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��Reuben Tracy s Vacation Trips,
��Tracy was enjoying the Kittery side, which also had its suggestive history. They soon passed the twin lighthouses of Whale's Back. Reuben was still wondering why that name was given to it, when his quick ear heard the ringing of a bell afar off in the distance. What could that be? Then Mrs. Tracy told the boys of the valuable bell-buoys, of which they had never heard. The sea was just rough enough to cause the bell stationed there to ring most of the time ; and as they passed it, they de- clared that they never heard anything more dismal. Franlc said that he should always think of that in a stormy night ringing out to warn the sailors. After a sail of an hour and a half, they landed at Appledore Island, the largest of the seven which comprise the Isles of Shoals, and which altogether make a little over six hundred acres. Reu- ben said that they were now in Maine, for Appledore, Smutty Nose, Duck, and Cedar belonged to Maine ; while Star, White, and Londoner belonged to New Hampshire. His mother was pleased to hear him apply his geographical knowledge of the place so soon. She was sure now that he never would for- get that fact. They spent a short time in looking around the island, with its attractive hotel, so finely situated, and its half dozen pretty cottages. One of them Mrs. Tracy pointed out as the home of Celia Thaxter, who, she told them, was a poetess who had written so feelingly of the sea, and who had told, in a pretty poem, how in the years gone by she had often lighted with her own hands the light in the lighthouse which they could see on White Island, a short distance from them. The boys wished to go there, as they had never been near a lighthouse ; but as Mrs. Tracy felt that in their limited time Star
��Island would, on the whole, afford them more pleasure and profit, they took the little miniature steamer Pinafore, which constantly plied between the two islands, and in a few minutes' time were landed on its historic ground.
After they had dined at the Oceanic, a hotel kept by the same proprietors as the Appledore House, on the island which they had just left, they found that they had an hour and a half in which to look around before the steamer should return to Portsmouth. As they sauntered along over the rocks back of the hotel, they came near enough to the little meeting-house, which was standing there, to read on its side the following inscription : —
GOSPORT CHURCH.
Originally constructed of the timbers from the wreck of a spanish ship, a. d. 1685; was rebuilt in 1720, and burned by
THE ISLANDERS IN 1 790. ThIS BUILDING OF STONE WAS ERECTED A. D. 180O.
Through the kindness of a gentleman who had brought the key to gain entrance into the interior, they all went in through the little side door to see a comparatively small room, with about twenty-five pews, and a quaint desk with a large chair each side of it. Mrs. Tracy said that when this church was built, in 1800, that island had only fifteen families and ninety-two persons, while Smutty Nose had three families and twenty persons, and Appledore had not an inhabitant upon it. Reuben said that there was a time, more than a hundred years before the Revolution- ary War, when the town of Gosport, which included all the islands, con- tained from three hundred to six hun- dred inhabitants. Miss De Severn wished that they had time to read some old preserved records of that place, which were now to be seen at the hotel.
As they came out of the church.
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