“I’ll be careful,” said her brother. “He isn’t a very lively lobster.”
This was true. A lobster, being rather big and clumsy, is not as quick with his claws as is a crab. When first taken from the water lobsters can lift their claws well up over their head and pinch very hard. But they can not do it as quickly as a crab can. And when lobsters have been out of water for some time they get slow and sluggish, and seem hardly able to lift their claws which, often, are half as large as themselves. Of course, when a lobster does pinch, he pinches much harder than a crab. And old, big lobsters have teeth on their claws so they can crush even a clam or an oyster shell, I should imagine.
But, as Teddy said, this lobster was slow. He could reach his claws out straight in front of him, and pull or pinch with them, but he could not raise them above his head. Now Janet did as Teddy told her, and teased the creature with a stick Teddy handed her.
The lobster moved about his long feelers, one on either side of his head near his eyes. He slowly reached out his biggest claw and took hold of the stick.
“Oh, he’s pinching it!” cried Trouble.
“Go ahead, Teddy! Get the doll now!” yelled Janet.
Her brother quickly reached his hand inside the lobster pot and lifted out the “bundle of rags,” as he called it, but which Janet called Nancy Lou, her doll.
“There you are!” Teddy cried, as he safely got the doll out. “Now he can pinch as much as he likes!”
The children remained near the lobster pots for some little time longer, watching the creature slowly move about inside. It seemed to be the only one caught, the others having been taken out. This one must have been forgotten, Teddy thought.
“He’s funny,” remarked Trouble, as he poked another stick in through the cracks of the pot, and saw the lobster grab it. “He’s funny, an’ I likes him!”