The Sea Fairies

"Nobody," said Cap'n Bill solemnly, "ever sawr a mermaid an' lived to tell the tale.""Why not?" asked Trot, looking earnestly up into the old sailor's face.They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that grew just at the edge of thebluff.

Below them rolled the blue waves of the great Pacific.

A little way behind them was thehouse, a neat frame cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus and pepper trees.Still farther behind that-a quarter of a mile distant but built upon a bend of the coast-was thevillage, overlooking a pretty bay.Cap'n Bill and Trot came often to this tree to sit and watch the ocean below them.

The sailorman had one "meat leg" and one "hickory leg," and he often said the wooden one was the best ofthe two.

Once Cap'n Bill had commanded and owned the "Anemone," a trading schooner thatplied along the coast; and in those days Charlie Griffiths, who was Trot's father, had been theCaptain's mate.

But ever since Cap'n Bill's accident, when he lost his leg, Charlie Griffiths hadbeen the captain of the little schooner while his old master lived peacefully ashore with theGriffiths family.