The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: wall, and anxious; she would help him out. As to the weather, she
reveled in it. The dash of the spray and the driving rain only
added to her enjoyment. The clatter of rattling buckets and the
rhythmic movement of the shovelers keeping time to her orders made
a music as dear to her as that of the steady tramp of men and the
sound of arms to a division commander.
Owing to the continued bad weather and the difficulty of shipping
small quantities of fuel, the pumping-engines ran out of coal, and
a complaint from Babcock's office brought the agent of the coal
company to the sea-wall. In times like these Babcock rarely left
his work. Once let the Old Man of the Sea, as he knew, get his
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