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" 'The Sea!' murmured poor Clippa with a faraway look in her eyes
(she had fine eyes, had my sister, Clippa). 'How like a dream it
sounds-- the Sea! Oh brother, will we ever swim in it again,
think you? Every night as I lie awake on the floor of this
evil-smelling dungeon I hear its hearty voice ringing in my ears.
How I have longed for it! Just to feel it once again, the nice,
big, wholesome homeliness of it all! To jump, just to jump from
the crest of an Atlantic wave, laughing in the trade wind's
spindrift, down into the blue-green swirling trough! To chase the
shrimps on a summer evening, when the sky is red and the light's
all pink within the foam! To lie on the top, in the doldrums'
noonday calm, and warm your tummy in the tropic sun! To wander
hand in hand once more through the giant seaweed forests of the
Indian Ocean, seeking the delicious eggs of the pop-pop! To play
hide-and-seek among the castles of the coral towns with their
pearl and jasper windows spangling the floor of the Spanish Main!
To picnic in the anemone-meadows, dim blue and lilac-gray, that
lie in the lowlands beyond the South Sea Garden! To throw
somersaults on the springy sponge-beds of the Mexican Gulf! To
poke about among the dead ships and see what wonders and
adventures lie inside!--And then, on winter nights when the
Northeaster whips the water into froth, to swoop down and down to
get away from the cold, down to where the water's warm and dark,
down and still down, till we spy the twinkle of the fire-eels far
below where our friends and cousins sit chatting round the
Council Grotto--chatting, Brother, over the news and gossip of
THE SEA! . . . Oh--'
"And then she broke down completely, sniffling.
" 'Stop it!' I said. 'You make me homesick. Look here: let's
pretend we're sick--or better still, let's pretend we're dead;
and see what happens. If they throw us on a rubbish-heap and we
fry in the sun, we'll not be much worse off than we are here in
this smelly prison. What do you say? Will you risk it?'
" 'I will,' she said--'and gladly.'
"So next morning two fidgits were found by the keeper floating on
the top of the water in their tank, stiff and dead. We gave a
mighty good imitation of dead fish--although I say it myself. The
keeper ran and got the old gentlemen with spectacles and
whiskers. They threw up their hands in horror when they saw us.
Lifting us carefully out of the water they laid us on wet cloths.
That was the hardest part of all. If you're a fish and get taken
out of the water you have to keep opening and shutting your mouth
to breathe at all--and even that you can't keep up for long. And
all this time we had to stay stiff as sticks and breathe silently
through half-closed lips.
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