The Rudder Grangers Abroad | Page 8

number
missing."
"Repeating Wordsworth's verses, I suppose," remarked the little
teacher.
I had been disappointed in the number of pelicans we had seen. I knew
that Florida was one of the homes of the pelican, and I had not expected
to see these birds merely in small detachments. But our boatman
assured me that on our return trip he would give me a chance of seeing
and shooting as many pelicans as I could desire. We would touch at
Pelican Island, which was inhabited entirely by these birds, and whence
the parties of seven were evidently sent out.
When we had had all the fishing we wanted, we broke up our camp,
and started northward. We had all been very happy and contented

during our ten days' sojourn in this delightful place; but when at last
our departure was determined upon, the Paying Teller became
possessed with a wild desire to go, go, go. There was some reason,
never explained nor fully expressed, why no day, hour, minute, or
second should be lost in speeding to the far Northwest. The boatman,
too, impelled by what impulse I know not, seemed equally anxious to
get home. As for the Paying Teller's "group," it always did exactly as
he wished. Therefore, although Euphemia and I would have been glad
to linger here and there upon our homeward way, we could not gainsay
the desire of the majority of the party, and consequently we sailed
northward as fast as wind and sometimes oars would take us.
Only one cause for delay seemed tolerable to the Paying Teller. This
was to stop at every post-office. We had received but one mail while in
camp, which had been brought in a sail-boat from an office twenty
miles away. But the Paying Teller had given and written the most
intricate and complex directions for the retention or forwarding of his
mail to every postmaster in the country we had passed through, and
these directions, as we afterward found, had so puzzled and unsettled
the minds of these postmasters that for several weeks his letters had
been moving like shuttlecocks up and down the St. John's and Indian
rivers--never stopping anywhere, never being delivered, but crossing
and recrossing each other as if they were imbued with their owner's
desire to go, go, go. Some of the post-offices where we stopped were
lonely little buildings with no other habitation near. These we usually
found shut up, being opened only on mail-days, and in such cases
nothing could be done but to slip a protesting postal into the little slit in
the wall apparently intended for letters. Whether these postals were
eaten by rats or read by the P.M.'s, we never discovered. Wherever an
office was found open, we left behind us an irate postmaster breathing
all sorts of contemplated vengeance upon the disturbers of his peace.
We heard of letters that had been sent north and sent south, but there
never were any at the particular place where we happened to be, and I
suppose that the accumulated mail of the Paying Teller may for several
years drop gradually upon him through the meshes of the Dead-Letter
Office.

There were a great many points of interest which we had passed on our
downward trip, the boatman assuring us that, with the wind we had,
and which might cease at any moment, the great object was to reach
Jupiter as soon as possible, and that we would stop at the interesting
places on the way up. But now the wind, according to his reasoning,
made it necessary that we should again push forward as fast as we
could; and, as I said before, the irresistible attraction of the Northwest
so worked upon the Paying Teller that he was willing to pause nowhere,
during the daytime, but at a post-office. At one place, however, I was
determined to land. This was Pelican Island. The boatman, paying no
attention to his promise to stop here and give me an opportunity to
shoot one of these birds, declared, when near the place, that it would
never do, with such a wind, to drop anchor for a trifle like a pelican.
The Paying Teller and Quee also strongly objected to a stop; and, while
the teacher had a great desire to investigate the subject of ornithology,
especially when exemplified by such a subject as a pelican, she felt
herself obliged to be loyal to her "group," and so quietly gave her voice
to go on. But I, supported by Euphemia, remained so firm that we
anchored a short distance from Pelican Island.
None of the others had any desire to go ashore, and so I, with the gun
and Euphemia, took the boat and rowed to the island. While we were
here the others determined