ly after that, and
when, on Sundays, Miss Montgomery taught a Sunday-school class of
boys, Timoteo always slipped in and listened, though the teacher
wondered sometimes if the boy could understand.

There were fair-haired American boys who looked down on Timoteo at
school and who made him feel that a Spanish boy was an inferior.
Sometimes Timoteo almost felt as if some of the Chinese boys, in the
small fishing-village outside the town, were happier than he, for
they did not seem to care to know anything but how to dry nets and
dry fish. Herbert Page was one of the school boys who always felt
superior to Timoteo. Timoteo did not wonder at it. He had a very
humble opinion of himself, yet sometimes he wished Herbert would
only look at him as he passed by. Herbert would not have spoken
rudely to Timoteo. That, Herbert would have considered degrading. He
simply ignored the Spanish boys of the school.

One Saturday morning, when Timoteo stood on the edge of the cliffs
outside the town, he saw Herbert picking his way out over the long
stretches of rocks to seaward; a basket on his arm and a stick in
his hand.

"He go to get abalones, and think he can knock them off with a
stick!" laughed Timoteo.

Herbert had not long lived in this vicinity, and he did not know the
tenacity with which the large, oval-shaped shell, called abalone, or
ear-shell, which is so well known and valued for its beautifully
colored, irridescent lining, clings to the rock when the shell's
inmate is living. At school, the day before, Timoteo had heard
Herbert say that he intended going after abalones on Saturday.

"He no get any," prophesied Timoteo, gazing after Herbert's
disappearing figure.

Timoteo himself was out abalone-hunting. This was one of the ways by
which he occasionally earned a few cents, visitors to the town
buying the large shells for curiosities. But Timoteo had with him a
long iron spike with which he intended to urge the abalone-shells
from the rocks.

The abalone has a large, very strong, white "foot" inside its long
shell, and there is a row of holes in the shell itself. It is
conjectured that the abalone perhaps exhausts the air under the
shell, and so causes the shell to cling more tightly to the rock
than ever, through atmospheric pressure. It is very difficult to
take an abalone from its rocky home, unless the creature is
surprised.

Timoteo, however, was acquainted with abalones, and made good use of
his weapon. He c