Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/380

340 stick and tell Collins I want him to get and give me in proper form, with his own inscription, another stick." The fact was that every time I looked on the inscription I was dissatisfied, and said to myself, "Collins didn't put that there." So I sent it back to the jeweler and told him to put on the same kind of band, and to inscribe the stick from me to you.

So, long may you have and wear it, my own dear boy.

Remember me kindly to Mrs. Moseley and Katherine, and to Waller, when you see him.

And a Happy New Year to you and yours.

Affectionately,

In January of 1890, he wrote again to his friend, suggesting a vacation in early May along the eastern shore of Maryland. "Would that be a good place for an absolute rest?" he asks; "I was thinking of a tent on the beach—shooting and fishing, and lying in the sand all day, like savages. How is it? "

Four days later, he wrote again:

. . . . I am going West in March for a month of hard work. In May, please God, we will go down to that eastern shore—and take a howl in the primeval. I am tired to death. . ..

Would one canoe do for the beach? My canoe is smashed. What do you think of a permanent camp on the beach, with fishing, shooting, etc., and only using the canoe for this?

The proposed vacation was never enjoyed. The western trip of which he speaks involved much preparation and care, and on its termination other things occurred to postpone the canoe cruise. His canoe, called after his youngest child, Blanid, had been crushed and wrecked at its moorings in Hull, and he did not procure another; in fact, it is doubtful if he' would have made many more outdoor trips had he lived. He had grown perceptibly older during the last year or two of his life. The last flash of the old adventurous spirit that I can remember came out when Cardinal Lavigerie, the great enemy of the slave trade in Africa, said that the infamous traffic could be suppressed by force of arms, if only "one thousand men, prepared for suffering and sacrifice,—men who desired no