The day at Ogunquit was one of many pleasant, quiet days that Martine spent with Clare on the shore or up the river. Almost always Mrs. Stratford and Mrs. Ethridge went with them. In a short time Martine had become an expert paddler, and she was proud enough to have her mother entrust herself to her care. One afternoon, in two canoes, the four went three or four miles up the river to have tea in a little cove on the Bans. It did not detract from Martine's pleasure, when they passed the Country Club, to hear Peggy and Carlotta shout from the piazza: "Don't go past." "There's a landing here." Or rather, if they did not hear clearly they judged that this was the meaning of the words that were accompanied with signals and gestures. But without heeding the sirens, Martine and Clare paddled on and their outing was a complete success. It cannot be said that they made their passage upstream without difficulties. It was near the turn of the tide, and part of the way the current was against them. But of two evils they had to choose the less, as Clare thought it wiser to return down the river with the current wholly in their favor. "If the York were a real river, we wouldn't have to do so much planning, but you see it's only an arm of the sea, and in its whole seven miles from the harbor, the tide has to be closely reckoned with." "Yes, I've heard weird tales of canoeists left high and dry on the shore because they had forgotten to calculate the rise and fall of the tide," added Martine. "It's generally worse for the parents at home than for the stranded young people. I have known mothers half-distracted while waiting to hear from missing daughters," said Mrs. Ethridge. "Then we were wise in coming with the girls," added Mrs. Stratford. "As if we would have come without you. The whole fun to-day is showing you the river," responded Martine, who had been up with Clare before. "There," she continued, "I forgot to give you my one piece of information--that Sewall's Bridge near the Country Club is the oldest pier bridge in the United States, and was built by the same Major Sewall who built the first bridge between Cambridge and Boston." "Unimportant, if true," and Mrs. Stratford smiled at Martine's earnestness. "I approve, my dear, of your zeal for history, but in New England people often make too much of unimportant trifling things." "Bridges and houses." "Yes, and Indians and wars and--" "Then you won't appreciate this verse that Clare recited the other day: "Hundreds were murdered in their beds Without shame or remorse, And soon the floors and roads were strewed With many a bloody corse." "Evidently the writer of those lines had a real tragedy in mind," replied Mrs. Stratford.