THE VAGABOND

The bus stopped. And all its occupants withdrew their heads from the opened windows from which they had been leaning to get a better view of the skirted figures that had chanced to pass their way. And they all got out. And they al had shiny sabre-toothed hammers. They wore tennis shoes and old gray flannels and carried little black books. One, and he was their Leader, wore blue jeans and carried a compass, a battered sabre-toothed hammer, a battered black book and looked very wise. He led them out over the rocks.

The little group crossed two backyards, trampled three flower beds and thus reached the coast of Swampscott. They proceded to a large red the rock. Then each individual began to hack away the rock with his hammer. The Leader picked up a small piece; "Silurian amygdaloidal pyroxenite." And the group wrote in their little black books. This ritual they repeated at several other large rocks. Many slippery smaller rocks were in their way. And the sea burst its spray upon them. They all got their feet wet. And when they reached a very high point on the coast, one slipped and fell down a deep chasm into the sea, and was drowned.

The group went on. Finally, when they turned a bend in the coast, their pockets bulging with little rock specimens, they saw a group of maidens also with hammers hacking a big rock. The maidens were beautiful and came from Wellesley. They all looked very wise. When the maidens saw the young men approaching, they no longer looked wise but subtle. They disappeared among the big rocks.

The young men continued their study of the rocks. When they rounded the next bend, they again say the maidens, and each was looking under a ledge. When the maidens saw the young men, they stopped looking under the ledges. And so the two groups continued to weave in and out among the inlets and coves of the coast of Swampscott. After some time, the Leader, coming upon a very large rock extending far out into the sea, walked to its very edge and shouted: "Siluvian amygdaloidal pyroxenite." There was no answer.

Much later the bus rolled to a stop in the Square. All its windows were closed. All its occupants were smiling. And so the Vag came home from his first Geology I field trip.