It's convenient,
Levin, when you go to Philadelfey, or Washinton, or New York, or some o'
them big cities, an' wants to talk to men of enterprise without the
quails a-pipin' of you. Some day I'll larn it to you if you're a good
boy."
They now sailed out of the thoroughfare into the broad mouth of the
Manokin, where a calm fell upon air and water for a little while, and
they could hear smothered music, as of drum-fish beneath the water,
beating, "thum! thum!" and crabs and alewives rose to the surface around
them, chased by the tailor-fish. The cat-boat drifted into the mouth of
a creek where rock and perch were running on the top of the water, and
with the tongs Jack Wonnell raised half a bushel of oysters in a few
dips, and opened them for the party. Along the shores wild haws and wild
plums still adhered to the bushes, and the stiff-branched
persimmon-trees bore thousands of their tomato-like fruit. The
partridges were chirping in the corn, the crow blackbirds held a funeral
feast around the fodder, some old-time bayside mansions stretched their
long sides and speckled negro quarters along the inlets, half hidden by
the nut-trees, and in the air soared the turkey-buzzard, like a
voluptuary politician, taking beauty from nothing but his lofty station.
"The ole Eastern Sho'," Jack Wonnell said, with his animated vacancy,
"is jess stuffed with good things, Cap'n Johnsin.
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