Charles Eliot Landscape Architect Author:Charles W. Eliot Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: r- tf u ; a S f- X -ex. 11] CALF ISLAND CAMP Door. Parlor. Door. Kitchen. Screen. w. c. is a flag-pole where we have a f... more »lag, and salute all the Boats that go by. It is foggy to day and we cannot see Mount Desert at all. Your affectionate grandson, Chables Eliot. The camp described in the above letter was subsequently moved to a more central position on the island. This way of passing the summer in camping and yachting combined was continued by the family until 1878 inclusive, excepting the summer of 1877. The children began with imaginative sports hi the woods on Calf Island and about the puddles the tide left in the gently sloping ledges which formed part of its shores. They sailed their shingle boats on the puddles, and imagined the sailors, cargoes, and harbors, and the lighthouses and day-marks of the coast. They had caches of treasures at various mysterious points on that larger half of the island which was wooded, and with the help of their elders they made various beloved paths to attractive points of view. The island was more than a mile long, had a considerable variety of surface and of shore, and commanded exquisite views to the northeast, the northwest, and the southwest. The children came into close contact with Nature in all her various moods: the rain beat loudly on the tent-flies right over their heads; the wind shook the canvas shelters and threatened to prostrate them, but never did ; the oxen — the only other inhabitants of the island — walked about the tents in the early morning, waking some of the sleepers by their loud breathing; the sun beat fiercely on field and tents, but the double roofs were always an adeearly explorers, like Cabot, Verrazano, De Monts, Cham- plain, Weymouth, and Smith. This interest la...« less