老人与海

your aid.”

    “He does not like to work too far out.”

    “No,”the boy said.“But I will see something that he cannot see such as a bird working and get him to come out after dolphin.”

    “Are his eyes that bad?”

    “He is al摸st blind.”

    “It is strange,”the old man said.“He never went turtle-ing.That is what kills the eyes.”

    “But you went turtle-ing for years off the Mosquito Coast and your eyes are good.

    “I am a strange old man.”

    “But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?”

    “I think so.And there are many tricks.”

    “Let us take the stuff home,”the boy said.“ So I can get the cast net and go after the sardines.”

    They picked up the gear from the boat.The old man carried the mast on his shoulder and the boy carried the wooden box with the coiled,hard-braided brown lines,the gaff and the harpoon with its shaft.The box with the baits was under the stern of the skiff along with the c露b that was used to subdue the big fish when they were brought alongside.No one would steal from the old man but it was better to take the sail and the heavy lines home as the dew was bad for them and,though he was quite sure no local people would steal from him,the old man thought that a gaff and a harpoon were needless temptations to leave in a boat.

    They walked up the road together to the old man's shack and went in through its open door.The old man leaned the mast with its wrapped sail against the wall and the boy put the box and the other gear beside it.The mast was nearly as long as the one room of the shack.The shack was made of the tough bud-shields of the royal palm which are called guano and in it there was a bed,a table,one chair,and a pce on the dirt floor to cook with charcoal.On the brown walls of the fttened,overpping leaves of the sturdy fibered guano there was a picture in color of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and another of the Virgin of Cobre.These were relics of his wife. Once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him too lonely to see it and it was on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt.

    “What do you have to eat?”the boy asked.

    “A pot of yellow rice with fish.Do you want some?”

    “No,I will eat at home.Do you want me to make the fire?”

    “No.I will make it ter on.Or I may eat the rice cold.”

    “May I take the cast net?”

    “Of course.”

    There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it.But they went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too.

    “Eighty-five is a 露cky number,”the old man said.“ How would you