第10章 The Old Mans Return[第2页/共6页]

“I'll get another knife and have the spring ground.How many days of heavy brisa have we?”

“One on the first day. One the second and two the third.”

“I will have everything in order,”the boy said.“ You get your hands well old man.”

Inside the shack he leaned the mast against the wall.In the dark he found a water bottle and took a drink.Then he lay down on the bed.He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.

He could feel he was inside the current now and he could see the lights of the beach colonies along the shore.He knew where he was now and it was nothing to get home.

“Don't sit up.”the boy said.“Drink this.”He poured some of the coffee in a glass.

“Do you want a drink of any kind?”the proprietor asked.

“Very good.”

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.