“What is your name, little girl?”
“Dunno.”
“How old are you?”
“Dunno.”
“How many pots do you shuck in a day?”
“Dunno.”
And the pity of it is that they do not know.
What then do they know? Enough to stand patiently with the rest picking up one hard, dirty cluster of shells, deftly prying them open, dropping the meat into the pot; and then go through this process with another and another and another, until after many minutes the pot is full—a relief, for they carry it over to the weigher and rest doing nothing a minute, and walk back,—such a change from the dreary standing, reaching, prying and dropping—minute upon minute, hour upon hour, day upon day, month after month. Or perchance, for variety, the catch may have been shrimp, and then the hours of work are shorter, but the shrimp are icy cold, and the blood in one’s fingers congeals, and the fingers become so sore that she welcomes the oysters again.
Are you surprised then to find that many children seem dumb and can not understand our language?
“But we educate them” some canners tell us.