You think of one such word - a short, sweet word
of but four letters. You speak that word reverently, lovingly,
caressingly.
Nearer and nearer draws that blessed dark blue strip. Nantucket
light is behind us. Long Island shoulders up alongside. Trunks
accumulate in gangways; so do stewards and other functionaries.
You have been figuring upon the tips which you will bestow upon
them at parting; so have they. It will be hours yet before we
land. Indeed, if the fog thickens, we may not get in before
to-morrow, yet people run about exchanging good-byes and swapping
visiting cards and promising one another they will meet again.
I think it is reckless for people to trifle with their luck that
way.
Forward, on the lower deck, the immigrants cluster, chattering a
magpie chorus in many tongues. The four-and-twenty blackbirds
which were baked in a pie without impairment to the vocal cords
have nothing on them. Most of the women were crying when they
came aboard at Naples or Palermo or Gibraltar. Now they are all
smiling. Their dunnage is piled in heaps and sailors, busy with
ropes and chains and things, stumble over it and swear big round
German oaths.
Why, gracious! We are actually off Sandy Hook. Dear old Sandy
- how one loves those homely Scotch names! The Narrows are nigh
and Brooklyn, the City Beautiful, awaits us around the second
turning to the left.
