Walled In

When the world was made, a number of islands were loosely scattered around at the mouth of the Hudson River. To this day, the old river works steadily on, trying to change the saltness of the Atlantic by pouring in fresh water, and trying to widen its own mouth by washing away these islands, but the ocean is as salt as it was a thousand years ago and the islands are of about the same size that they ever were, so far as anybody can see. When they were put there, however, and for nobody knows how long afterward, there was not a boy or girl to have been found upon either of them, while nowadays there are swarms and swarms,


 from every nation this side of Asia, and they are of all sorts and sizes.