and
washed. Then they were emptied into a flume, a narrow trough
along which they were swept into bright cans that held almost a
gallon each. The cans were stored in ice-packed barrels, and
early next morning would go out in trains and trucks to all parts
of the country.

"How many pearls have they found in all these oysters?" Dick
demanded in a businesslike voice. "Not any!" Ez said.

"Why can't you eat oysters in months that don't have R in them?"
asked Rose-Ellen.

"You could, if there wasn't a law against selling them. It's
only a notion, like not turning your dress if you put it on wrong
side out. Summer's when oysters lay eggs. You don't stop eating
hens because they lay eggs, do you? But now scram, kids. I got
work to do."

They left, skipping past the mountains of empty shells outside.

Next day the children went to church school alone. The grown
folks were too tired. And on Monday Dick and Rose-Ellen went up
the road to the school in the little village.

It was strange to be in school again, and with new schoolmates
and teachers and even new books, since this was a different
state. Rose-Ellen's grade, the fifth, had got farther in long
division than her class at home, and she couldn't understand what
they were doing. Dick had trouble, too, for the seventh grade
was well started on United States history, and he couldn't catch
up. But that was not the worst of it. The two children could
not seem to fit in with their schoolmates. The village girls
gathered in groups by themselves and acted as if the oyster-shuckers'
children were not there at all; and the boys did not give Dick even
a chance to show what a good pitcher he was. Both Rose-Ellen
and Dick had been leaders in the city school, and now they felt
so lonesome that Rose-Ellen often cried when she got home.

It was too long a walk for Jimmie, who begged not to go anyway.
Besides, he was needed at home to mind Sally.

Of course the grown folks wanted to earn all they could. The pay
was thirty cents a gallon; and just as it took a lot of
cranberries to make a peck, it took a lot of these middle-sized
oysters to make a gallon. To keep the oysters fresh, the sheds
were left so cold that the workers must often dip their numb
hands into pails of hot water. All this was hard on Grandma's
rheumatism; but painful as the work was, she did not give it up
until something happened that forced her to.

It was late November, and the fire in