THE SEASHORE BOOK
BOB AND BETTY'S SUMMER WITH
CAPTAIN HAWES

STORY AND PICTURES BY E. BOYD SMITH

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY E. BOYD SMITH

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM

Published September 1912

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

THE SEASHORE BOOK

THE FIRST ROW

Now I will tell you how Bob and Betty spent the summer at the seashore with Captain Ben Hawes. Captain Hawes was an old sailor. After forty years' service on the high seas he had settled down ashore at Quohaug.

Bluff and hearty, and with no end of sea yarns and stories of strange adventures, and of foreign ports and peoples, he was more interesting to the children than the most fascinating fairy book.

His home was a little museum of odds and ends brought from different far-away lands, with everything arranged in shipshape order. The big green parrot, who could call "Ship ahoy!" "All aboard!" delighted the boy and girl. And the seashells, which gave the murmuring echo of the ocean when you put them to your ear. And the curiosities of strange sorts and shapes, from outlandish countries.

As their first day was fine and the bay smooth, Captain Hawes took the children out for a row in his "sharpey." How delightful it was, skimming so easily over the shining water. The shore, the docks, and the vessels at the wharves were all so interesting from this view.

He told them all about the different craft they passed, the fishermen, the coal barges, the tramp steamers, how they sailed and where they went to, and now, finding them such good listeners, for the Captain liked to tell about ships and the sea, he launched forth into a general history of things connected with sea life, from the first men, long, long ago, who began poling about on rafts, to the coracle, and the dugout. The dugouts were canoes hollowed out of tree trunks.

"Down in the South Seas the savages still make them; I've seen them many a time," he explained; "and of course you've heard of our Indians' birchbark canoes."

By and by the use of sails had developed, and boats and ships grew bigger, and now the day of the steamboat had come.

"Now, I want you to know all about boats and ships," he added; "I'll take you to the yards to-morrow, if it's fine, and show you how they make them, so that when you go back home, where they