Virginia: The Old Dominion

glory of the early morning she followed its waters out into Hampton Road

bethought ourselves that she was carrying us into the undertaking breakfastless. The wheel was put ove

he houseboat was lying in a quiet lagoon bordered on the mainland side by a bit of Virginia's great truck garden. Her

ut often punctuated the melody with strong language designed to encourage the mules. One wailing voice came to our ears with the set refrain, "O feed me, white folks!

. We had intended to take our little voyage on the James in the springtime. It had been a good deal a matter of sentiment; but sentiment will have its way in h

dogwood some three hundred years ago, when from the wild waste of the Atlantic three puny, storm-worn vessels (sc

colonies few and short-lived. By the opening of the seventeenth century Spain and France, or perhaps Spain alone, seemed destined to possess the entire new hemisphere. In all the extent of the Americas, England was not then in po

hose three little old-time ships, the Sarah

ir reckoning, they turned for refuge one April day into a yawning break in the coast-line that we now call Chesapeake Bay. Following the sheltering, inviting waters inland, they took their way up

the stream of its Indian name, Powhatan, that so befitted the bold, tawny flow, bestowing instead the name of the puerile King o

. But to our regret it was not springtime. The dogwood blossoms had come and gone when Gadabout lay b

way out from behind the island and started up the James in the wake of the Sarah Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. That historic wake we were to follow for the first thirty miles of our jou

of American civilization? Surely not very much. Keeping one's eyes in the right direction it was easy to blot out three hundred years, and to feel tha

ections in which to look. Glances northward took in a scene diffe

d a channel into the James and which (in their relief) t

ries. For this was the grain elevator at Newport News, spouting its endless stream to feed the Old World, and standing almost on the spot where those first settlers in the New World,

owers and spires and home smoke-wreaths we saw, where those beginners of our c

ng on the boiling surge kicked up astern, we felt that our cruise was well begun. Not that we were misled for a moment by that boiling surge astern into the belief

with the accent on the first syllable, as it ought to be, the homey feeling comes quickly to the family group aboard. Day after day brings new scenes and places, yet the fa

t ran just inside the light and quite close to it. It is an old and a pretty custom by which a passing vessel "speaks" a lighthouse. In this instance perhaps

d whipped up from the bay, and the wide, low-shored river rolled dark and unfriendly.

f his unseaworthy, lubberly craft. A little experience on even inland waters in their less friend

oat has been sacrificed to make her so. Then too the houseboater is usually quite a landlubber after all; so that even if the boat is strong enough to meet an angry se

ising in the true spirit of houseboating, and in the charming, aw

tributary stream that the chart indicated just ahead, and in which we should find quiet anchorage. There seemed something snug and cozy about the very name

of them. But after a while footsteps were heard overhead and we found that we had a full cargo of boys. They had made their boats fast to Gadabout's stern as she passed, and were now grouped in some uncerta

ainted with those waters, and were better than the chart in g

ke bordered by tree-covered hills. At the far end of the blue basin was a break and a gleam of lighter water to show that this was not really a

on the hills to our left was a village that straggled down the slope to the wharf as if coming to greet the stranger

attempted to run alongside a schooner to make inquiries. She was a good sized craft, and it did not seem as if he could miss her. He claimed that he did not. He explai

upon the schooner. This time her being in the wrong place did not seem to matter; for we reached her all right, and there probably was no place along that side where we did not remove mo

of our city ice, we looked out over what we supposed was but the first of many such beautiful creek-ha

om the James, a boat plying regularly bet

uffing as seemed to say, "Now, I'm certainly mighty glad to get back again to you all." Just the sort of steamer that wouldn't mind a bit if the pretty girls were "a right smart time" kissing g

for we never could be nautically prompt), our flags were run

e white porticoes looking out over the miniature harbour. Somewhere were the music of a merry-go-round and the calls and laughter of children. In from the wider waters came mor

acted again in the gloom the play that is as old as the first ship upon tideway. With bow turned up-stream, Gadabout sank slowly lower and lower, as even little Chuckatuck heard the voice of the far-away ocean calling its wa