The shore at sunrise. A woman and three children, a boy and two younger girls, in working clothes, gather mussels. Far out to sea, fishing boats troll for the day’s catch. There isn’t much time. Mussels must be collected and brought to market before customers come. Much depends on their catch, whether or not they eat meat this week and buy shoes. The woman’s husband is out with the boats, and this is her job, hers and the children’s. But the children are slow today. They dawdle and play games, spend more time watching tide pools than collecting mussels. The boy has one small basket full of mussels, but the woman’s baskets, three larger ones, stacked one in the other and slung across her back, are empty. She turns and scolds the three little ones. They don’t understand. Full bellies, clothes, although worn thin and much mended, to cover their bodies, and a place to sleep are all they understand. With a cross look, a clipped and impatient “Vite, vite,” she sighs and moves on.

a starfish holding still the children

Mussel Fishers at Berneval (1879)
By Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Publisher’s Note: While the original oil on canvas by Renoir resides at The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, the painting is in the public domain. The reproduction above was downloaded from The Athenaeum.

Adelaide B. Shaw’s

stories have been published in several literary journals, including By-Line, The Greensilk Journal, The Country and Abroad, Bartleby Snopes, Loch Raven Review, American Literary Review, The Writers’ Journal, SN Review, Bewildering Stories, The MacGuffin, and Storyteller. She also writes haiku and other Japanese poetic forms such as tanka, haibun, and photo haiga, and her work has been published widely, including in KYSO Flash (Out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1847).

A collection of short stories Potpourri, Volume 1, as well as her award-winning collection of haiku An Unknown Road, are available as e-books on Amazon Kindle.

Author’s blog: White Petals

Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(25 February 1841–3 December 1919),

commonly known as Auguste Renoir, was a French painter who helped launch an artistic movement called Impressionism in the 1870s. He eventually became one of the most highly regarded artists of his time.

See Wikipedia for a detailed biography, plus reproductions of his art.