rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_69dbae60-f61c-5c07-825b-254e0d8c61cd">THROUGH THE FOG
"THE LITTLE FELLER'S STOCKIN'"
THE LITTLE OLD HOUSE BY THE SHORE
Preface
A friend has objected to the title of this book on the ground that, as many of the characters and scenes described are to be found in almost any coast village of the United States, the title might, with equal fitness, be "New Jersey Ballads," or "Long Island Ballads," or something similar.
The answer to this is, simply, that while "School-committee Men" and "Village Oracles" are, doubtless, pretty much alike throughout Yankeedom, the particular specimens here dealt with were individuals whom the author knew in his boyhood "down on the Cape." So, "Cape Cod Ballads" it is.
The verses in this collection originally appeared in Harper's Weekly, The Youth's Companion, The Saturday Evening Post, Puck, Types, The League of American Wheelmen Bulletin, and the publications of the American Press Association. Thanks are due to the editors of these periodicals for their courteous permission to reprint.
J.C.L.
CAPE COD BALLADS
THE COD-FISHER
Where leap the long Atlantic swells
In foam-streaked stretch of hill and dale,
Where shrill the north-wind demon yells,
And flings the spindrift down the gale;
Where, beaten 'gainst the bending mast,
The frozen raindrop clings and cleaves,
With steadfast front for calm or blast
His battered schooner rocks and heaves.
To same the gain, to some the loss, To each the chance, the risk, the fight: For men must die that men may live— Lord, may we steer our course aright.. The dripping deck beneath him reels, The flooded scuppers spout the brine; He heeds them not, he only feels The tugging of a tightened line. The
