第10章 The Old Mans Return[第2页/共8页]

“What will your family say?”

“Get that well too,”the boy said.“Lie down,old man, and I will bring you your clean shirt.And something to eat.”“Bring any of the papers of the time that I was gone,”the old man said.

Many fishermen were around the skiff looking at what was lashed beside it and one was in the water,his trousers rolled up,measuring the skeleton with a length of line.

He was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning.It was blowing so hard that the drifting-boats would not be going out and the boy had slept late and then come to the old man's shack as he had come each morning.The boy saw that the old man was breathing and then he saw the old man's hands and he started to cry.He went out very quietly to go to bring some coffee and all the way down the road he was crying.

“I believe it,”the boy said.

“I didn't either,”her male companion said.

“Damn my fish,”the boy said and he started to cry again.