man,--what a heartless wretch he was!

But the little boy had already thrown the sick little oyster overboard.
She fell in shallow water, and the rising tide carried her still farther
toward shore, until she lodged against an old gum boot that lay half
buried in the sand. There were no other oysters in sight; her head ached
and she was very weak; how lonesome, too, she was!--yet anything was
better than being eaten,--at least so thought the little oyster, and so, I
presume, think you.

For many weeks and many months the sick little oyster lay hard by the old
gum boot; and in that time she made many acquaintances and friends among
the crabs, the lobsters, the fiddlers, the star-fish, the waves, the
shells, and the gay little fishes of the ocean. They did not harm her, for
they saw that she was sick; they pitied her--some loved her. The one that
loved her most was the perch with green fins that attended school every
day in the academic shade of the big rocks in the quiet cove about a mile
away. He was very gentle and attentive, and every afternoon he brought
fresh, cool sea-foam for the sick oyster to eat; he told her pretty
stories, too,--stories which his grandmother, the venerable codfish, had
told him of the sea-king, the mermaids, the pixies, the water-sprites, and
the other fantastically beautiful dwellers in ocean depths. Now while all
this was very pleasant, the sick little oyster knew that the perch's
wooing was hopeless, for she was very ill and helpless, and could never
think of becoming a burden upon one so young and so promising as the
gallant perch with green fins. But when she spoke to him in this strain,
he would not listen; he kept right on bringing her more and more cool
sea-foam every day.

The old gum boot was quite a motherly creature, and anon the sick little