The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-04-12


ing behind just for a little time
dwindled to an indistinct strip oil
wooden rooted confusion. The great
boat foated further and further away
from the strip of smiles and waving
| handkerchief and tears. The sea
breeze blew and called to her. Hel
engines awoke like her heart. With
balancing pause and a great throh
of desire, the big blue sea beckoned
/ for his tryst with her like his mis-
trcss which she was and her storm
. loving heart warmed within her as
she sped faster and faster to his en-
brace.
/ Other great steamers, sheated in
their piers, slowly melted in to the
chaotic skyline of the harbor. The
great metropolis lay in the smoke
that paused overhead, with the sky
scrapers all striving to out-reach one
another, their clocks all pointing
steamer time, advertisements flaring
on their despatched walls, it growl
and it's roar smothered by the wider
freer noises of the harbor,-slowly
the great metropolis melted into the
white green wake behind.
For the first time Aunt Mary saw
Dame Liberty on her Island in the
harbor,-that iron woman holding her
torch aloft to the weak and oppress-
ed of every nation. The tugs, like
sturdy irrevelent officc-seekers look
ing for loot, ploughed to and fro, in
different to the coming adventures of
the great levithan or greater than
the great levithan, the happiness in
the heart of one woman on its deck.
Patrician yachts sped past them, the
shining brass rejecting the early af-
ternoon sunshine. They overlook
great peasant barges, FLASHING sullen-
ly through commercial seas, towed on
tapping lazy lines and taking their
time taking their time for
the work was heavy and there was
no need for hurry Saucy gasolene
launches climbed up and down the
tireless white-caps. Ferry boats
padded like big serious ducks from
slip to slip. Commonplace things
enough were these for the city-bred
and the sophisticated. They were
wonder things to one over-worked,
tired, pleasure-starved old woman.
One o'clock came! Nodding sail
ing-schooners like weary gulls with
folded wings, rested calmly on the
gently-swinging tide. The afternoon
wore on and Jersey sank lower and
lower upon the west. The beautiful
bridges with their glistening webs
melted into the violet of the distance.
The guns of the forts looked down
upon the steamer with dark menace
in their ugly muzzles; equally-huge
incoming steamers passed them,
seemingly preoccupied with the sights
and the secrets they had come
through, out on the awful bosom of
the sea.
Two o'clock passed! All that
could be seen of the city now was
the distant overhanging smoke grow
ing fainter and fainter. The arms
of the Atlantic were opening wider
and wider. America, and home,
was only memory. But what
of that? Was she not going to Eu-
-rope--to Europe with the big son
son, her son, who had made this
dream reality?
Ahead of her were seven wonder
days,-days of quiet,-days of infinite
peace,-days of rest and diversion
and laying aside at last of life's
burdens. Seven days, indeed, with
the trailing, furling smoke, the emer-
aid green of the mountains of water,
the impromptu rainbows, the gulls
that knew no home by the ever
rocking cradle of the deep, the
spray from the swells and the foam
from the PROV; seven days with the
swing and the swish through the
hours; seven afternoons to sit lazily
upon the comfortable chairs of the
deck and send her dream cargoes off
homeward into the blood-red sunset
that was setting for us too, at the
same time, back home in New Eng