A Child of the Sea and Life Among the Mormons on Beaver Island/Early Memories of Childhood Days

Among my earliest recollections is my love of watching the water. I remember standing with my arms outstreached as if to welcome and catch the white-topped waves as they came rolling in upon the white, pebbly shore at my feet. I was not quite three years old. My Mother had left me asleep in the low, old-fashioned cradle and, leaving the door ajar, had stepped over to a neighbor's house just a few rods away. Returning almost immediately, she found I was not in the cradle as she had left me a short time before. She began to search for me at once. Fearing I had gone to the shore, she ran down to the beach where the rolling waves were coming in with a booming sound, and the wind blowing a gale. She found me standing in the water, laughing and reaching out my little arms as the great waves broke and dashed at my feet. Had she not come just in time I would have been carried out with the receding waves.

I had always lived near the water, but until this time had never seemed to realize or distinguish it from other things. Our house stood just a few steps from the shore, sheltered in a little grove of evergreen trees. The sun shining on the water in the early morning caused it to sparkle like myriads of diamonds, and the soft glimmer which shone through the green trees even now reminds me of somw half-remembered dream. I remember at other times when no wind was near and the water was calm at night when I lay in my cradle; I could hear the soft splash of the water in low murmurs as it came softly upon the gravelly beach so near to us. To me it seemed like some sweet lullaby lulling me to sleep while listening to its low moaning sound. My mother said it always made her weep, for it to her was the sad whispering voices of departed friends.