I can spend a pleasant hour in the sun watching the sports of the village children on the edge of the surf . Now they chase the retreating wave far down over the wet sand ; now it steals softly up to kiss their naked feet ; now it comes onward with threatening front , and roars after the laughing crew as they scamper beyond its reach . Why should not an old man be merry too , when the great sea is at play with those little children ? I delight , also , to follow in the wake of a pleasure-party of young men and girls strolling along the beach after an early supper at the Point . Here , with handkerchiefs at nose , they bend over a heap of eel-grass entangled in which is a dead skate so oddly accoutred with two legs and a long tail that they mistake him for a drowned animal . A few steps farther the ladies scream , and the gentlemen make ready to protect them against a young shark of the dogfish kind rolling with a lifelike motion in the tide that has thrown him up . Next they are smit with wonder at the black shells of a wagon-load of live lobsters packed in rock-weed for the country-market . And when they reach the fleet of dories just hauled ashore after the day 's fishing , how do I laugh in my sleeve , and sometimes roar outright , at the simplicity of these young folks and the sly humor of the fishermen ! In winter , when our village is thrown into a bustle by the arrival of perhaps a score of country dealers bargaining for frozen fish to be transported hundreds of miles and eaten fresh in Vermont or Canada , I am a pleased but idle spectator in the throng . For I launch my boat no more . When the shore was solitary , I have found a pleasure that seemed even to exalt my mind in observing the sports or contentions of two gulls as they wheeled and hovered about each other with hoarse screams , one moment flapping on the foam of the wave , and then soaring aloft till their white bosoms melted into the upper sunshine . In the calm of the summer sunset I drag my aged limbs with a little ostentation of activity , because I am so old , up to the rocky brow of the hill . There I see the white sails of many a vessel outward bound or homeward from afar , and the black trail of a vapor behind the Eastern steamboat ; there , too , is the sun , going down , but not in gloom , and there the illimitable ocean mingling with the sky , to remind me of eternity . But sweetest of all is the hour of cheerful musing and pleasant talk that comes between the dusk and the lighted candle by my glowing fireside . And never , even on the first Thanksgiving-night , when Susan and I sat alone with our hopes , nor the second , when a stranger had been sent to gladden us and be the visible image of our affection , did I feel such joy as now . All that belongs to me are here : Death has taken none , nor Disease kept them away , nor Strife divided them from their parents or each other ; with neither poverty nor riches to disturb them , nor the misery of desires beyond their lot , they have kept New England 's festival round the patriarch 's board . For I am a patriarch . Here I sit among my descendants , in my old arm-chair and immemorial corner , while the firelight throws an appropriate glory round my venerable frame . -- Susan ! My children !
Something whispers me that this happiest hour must be the final one , and that nothing remains but to bless you all and depart with a treasure of recollected joys XXXXX heaven .
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