me—”
“Shucks!” said Salters, cutting in. “You read a little less an’ take more int’rust in your vittles, and you’ll come nearer earnin’ your keep, Penn.”
Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt a creepy, crawly, tingling thrill that began in the back of his neck and ended at his boots. He was cold, too, though it was a stifling day.
“That the actress from Philadelphia?” said Disko Troop, scowling at the platform. “You’ve fixed it about old man Ireson, hain’t ye, Harve? Ye know why naow.”
It was not “Ireson’s Ride” that the woman delivered, but some sort of poem about a fishing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlers beating in against storm by night, while the women made a guiding fire at the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands on.
“They took the grandma’s blanket, Who shivered and bade them go; They took the baby’s cradle, Who could not say them no.”