The Goodness of St. Rocque | Page 9

all over at her own boldness,
"we will have one lil' hay-ride this night, and a fish-fry at the end. Will
you come?"
Annette sprang to her feet in delight. "Will I come? Certainly. How
delightful! You are so good to ask me. What shall--what time--" But
Natalie's pink bonnet had fled precipitately down the shaded walk.
Annette laughed joyously as Philip lounged down the gallery.
"I frightened the child away," she told him.
You've never been for a hay-ride and fish-fry on the shores of the
Mississippi Sound, have you? When the summer boarders and the
Northern visitors undertake to give one, it is a comparatively staid
affair, where due regard is had for one's wearing apparel, and where
there are servants to do the hardest work. Then it isn't enjoyable at all.
But when the natives, the boys and girls who live there, make up their
minds to have fun, you may depend upon its being just the best kind.
This time there were twenty boys and girls, a mamma or so, several
papas, and a grizzled fisherman to restrain the ardor of the amateurs.
The cart was vast and solid, and two comfortable, sleepy-looking mules
constituted the drawing power. There were also tin horns, some guitars,
an accordion, and a quartet of much praised voices. The hay in the
bottom of the wagon was freely mixed with pine needles, whose
prickiness through your hose was amply compensated for by its
delicious fragrance.
After a triumphantly noisy passage down the beach one comes to the
stretch of heavy sand that lies between Pass Christian proper and
Henderson's Point. This is a hard pull for the mules, and the more
ambitious riders get out and walk. Then, after a final strain through the

shifting sands, bravo! the shell road is reached, and one goes cheering
through the pine-trees to Henderson's Point.
If ever you go to Pass Christian, you must have a fish-fry at
Henderson's Point. It is the pine-thicketed, white-beached peninsula
jutting out from the land, with one side caressed by the waters of the
Sound and the other purred over by the blue waves of the Bay of St.
Louis. Here is the beginning of the great three-mile trestle bridge to the
town of Bay St. Louis, and to-night from the beach could be seen the
lights of the villas glittering across the Bay like myriads of unsleeping
eyes.
Here upon a firm stretch of white sand camped the merry-makers. Soon
a great fire of driftwood and pine cones tossed its flames defiantly at a
radiant moon in the sky, and the fishers were casting their nets in the
sea. The more daring of the girls waded bare-legged in the water,
holding pine-torches, spearing flounders and peering for soft-shell
crabs.
Annette had wandered farther in the shallow water than the rest.
Suddenly she stumbled against a stone, the torch dropped and
spluttered at her feet. With a little helpless cry she looked at the stretch
of unfamiliar beach and water to find herself all alone.
"Pardon me, mademoiselle," said a voice at her elbow; "you are in
distress?"
It was her fisherman, and with a scarce conscious sigh of relief,
Annette put her hand into the outstretched one at her side.
"I was looking for soft shells," she explained, "and lost the crowd, and
now my torch is out."
"Where is the crowd?" There was some amusement in the tone, and
Annette glanced up quickly, prepared to be thoroughly indignant at this
fisherman who dared make fun at her; but there was such a kindly look
about his mouth that she was reassured and said meekly,--
"At Henderson's Point."
"You have wandered a half-mile away," he mused, "and have nothing
to show for your pains but very wet skirts. If mademoiselle will permit
me, I will take her to her friends, but allow me to suggest that
mademoiselle will leave the water and walk on the sands."
"But I am barefoot," wailed Annette, "and I am afraid of the fiddlers."
Fiddler crabs, you know, aren't pleasant things to be dangling around

one's bare feet, and they are more numerous than sand fleas down at
Henderson's Point.
"True," assented the fisherman; "then we shall have to wade back."
The fishing was over when they rounded the point and came in sight of
the cheery bonfire with its Rembrandt-like group, and the air was
savoury with the smell of frying fish and crabs. The fisherman was not
to be tempted by appeals to stay, but smilingly disappeared down the
sands, the red glare of his torch making a glowing track in the water.
"Ah, Mees Annette," whispered Natalie, between mouthfuls of a rich
croaker, "you have found a beau in the water."
"And the fisherman of the Pass, too," laughed her