The Cruise of the Dolphin

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich




(1 An episode from The Story of a Bad Boy, the narrator being Tom
Bailey, the hero of the tale.)


Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixed
up with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he
hears the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is older, he
wanders by the sandy shore, watching the waves that come plunging
up the beach like white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them;
his eye follows the lessening sail as it fades into the blue
horizon, and he burns for the time when he shall stand on the
quarter-deck of his own ship, and go sailing proudly across that
mysterious waste of waters.

Then the town itself is full of hints and flavors of the sea. The
gables and roofs of the houses facing eastward are covered with red
rust, like the flukes of old anchors; a salty smell pervades the
air, and dense gray fogs, the very breath of Ocean, periodically
creep up into the quiet streets and envelop everything. The
terrific storms that lash the coast; the kelp and spars, and
sometimes the bodies of drowned men, tossed on shore by the
scornful waves; the shipyards, the wharves, and the tawny fleet of
fishing-smacks yearly fitted out at Rivermouth--these things, and a