The rock-ledge at one end of the beach had been catching her eye for some time. She watched how fearlessly the gulls plunged on quivering wings, down, down, then rose again, covered with silvery drops, to fly here and there. Then she would look back at the little precipice. She thought: “I cannot fly! They do it from the air, but I cannot. I can do it from the precipice! Why not?” Then, aloud: “I will be a bird—I will do it!”
She walked back to the point where the cliff towered from the beach. She climbed up. She selected, in the water so far below, a place that was free from the treacherous-looking rocks. Then, swaying her arms a moment and plucking up high courage, she gave a flying leap and landed in the deep water.
Another miracle! She had never had a chance to swim before, but somehow she did it naturally now. It was an instinct in her to kick with her legs and throw out her arms in the right way. Fortunately she had landed in the place without rocks. Shaking herself in imitation of the gulls, so that silvery drops flew from her in all directions, she began to swim about. She played in the water for a time, entranced, singing as she had never done before, even in the meadow. After a while she came out, all shining, laughing and dancing. But it was then too late in the day to play any more; so she lay down on the sand, well out of reach of the tide, and slept, with the murmuring of the sea in her ears all night.
It had been high tide; but the tide was now going out, and near the beach the tops of the great rocks were appearing. To Eepersip, who had never before been near the ocean, these things which happened every day were strange and delightful, and she could not look at them enough. Each wave was pure blue, topped and trimmed with spray. As the waters drew back Eepersip had to retreat; for the low tide revealed more and more rocks, and the spray that hit upon them flew back farther and farther. Gradually they were left bare and dry, and Eepersip arranged seaweeds and sea-plants in the little pools left in their hollows. When, at last, high tide came in, she sorrowed to watch them become part of the sea again. But she knew, of course, that when the tide went out other pools would be left—perhaps more than there had been before.
Among the rocks at the back of the beach Eepersip found a pool made by leaping spray from a storm. She trimmed it with seaweeds of brown and green. She took some of the dried low-tide snails from the rocks around it and cast them into the sea. With her hands she caught some sluggish yet pretty little fishes and put them into her pool. As she was doing this she noticed how the tide was coming in—she had been so intent upon her task that she hadn’t seen it. It was now almost up to her. She stopped what she was doing and watched it anxiously, afraid that it was going to reach her pool. But, to her great joy, it didn’t. The waves lapped as if they wanted it very much, but they couldn’t quite touch it; and Eepersip, worried no longer, continued her happy playing.
In this way the days passed, with something new all the time. But she did not forget her little pool. She tended it, putting in fresh plants and rocks, and replacing a fish if it died.
She slept in a crevice in the rocks at the end of the beach. There was a tunnel under the rocks that the water had cut; if she crept to the farther end, no tide could reach her. There was a spring in the pasture in back of the beach, about a hundred yards away, and there Eepersip got her supply of fresh water. It made a merry brooklet which ran bubbling down a small hill and into the sea. When it was stormy she had a habit of merely snuggling under the rocks as far as she could go, to watch the glistening whitecaps and listen to the crashing surf. But before she had seen many storms she stayed out when they weren’t too severe, and sometimes played about in the waves—and she liked to be ducked.
In her explorations along the shore one day Eepersip found a great raft, made from interlacing twigs and plastered over with clay and pitch. Here and there great water-soaked ropes bound it firmly. It had been washed up on the shore, and from a long period in the sea, had become terribly slimy and waterlogged. Eepersip hauled it to the water to see if it would hold her weight, but it sank immediately. So she let it dry off in the sun for a long time; and at last, when it had become quite dry, she tried again. This time it held her. It started drifting off to sea with her on it, but she quickly slipped off and took it to shore again. A few days afterward Eepersip found a board, about three feet long and broad enough to serve perfectly as a paddle.
That was what she had wanted. She hauled the raft out to her depth, climbed on to it, took the paddle, and pushed off merrily.
Under strong strokes the water whirled and rushed, and the raft pushed through it. Sometimes she came to a sand-flat, and again to such a deep place that when she looked down all she could see was menacing shadows. Once the raft came into a shoal of carmine-coloured fishes with very long pointed fins. Of course, they scattered in
