d it on in gobs," said Rose-Ellen as they
traveled toward the seashore.

"What I like," Dick broke in, "is to see the men getting in the
salt hay with their horses on sleds."

The marshes were too soft to hold up anything so small as a hoof,
so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden
shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses were giving
place to tractors.

The air had an increasingly queer smell, like iodized salt in
boiling potatoes. The Beechams were nearing the salt-water
inlets of the bay, where the tides rose and fell like the
ocean-of which the inlets were part.

The tide was high when they drove down from Phillipsville to the
settlement of Oystershell. The rows of wooden houses, the
oyster-sheds and the company store seemed to be wading on stilts,
and most people wore rubber boots.

Grandma said, "If the bog was bad for my rheumatiz, what's this
going to be?"

A man showed the Beechams a vacant house in the long rows. "Not
much to look at," he acknowledged, "but the rent ain't much,
either. The roofs are tight and a few have running water, case
you want it bad enough to pay extra."

"To think a rusty pipe and one faucet in my kitchen would ever be
a luxury!" Grandma muttered. "But, my land, even the humpy
wall-paper looks good now."

It was gay, clean paper, though pasted directly on the boards.
The house had a kitchen-dining-sitting room and one bedroom, with
walls so thin they let through every word of the next-door radio.

"That's going to be a peekaneeka, sure," Grandma said grimly.

Children were not allowed to work in the oysters, but Grandma was
going to try. The children could tell she was nervous about it,
by the way her foot jerked up and down when she gave Sally her
bottle that night; but she said she expected she wasn't too dumb
to do what other folks could.

The children were still asleep when the grown-ups went to work in
the six o'clock darkness of that November Saturday. When they
woke, mush simmered on the cookstove and a bottle of milk stood
on the table. It took time to feed Sally and wash dishes and
make beds; and then Dick and Rose-Ellen ran over to the nearest
long oyster-house and peeked through a hole in the wall.

Down each side, raised above the fishy wet floor, ran a row of
booths, each with a desk and step, made of rough boards. On each
step stood a man or woman, in boots and heavy clothes, facing the
desk. Only instead of pen and p