Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/170

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156
BEACHED KEELS

Heber Griswold, to live through the winter on a greased rag.

One of the earliest neighbors to go to work for the Yankee was Marden. He could not deal with the summer people, who, besides being whole civilizations distant from him, came to represent in his mind the pitiable, empty possessors and disbursers of money that once would have meant so much to him. Under the Yankee, however, it was different. It was plain business, with few words; one was not expected to be a "character" into the bargain; and although Marden often raged to think that he had been too dull to find this means of livelihood when it was needed, he took a degree of comfort in working hard and steadily, out of doors, at a work that kept him along the beach, often within sight of his house. In the first season he became far and away the best among the clam-diggers. On almost any day, when the ebb-tide had bared the dreary waste of greenish brown seaweed and dun flats, he might be seen, an active form stooping along the edge of the bright water, always alone. With fork and basket