This was an enchanted spot. In the first place, it was the very kind of a pond for "going in wading." That mysterious and dangerous thing called the undertow, which lived among the breakers, had no influence in these quiet waters. Then, along the edges could be found, more than anywhere else, all kinds of interesting shells and sea creatures. There were large white shells, well adapted for scooping holes in the sand, and smaller, roundish cockle-shells whose inmates were usually at home. When you picked up one of them the cockle retired inside and drew a trap-door over the entrance. There were starfish with waving tentacles, sand-dollars, and the empty shells of sea-urchins and razor-clams. The black and ominous-looking objects which I implicitly believed to be sharks' eggs were often found near the borders of that ocean pond, and horseshoe crabs crawled darkly beneath its surface or lay dry and deceased on the sand. Some rocks, covered with seaweed, sheltered a colony of ordinary crabs--little ones, who scuttled away as you approached, and big, dignified, ferocious veterans, who looked up at you defiantly and blew a multitude of bubbles, though whether they did this through wrath and indignation, or merely with the conscious joy of the artist, I could never discover. These rocks were also the haunt of sea-gulls, who took flight before you could come close to them. The sandpipers were more neighborly, skipping along the beach in front of you, though even they were shy and wary. The waves brought up many charming varieties of seaweed, red, green, and brown. Beautiful enough it looked in the water; the disappointment came when you took it out. Besides all these living or growing things, each high tide cast up on the sands an assortment of fascinating objects--pebbles of odd shapes and colors, smooth bits of wood rounded by the waves, spindles and spools that had come down the river from the mills of far-away towns, and bottles which always looked as if they were going to contain a message from some ship-wrecked mariner--but never did. And now the greatest delight of all had been added, for I could watch for my father's ship to come in. It would naturally land there, I argued; while he was living at the seashore he would have it come as near as possible to his house. It might run right up to the beach; they would put out a gangplank and one of the sailors would wheel my velocipede ashore. Then I could spend the day riding it around the veranda of our cottage. Or perhaps the ship would not be able to come so close to the shore. It would anchor a mile or two out, and send a boat. The velocipede might get wet coming in an open boat that way, and, if it were made of iron, the water would rust it. I hoped they would know enough to cover it up before they started to row in to the beach.