What the Waves Said

WHAT THE WAVES SAID

Hey sat on the rocks together in the gloom of the summer night and the moon came out from behind a great bank of fleecy white clouds and stared at them until the little waves took notice and whispered among themselves at the orb’s impoliteness. The night was one when romance roamed at large through the darkness and breathed from every fitful breeze. The man leaned toward his companion and his hand found hers.

“Is it not beautiful—” he asked softly, “the moon on the water? See yonder silver path; one can well imagine that there, farther out, the mermaids laugh and sing under the moon's soft rays and toss their clinging tresses in the air. Listen! you may almost hear their voices. Why is not life always thus—the sea, the moon, the summer night, the salt, sweet breeze—and—and you?”

The last words lacked the enthusiasm of those which had gone before, but the occasion demanded something of the sort, and the man was not the sort of man to hesitate when duty called. But the maiden only looked thoughtful at first. Then she replied:

“It is pretty, isn’t it? It reminds me so much of home. Have you ever seen Michigan Avenue at night with the electric lights shining away into the distance at both sides? And when it rains the reflections on the asphalt are just too sweet for anything! Do you like Chicago as well as New York? I’m sure the electric lights in New York can't be nearly so nice as ours at home; are they?” The man for a time gazed in silence at the moon and the sea. Then he sighed regretfully and arose.

“Come,” he said, firmly, “let us return to the hotel. If we are to talk of the electric lights of Chicago the hotel piazza will do quite as well. Out here one is unpleasantly impressed with the inefficiency of the moon.”

The moon crept behind the bank of clouds with a wrathful shudder and the little waves giggled wickedly among themselves and cried after him:

He—he—he! It served you right for staring!” By Richard Stillman Powell.