He then taught them how to judge the quality of Sheepswools and Yellows by looking at the canals through which the sponges took their food; the smaller the holes, the better. Naturally, Drew the scientist wanted to know what sponges ate, and Doris replied that he wasn’t sure, though he presented himself as an authority, lecturing that sponges were neither animal nor vegetable but “nuthin’ more’n your common saltwater marine fossil,” a point he said he would argue with any man, as though the nature of sponges were a matter hotly debated. Popeye tutored them in the arts of cleaning corals from the sponges’ roots with paring knives, and in clipping off irregularities with sheep shears to give the sponges the pleasing round or oval shapes that drew buyers’ eyes.

Thus, they spent their first day of labor: sorting Sheepswools and Yellows from trash sponges; cleaning and clipping. When they weren’t doing that, they stuffed sponges that had completed their first drying period (to drain the blood out, that’s what makes the stink, said Popeye) into traps resembling lobster traps and lowered them into the water to soak for a second time. Those that had been immersed for the required three to five days were hauled out and stacked to dry again, after which they would be ready for clipping. Eliot was grateful for the shade provided by the roof, though it had been put on to protect the sponges, which were ruined by direct sunlight, and not for the benefit of the employees. Drew pestered Dons and Popeye with questions about sponge habits and lifespans and what made Sheepswools and Yellows grow smooth while other types did not. Nathaniel (who considered the work pretty easy, compared with the granite quarries) sometimes looked out to the harbor, hoping to see a sponger’s sloop coming in with a black man aboard.

At the end of the workday, the three tired brothers trudged past the Cortez cigar factory and the cigar-makers’ cottages surrounding it, palms and Spanish lime and sapodilla trees motionless as plants in a greenhouse, royal poinciana ablaze. Going to the end of Porter’s wharf, where the sidewheeler City of Key West was disembarking passengers, Eliot waved his cap to signal Will to come get them in the tender. As they waited, they watched big fish—tarpon, they’d learned—rolling in the harbor, thick bodies plated with scales the size and brightness of new-minted silver dollars. Westward, far across an expanse of bright tidal flats, a few out islands appeared as a flotilla of anchored ships. Miles and miles beyond them, hidden from the eyes in Nathaniel’s head but visible to those in his imagination, lay the Dry Tortugas.