The Sort of Life We Lead 4 1 



bunches, and piling them up in the basket, 

 which we carry home. Take an afternoon in 

 October, with a good breeze blowing, not 

 enough to make the water very rough, and, 

 with my young ones as company, I can get 

 as much real pleasure and certainly as much 

 healthy exercise from oystering in the Great 

 South Bay as from any sport I know of. 

 Then there is the money value of the oysters 

 to be thought of. If I could not get a bushel 

 of oysters in an afternoon, I should have to 

 buy meat. 



I have tried by practical lessons to convince 

 several city friends that there is a joy about 

 scraping the bottom of the sea for oysters be- 

 yond anything that they could have imagined. 

 I induced a critical friend of mine to take off 

 his coat one fine afternoon and work the 

 "tongs." The water was pretty rough, and 

 he had to jump about a good deal on deck in 

 order to keep his footing. I should say that 

 in the half-hour he played at oystering, he 

 brought up thirty or forty oysters. At the 

 end of that time he said that he would rather 

 write a two-column article than rake a bushel 



