I overtook the horse-shoe crab on the sands, but I did not like
to turn him over and make him "say his prayers," as some of the
children did. I thought it must be wicked. And then he looked so
uncomfortable, imploringly wriggling his claws while he lay upon
his back! I believe I did, however, make a small collection of
the shells of stranded horseshoe crabs deserted by their tenants.
There were also pretty canary-colored cockle-shells and tiny
purple mussels washed up by the tide. I gathered them into my
apron, and carried them home, and only learned that they too held
living inhabitants by seeing a dead snail protruding from every
shell after they had been left to themselves for a day or two.
This made me careful to pick up only the empty ones, and there
were plenty of them. One we called a "butterboat"; it had
something shaped like a seat across the end of it on the inside.
And the curious sea-urchin, that looked as if he was made only
for ornament, when he had once got rid of his spines, and the
transparent jelly-fish, that seemed to have no more right to be
alive than a ladleful of mucilage,--and the razor-shells, and the
barnacles, and the knotted kelp, and the flabby green sea-aprons,
--there was no end to the interesting things I found when I was
trusted to go down to the edge of the tide alone.
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