Far up and down the river I could see men in boats, gliding noiselessly along the banks, setting hooks for the evening bite. It was past the middle of the afternoon and the big fish, cats, carp and red horse, were beginning to run. This the fishermen knew and were hurrying to place their hooks, baited with mussels. At nine o’clock at night and early the next morning the hooks were looked. While standing there, gazing here and there, I saw a party of small negro boys, wading to their waists in the water, graveling in the sand, for mussels to sell to the fishermen. Silently and doggedly, the little fellows hunted the slimy, shell-covered creatures, gathering them by the hundred. The longer I remained there on that knoll, in the midst of that peculiarly fascinating life, the more interested I became. Every man, every woman and every boy or girl appealed to me. Between five-thirty and six o’clock the men who baited and placed the hooks came ashore, fastened their boats, and went to their respective homes for supper and a moment with their wives and children before starting out for the night fish. I saw them go and come with their nets. From dark until about ten o’clock they fished for shad, the most valuable fish in the Cape Fear at that season of the year. It is intensely fascinating to watch the movements and study the habits and manners of the people who get their living from the water. They belong to a certain class and are of a certain type, differing from their brothers and sisters who till the soil. Loving the water and having become so used to it, they would not quit it for the land. As a rule, river people are strong and ruddy. Their faces are hard and sunburned and their muscles well-knit and tough. It is a wholesome life. These be the sort of men I saw that afternoon. On the ground they were awkward, ill at ease, and grouchy, but in their boats graceful, sturdy and merry. Soon after I went down to the river and settled myself, to look on and learn what I could of the ways of the living things about me, I heard a shuffling noise behind me, and when I turned to ascertain the cause, my eyes fell upon the most pitiful creature it had ever been my fortune to see. A woman, yes, a woman, one of God’s noblest creatures, stood and gazed in wonderment at me. She had approached within a few feet of me before she realized that I was a living being; I was hid from the view of the path that leads from the town to the river by a thicket of weeds and grass.