"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 o