"No, I thank you,"
replied the swimmer, "I don't eat; my sister does the eating, I only
swim." Turning to another of the gay company with the same offer, he was
answered, "Thank you, the eaters are at the other side; I only lay
eggs." "What strange people!" thought the star-fish; but, with all his
learning, he didn't know every thing, and had never heard how people
sometimes live in communities, and divide the work as suits their fancy.
While we leave him wondering, let us go back to Coraltown. The crumbling
bits, beaten off by the waves, floated about, filling all the chinks of
the wall, while the rough edges at the top caught long ribbons of
seaweed, and sometimes drifting wood from wrecked vessels, and then the
sea washed up sand in great heaps against the walls, building buttresses
for them. Do you know what buttresses are? If you don't, I will leave
you to find out. And the polyps, who do not know how to live in the
light and air, had all died; or those who were wanderers had emigrated
to some new place. Poor little things, their useless lives had ended,
and what good had they done in the world?
CHAPTER III. LITTLE SUNSHINE.
And now let us look at Coraltown once more. It is the first day of June
of 1865. The sun is low in the West, and lights up the crests of the
long lines of breakers that are everywhere curling and dashing among the
topmost turrets of the coral walls. But here is something new and
strange indeed for this region; along one of the ledges of rock, fitted
as it were into a cradle, lies the great steamship "Golden Rule," a
vessel full two hundred and fifty feet long, and holding six or seven
hundred people.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45