I saw how many they devoured day by day, and how much water they drank,
and I fancied that they themselves grew to partake more and more of the
form and character of marine animals. I believed that they could have
existed equally well crawling at the bottom of the deep or swimming on
its surface.
We had lobsters, too, at the Ark. For the first day or two of this
dispensation, Grandpa's face perceptibly brightened. At the end of two
weeks it was longer than ever before.
He came over from his potato patch, I remember, and leaned on the fence,
as I was going by to school.
"It's be'n a mild winter on the Cape, teacher," he observed, studying the
heavens with an air of utter abstraction. Then his glance fell as it were
inadvertently in the direction of the house, and he immediately continued
with a peculiar spark of animation kindling in his eye; "I've et so many
o' them 'tarnal critters, teacher, that I swon if I don't feel like a
'tarnal, long-fingered, sprawlin' shell-fish myself! But it's comin' nigh
time for ale-whops. They're very good, teacher, ale-whops are--very good,
though they're bony as the--they're 'tarnal bony, teacher. They're what
we call herrin's in the winter.
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