She brought out a lobster that had been lying—secure, it thought—under a ledge of rock. It flapped its tail furiously and made grabs in the air with its claws. Onnie held it by the middle of its back and laughed at its struggles.
I carried that lobster home with me and ate it. If I had known how great a lady Onnie was going to become afterwards I should have had the lobster stuffed and put in a glass case, so as to be able to offer it as evidence of the fact that I had been on intimate terms with Miss Dever in her early youth.
The next time I saw Onnie was two years later, and she was again in pursuit of shellfish. It was a very calm summer day and I was far out in the bay in my boat. The tide was a spring tide one of those that come in a long way and go out until one thinks the sea will disappear altogether. It was at its ebb at noon.
There is in our bay, beyond the farthest of the islands, a long reef of rocks which is well covered at half tide. It is just awash at the ebb of an ordinary tide, but emerges long and brown for a couple of hours when the spring tides have gone out their farthest. I slipped down towards this reef about noon, sailing free, with a gentle breeze on my quarter. A boat—a large, heavy black boat—lay with her bows out of the water at the end of the reef.
Among the rocks, scattered here and there, were
