Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/321

Rh us thither, and here we took a carriage to drive along the sands. Our driver was a Yankee of fifteen, good-natured and lively, who had come from Boston to Charleston to seek his fortune. The boy had gone to a common school, and was remarkably clever in his remarks and replies. We confided ourselves to his guidance, and deeply engrossed in conversation, it was not until after half an hour's time that we observed that instead of driving us on the firm sands, he was driving us quite into the water, and going in deeper and deeper. We called to the boy; he seemed to ponder about it, but said we should be soon right, and thus we drove on again for a while. The water, however, by this time was above half way up the wheels, and we were among deep holes; it was clear that we were not in the right road; and when we again spoke to our young driver, it appeared that instead of driving on the usual and southern side of the island, he had driven on the northern shore, because he wished to ascertain whether it was possible to drive also on that side. He had chosen this occasion for the experiment.

Mrs. W. H. laughed so heartily at the idea of the lad's scheme of trying an experiment with us which might have cost us our lives, that her anger lost its power. The boy was a little frightened, but smiled nevertheless, and would willingly have continued his experiment to the end; but this we utterly forbade, as we none of us knew what ground we were upon, and each fresh step might be our last. We alighted, therefore, among the bushes of the shore, and left the boy to find his way across the island with the carriage and horses, in the best way he was able.

We found our way through bushes and thickets, Mrs. W. H. laughing the whole way with incomparable good temper at the Yankee boy's characteristic scheme. After an hour's wandering, forcing our way through thick bushwood, and wading through sand, we found a footpath and traces of a fence. From this point we looked