocean in the Gulf Stream, as
we had been doing.
After an hour or two of this, as we
approached little wooden bridge, with
red light in an old-fashioned square,
sided glass lantern suspended from its
rustic truss girders in the centre to mark
the channel and draw, the air suddenly
became perfumed with the scent of
orange blossoms from the groves on the
outskirts of the little village of Boynton,
and at about $50, curfew time, l called
to Charlie that "this days work was
over" and scrambled aft over the cabin
top, to stop the engine and run the bow
of the boat into the soft ooze of the
bank, up among the curious centipede,
or better still, fel-Tower-like roots of
the mango bushes that grow right out of
the water, on stills as it were.
Charlie, always true to his deep-sea
instincts, soon appeared with the anchor
light in his hand out of the companion
way, and climbing forward hung it on
the mast rising from where the bow was
Then coming aft to the cockpit he
NiCWSu IL 4oA a 4ull peIolVS1y7
his clear, blue eyes sparkling, and then,
with a burst of Northland sentiment,
remarked half sheepishly, "It's just like
a Christmas tree in Sweden, all lit up
like"
Hooked over my shoulder and realized
for the first time that the waning moon
had been silently coming up out of the
tree tops over it all, through riffs in the
black clouds.
1t presaged we'll for the next day, and
contented thereat, | began to drop my
only garments, sailors blouse and pair
of old Kahki trousers. and quickly rolled
onto one of the Myrtle's two broad, luz
uriously appointed transoms of which
she had one on each side of the centre
board, and was soon waited into the
sound sleep of the physically tired and
mentally content, by cool, orange
blossom scented breeze that came in
through the open companionway, sky
light and portfolios. If l dimly heard
gentle rumbiing, soothing noises, they
were either the lullihg boom of the dis
tant surf pounding on the back side of
the sand dune that separated our water
way from the ocean to the eastward, or
else the rumble of the East Coast train,
about as far off to the West, as it bore
its sleeping load of pampered pleasure
seekers from Palm Beach and the other
Southern resorts away northward, driN en-
out by the already fervid heat of the
lusty Southern spring.