Sylvanus Now Read Online Free

then.”
    “Jeezes, do the Fisheries fellows see all that?”
    Jake smirked. “How can you see anything, old man, when you’re head’s up your arse? If them Fishery people done what they was paid for, they’d banish everything longer than thirty feet fifty miles offshore—or farther. By jeezes, that’s what they’re doing in other countries then—”
    A door slammed, and he grimaced into silence along with the rest of the men as a broad-shouldered woman charged around the corner, her presence like the light of dawn drawing a close to the evening’s intimacy.
    “They’re down hooking gulls with fish hooks agin!” she exclaimed angrily, her lidless eyes glancing off the rest of the men and burrowing into Jake.
    “Who? Who’s hooking gulls?” asked Jake.
    “The youngsters—who the bloody hell do you think?” she snipped, pointing to a huddle of boys farther down the beach. “Go—drive them out of it, else I throws your supper to the dogs!” She hustled back inside the house, banging the door shut behind her.
    “Ah, you loves her,” said Manny as Jake cut loose with a mutter of oaths. “Ye-es, you do. Go on. Chase after her. Tell her you loves her,” he goaded as Jake rose, a dirty look toward his house as he shuffled toward the landwash. Manny shook with mirth. “Pair of sleeves to the one shirt,” he said to Sylvanus and Ambrose, “and stun as the gnat, the both of them. Out by Mother’s, they was, the other night, trying to dip the moon out of the brook. Yes, they were,” he vowed beneath the disbelieving snickers of the others, “swear to gawd. Go ask Mother—she went out and offered them a strainer.”
    A cry of excitement from the boys and Manny rose. “That one of mine I hears? Little bugger, he’s suppose to be chopping wood. Heh, cripes if they haven’t hooked a gull.” He sat back down, grinning, watching as the boys, oblivious to Jake now marching toward them, fist raised, started pulling in their thirty- to forty-foot length of fishing line and the hooked gull. “Yup, nothing we never done, hey, Am. Remember putting bark on the water and watching the gannets dive for it? Broke their necks every time. Cripes, that was bad. How come boys does stuff like that? You do that, Syllie, put bark on the water for the gannets?”
    Sylvanus grimaced. “Break their necks? How’d you break their necks?”
    “They sees the bark and thinks it’s a fish and dives for it,” said Manny. “Dives hard, a gannet do. Can hear the snap when their beaks hits the bark. Oh, now, it wouldn’t that bad,” he drawled at Sylvanus’s look of repulsion. “And we never wasted them—always took them home after for Mother to bake. She never knew but it was a duck after we had it buffed and picked. Here, pass your mug, Am, I fills it. Where’s yours? Hey, where you going?” he asked as Sylvanus, shaking his head in disgust, kicked aside his stump and headed toward home.
    “That’s it, my son, can’t hoot with the owls and fly with the eagles, too,” Manny shouted after him, “but I must say, you was quite the dandy at the dance last night— all dressed up and watching through the window. Next time come on in, b’ye, and have yourself a dance. Well, sir,” he exclaimed as Sylvanus shot him a look, face reddening, “look at that, Am, he’s all red. Gentle jeezes, Syllie’s blushing! What’d you do, find yourself a woman? Did you, did you, Syllie?” he hollered, rising off his seat, giving chase.
    “Fool!” Sylvanus muttered and ducked out of sight around the house. Damned if his ears weren’t burning. Melita, Manny’s wife, her curly, capped head heightening a round, dimpled face, glanced suspiciously at him as he stumbled over some hens firking at the feed she was tossing them.
    “Nice day, what?” he hailed, skirting the flapping, squabbling birds.
    “Nice day,” she called back, and he shook his head, catching her grin as she tossed another handful of feed around his feet, sending