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Shawn of Skarrow. Ellis James Tandy
Читать онлайн.Название Shawn of Skarrow
Год выпуска 0
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Автор произведения Ellis James Tandy
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
"Time passed and then come the twins, a boy and a girl, and Pelican was proud of the boy, for he had the Pelican nose, but old Bristow rose up in his wrath and said that they would have to go, and so Pelican and his wife come down into my neighborhood to live in a shanty-boat on the river, but they didn't git along, and fit and cussed from mornin' till night. Bristow come down to patch up matters. Pelican knocked him off the boat with an oar, and as he floundered out to the shore and wrung the water out of his whiskers he said, 'Fix yer own troubles – far'well.' Two weeks after the fight Mrs. Pelican Smith went back to live with her father and Pelican went into the fishin' and 'blind tiger' business. I had two new nets and a set of trot lines, and we bunched into a sort of partnership. I couldn't git him to say anything about his family or whether he wanted to see them again. But one night we set together on the shore. We had run out of bait and was tryin' to make plans to git some, as the lines was dry upon the shore and the fish would be runnin' with the gentle rise comin' in the river. We set on an old sycamore log together. The moon had just swung over the hill and I could see the white rim of it above the edge of Pelican's nose.
"'Pelican,' I said, 'why don't you go back to your wife and children and try to live happy with them?' He made no answer and I pressed on him, 'Pelican, them two little twins air dependent on you, and if you had a little home to yourself, where the vines could run over your doorway and the birds sing in your own trees, with your wife and children beside you, your life would be happy – think of them, Pelican, your wife and children.'"
"Pelican rose up, his face turned to the river. Ah, I had him at last thinking of his dear ones.
"'What are you thinkin' of, Pelican?'
"'I was thinkin' wher'n the hell we'd git that bait' said he."
CHAPTER V
"Did you ever eat a mussel, Shawn?"
"No, sir, I didn't think they were good to eat."
"Well, lots of things are made good to eat by the way you cook 'em. I want you to bale out the boat and we'll go up to the head of the bar and drop the grab-hooks along in shoal water and after we get a good dozen, small broilin' size, I'm goin' to show you how to cook 'em. A mussel, my boy, is a sort of lefthanded cousin to an oyster, only he lacks the salt water and a good many of the finer points; a right smart like a good many men, and I want to tell you another thing – one of the finest pearls that sold in a jewelry store in Cincinnati for fifteen hundred dollars, was taken from a mussel that come out of the Ohio river."
"Luke Walters found it at Craig's bar," said Shawn.
"The same," said Burney.
"We might boil a bushel or two down and run a chance of finding somethin'; there's no tellin'. Git one of them lemons out of the box and the wire broiler and a stew-pan."
Shawn came around with the boat, Burney came out with the drag-hooks. Shawn sat at the oars and they started up the stream. The white pebbles on the shore gleamed in the rosy sunlight. A kingfisher perched on a rock by the stream, tilted his head to the side in a quizzical way and watched the boat approach. The leaves from the tall sycamores and cottonwoods came tumbling down to the edge of the water as if seeking to embark upon a journey southward. A little creek came pouring its crystal waters into the great river. Just above the mouth of the creek, some boy had built a miniature mill-race, and the water coursing over the little wheel murmured tenderly and soothingly upon the ear.
"Shawn, there's many a boy in the city would like to have a plaything like that. Did you notice how nice and keerful-like he has made that dam and the shoot? I'll tell you, a country boy knows how to look out for his fun. You'll see the day when the old water-mill will be a thing of the past; steam will run 'em out, as it has run out the flat-boat. In the old days I used to make the flat-boat trip to New Orleans and walk all the way back and help cordelle the boat, they brought back their flat-boats in them days – think of doing that now. But I hate to see the water-mills go. There's one out on Eagle that has been run by five generations, and they can't make flour by steam as good as Amos Kirby's flour. Amos' father had the process down, it seems, better than any of them. The old man was knowed all over that country, not only for his good flour, but for his good deeds and his kindness to the poor, and that's a mighty good name to leave behind. He always had a houseful of company, and always got drunk fust, so that the rest of his company would feel at home. I et dinner thar once, and they wound up with some cake they called egg-kisses. You didn't have to chaw 'em – you just throwed 'em up in the roof of your mouth and let 'em melt – pull over thar to the head of the bar."
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