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قراءة كتاب Across the Fruited Plain

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‏اللغة: English
Across the Fruited Plain

Across the Fruited Plain

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

skedaddle," ordered a big man. "If you want to see things, come back at four."

By four o'clock the grown folks were home, tired and smelling of fish; Dick and Rose-Ellen were prancing on tiptoe to go, and even Jimmie was ready.

"This is what he is like," said Rose-Ellen, "the man who said we could." She stuck in her chin and threw out her chest and tried to stride.

"That's the Big Boss, all right," Daddy said, laughing. "Guess it's O.K. But mind your _p_'s and _q_'s."

"And stick together. Specially in a strange place." Grandma wearily picked up the baby.

The Big Boss saw them as soon as they tiptoed into the oyster-house. "Ez," he called, "here's some nice kids. Show 'em around, will you?"

Ez was opening clams with a penknife, and spilling them into his mouth. "Want some?" he asked.

The children shook their heads vigorously.

He closed his knife and dropped it into his pocket.

"Well, now first you want to see the dredges come in from the bay." He took them through the open front of the shed to the docks outside. The boats had gone out at three o'clock in the morning, he said, in the deep dark. They were coming in now heavily, loaded high with horny oysters, and Ez pointed out the rake-set iron nets with which the shellfish were dragged from their beds. "Got 'em out of bed good and early!"

"I'd hate to have to eat 'em all," Jimmie said suddenly in his husky little voice.

Everyone laughed, for the big rough shells were traveling into the oyster-house by thousands, on moving belts. Some shells looked as if they were carrying sponges in their mouths, but Ez said it was a kind of moss that grew there. Already the pile of unopened oysters in the shed was higher than a man. The shuckers needed a million to work on next day, Ez said.


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