Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/57

 March. For the most part, cold rain locked the harbor in a gray solitude and kept Resthaven dwellers in an isolation of inactivity quite as colorless.

Then, in the town across the bridge, the Historical Society announced a "Loan Exhibition of Maritime Relics." The three young Ingrams, of course, walked to it over the bridge beneath one umbrella—the edges of all of them got rather wet. The permanent collection of the Historical Society was always interesting in itself—queer old cradles and carding-wheels and samplers and pewter—but the "maritime relics" delighted the hearts of the Ingrams beyond measure. For there were walking-sticks made out of whales' bones, elaborately carved on long cruises, and ivory pastry-wheels hooped with Mexican silver and cut with the name of wife or true-love ashore; and there were curious birds made of over-lapping shells, and savage drums, and harpoon barbs, and toggle-irons, and whales' teeth, and cutlasses, and old guns. There were several log-books, open, beneath glass; there were tiny ships inclosed—apparently by some miracle—in small-necked bottles; there was a brass speaking-trumpet,