Ernest Hemingway ”  The Old Man and the Sea
  1
The Old Man and the Sea
 
By Ernest Hemingway
 
 
To Charlie Shribner
And
To Max Perkins
 
 
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four
days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days
without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now defi nitely and finally salao,
which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy  had gone at their orders  in another boat which
caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see th e old man come in each day with
his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and
harpoon and the sail that was furled around the ma st. The sail was patched with flour sacks and,
fur