CHAPTEE VII. 



THE LOBSTER. 



How the Boys and Girls found him to be a Strategic Warrior, a Great 

 Civil Engineer, a Skillful Surgeon, and a Scientific Mover. 



One day, when I was a school-girl spending my va- 

 cation in Baltimore, I went to one of the great fish- 

 markets, where I saw a jolly old woman in one of the 

 stalls, busily at work with a lot of queer-looking ani- 

 mals that I had never seen before. They had immense 

 claws, which she was fastening together, doing it so 

 easily and rapidly, that I stood looking at her in aston- 

 ishment. She had such a friendly, good-natured face, 

 I ventured to ask her what she was doing. She was 

 greatly amused, and at once wanted to know where I 

 had been brought up. I told her on the prairies, where 

 we never saw such things. " Law me ! " said she, 

 " don't you have lobsters out there ? These are lobsters, 

 and I'm fastening their claws to keep them from pinch- 

 ing. They are awful things to pinch. I take one claw 

 so, and the other so, up over his back, and then he can't 



