The marshes were too soft to hold up anything so small as a hoof,
so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden
shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses were giving
place to tractors.

The air had an increasingly queer smell, like iodized salt in
boiling potatoes. The Beechams were nearing the salt-water
inlets of the bay, where the tides rose and fell like the
ocean-of which the inlets were part.

The tide was high when they drove down from Phillipsville to the
settlement of Oystershell. The rows of wooden houses, the
oyster-sheds and the company store seemed to be wading on stilts,
and most people wore rubber boots.

Grandma said, "If the bog was bad for my rheumatiz, what's this
going to be?"

A man showed the Beechams a vacant house in the long rows. "Not
much to look at," he acknowledged, "but the rent ain't much,
either. The roofs are tight and a few have running water, case
you want it bad enough to pay extra."

"To think a rusty pipe and one faucet in my kitchen would ever be
a luxury!" Grandma muttered. "But, my land, even the humpy
wall-paper looks good now."

It was gay, clean paper, though pasted directly on the boards.
The house had a kitchen-dining-sitting room and one bedroom, with
walls so thin they let through every word of the next-door radio.