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Alabama - Baymond Barbour, Fisherman.

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lived at Dauphine Island, and that was where I was born, January seventeenth,
seventy years ago. Now, you can figger when that was.

When I remarked that it was in 1869, he said: "That's right
and by gum! Today's my birthday, it's the seventeenth and you're come
to celebrate it. Guess it's a good thing, fer I ain't done much celebratin'
so fer. I got up at three o'clock this mornin' and went out and
caught these two barrels of oysters."

As we walked under the shed porch of the shop, he said gaily,
"Well, it looks like you mean to come in, so here, take this bench and
give the lady that thar one," pointing to the one nearest the wall.

There were several crude benches, and all bore scars at one
end, where oysters had been opened.

"Aunt" Cora was opening oysters without gloves, but the two
younger women each wore a cloth glove on her left hand, in which she held
the oyster, while using the right hand to open it. All inserted sharp-pointed
knives in the end of the oyster shell, lifting the upper part.

None of the women stopped work, but all talked at once. They
were dressed alike in none too clean wash dresses, and dark sweaters.
"Aunt" Cora's hair and that of her daughter was straight and untidy, but
the daughter-in-law looked as though she had recently had a "permanent"
and a finger wave. She was a smaller woman than the others, and had a
more sophisticated air.

The two-room shop is built of tin. In one room is a small
laundry stove and a gasoline drum is connected for heating water. The
other room is enclosed with screen wire, and in it is a large home-made
ice box, in which the oysters and crab meat are kept.

As my companion and I were seated, a fourth woman came from
this room, and stood in the door where the son had been when we first

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