lobsters to sell.

“Got a pail?” says he, and Naboth fetched up a pail. Then the man filled it chock-full of little lobsters and passed it back to us, and Mr. Browning says, “How much?” and the man says, “Oh, about a dollar’n a quarter.”

Those were the first lobsters I’d ever seen, except on the labels of cans, and I didn’t think so much of them on account of their being so small, until Mr. Topper explained they were young ones, which was why the lobster man sold them to us so cheap.

Then we started along, and in a few minutes came to anchor off the stone piers that lead through into the little land-locked basin of Cuttyhunk where the lobster fleet anchor. We didn’t go in because we were protected enough outside if a storm came up, and because the basin was so small and full of other craft that we would have had a lot of trouble maneuvering. But Mr. Browning took Catty and me ashore.

There was quite a big wharf inside, and a good sized boat fastened to it. We went right to it to find out what was going on, and a man told us it was the boat that carried lobsters to the Boston market. They were loading lobsters at that very minute. We went aboard and watched.

Catty went and looked down a hatch and called me over.

“Look,” says he.

The whole inside of the ship was a kind of a tank, and that tank was alive with lobsters, and barrels and barrels more were being poured and chucked in. One of the men said there were about ten thousand of them. I guess lobsters object to going to market because they kicked and flopped out of the kegs and pails and waggled their big claws and grabbed at things as vicious as could be. I got over being disappointed in lobsters right there. Why, some of them looked as big as bulldogs, and acted about the same. I wouldn’t have let one of those fellows get a grip on my toe for the whole ship. Just imagine being in swimming and having one of those things grab you by the foot! Whee! I’ve been grabbed by an ordinary crab, but it would be as different to be nailed by a lobster as there is difference between being stepped on by a cat and a horse.

We walked around the island some, and stood up on the cliff and watched the surf smashing against the rocks, which was a fine sight. There is a big club there where folks from Boston come to fish, and a few houses and a lighthouse, and that’s about all. It must be an awful place to live in winter, sort of shut off from all the world, 

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