 1 The weather door of the smoking room had been left open to the North Atlantic fog as the big liner rolled and lifted, whistling to warn the fishing fleet. "'That, Shane, boy, is the biggest nuisance aboard,' said a man in a freeze-overcoat, shutting the door with a bang. "'He isn't wanted here. He's too fresh.'" A white-haired German reached for a sandwich and grunted between bites. "'I know der breed. America is full of dot-kind. I'd tell you you should import rope-sends free under your tariff.' "'Sure. There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pity than anything.' A man from New York drawled as he lay at full length along the cushions under the wet sky-light. They've dragged him around from hotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was talking to his mother this morning. She's a lovely lady, but she don't pretend to manage him. He's going to Europe to finish his education." "'Education isn't begun yet.' This was a Philadelphia and curled up in a corner. That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money,' he told me. He isn't sixteen, either." "'Rare roads, his father, aren't it?' said the German. "'Yep. That in mines and lumber and shipping, build one place at San Diego the old man has. Here at Los Angeles owns half a dozen rare roads, half the lumber on the Pacific Slope, and lets his wife spend the money.' The Philadelphia went on lazily. "'The West don't suit her,' she says. She just tracks around with the boy and her nerves, trying to find out what'll amuse him, I guess. Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York—round again. He isn't much more than a second-hand hotel clerk now. When he's finished in Europe, he'll be a holy terror. "'What's the matter with the old man attending to him personally?' said a boy's from the Fries Ulster. "'Old man's piling up the rocks. Don't want to be disturbed, I guess. He'll find out his error a few years from now. Pity, because there's a heap of good in the boy, if you can get at it.' "'Mitta ropes and—mitta ropes and!' growled the German. He smore the door banged, and a slight, slim-built boy, perhaps fifteen years old, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth, leaned in over the high foot-way. His pasty yellow complexion did not show well on a person of his years, and his look was a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very cheap smartness. He was dressed in a cherry-coloured blazer, knicker-bockers, red stockings, and bicycle shoes, with a red flannel cap at the back of his head. After whistling between his teeth as he eyed the company, he said in a loud voice, "'Say, it's thick outside. You can hear the fish-boat squawking all around us. Say, wouldn't it be great if we ran one down?' "'Shut the door, Harvey,' said the New Yorker. "'Shut the door, and stay outside. You're not wanted here.' "'Who'll stop me?' he answered deliberately. "'Did you pay for my passage, Mr. Martin? Guess I have as good right here as the next man?' He picked up some dice from a checkerboard and began throwing, right hand against left. "'Say, gentlemen, this is dead red mud. Can't we make a game of poker between us?' There was no answer, and he puffed his cigarette, swung his legs, and drummed on the table with rather dirty fingers. Then he pulled out a roll of bills as if to count them. "'How's your mama this afternoon?' a man said. I didn't see her at lunch. In her stateroom, I guess, she's most always sick on the ocean. I'm going to give the stewardess fifteen dollars for looking after her. I don't go down more than I can avoid. It makes me feel mysterious to pass that butler's pantry place. Say, this is the first time I've been on the ocean.' "'Oh, don't apologize, Harvey.' "'Who's apologizing? This is the first time I've crossed the ocean, gentlemen, and except the first day I haven't been sick one little bit. Oh, sir!' He brought down his fist with a triumphant bang, wedded his finger, and went on counting the bills. "'Oh, you're a high-grave machine with a riding-and-plane sight,' the Philadelphia yawned. "'You'll blossom into credit to your country if you don't take care.' "'I know it. I'm an American, first, last, and all the time. I'll show them that when I strike Europe. Piff! My sig's out. I can't smoke the truck the steward sells. Any gentleman got a real Turkish sig on him?' The chief engineer entered for a moment, red, smiling, and wet. "'Say, Mac,' cried Harvey cheerfully, "'how are we hittin' it?' "'Very much in the ordinary way,' was the grave reply. The younger is polite as ever to their elders, and their elders are in trying to appreciate it. A low chuckle came from a corner. The German opened his cigar-case and handed a skinny black cigar to Harvey. "'Dot is to proper apparatus to smoke, my young friend,' he said. "'You feel try it?' "'Yes.' "'Then you feel be ever so happy.'" Harvey lit the unlovely thing with a flourish. He felt that he was getting on in grown-up society. "'It would take more than this to kill me over,' he said. Ignorant that he was lighting that terrible article, a wheeling stogie. "'Dot we will presently see,' said the German. "'Where are we now, Mr. Macdonald?' "'Just there or thereabouts, Mr. Schaefer,' said the engineer. "'We'll be on the Grand Bank tonight, but in a general way, as speaking. We're all among the fishing fleet now. Shave three dories and near-sculpt the boom off a Frenchman since noon, and that's close-sailing, you may say. "'You like my cigar, eh?' The German asked, for Harvey's eyes were full of tears. "'Fine, full flavor,' he answered through shut teeth. "'Guess we've slowed down a little, haven't we? I'll skip out and see what the log says.' "'I might, if I fuss you,' said the German.' Harvey staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail. He was very unhappy, but he saw the deck steward lashing chairs together, and since he had boasted before the man that he was never seasick, his pride made him go aft to the second saloon deck at the stem, which was finished in a turtle-back. The deck was deserted, and he crawled to the extreme end of it near the flagpole. There he doubled up in limp agony, for the wheeling stogie joined with the surge and jar of the screw to sieve out his soul. His head swelled, sparks of fire danced before his eyes. His body seemed to lose weight, while his heels wavered in the breeze. He was fading from seasickness, and a roll of the ship tilted him over the rail on to the smooth lip of the turtle-back. Then a long gray mother-wave swung out of the fog, tucked Harvey under one arm, so to speak, and pulled him off in a way to leeward. The great green closed over him, and he went quietly to sleep. He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used to blow at a summer school he had once attended in the Adirondacks. Slowly he remembered that he was Harvey Shane, drowned and dead in mid-ocean, but was too weak to fit things together. A new smell filled his nostrils, wet and clammy chills ran down his back, and he was helplessly full of salt water. When he opened his eyes he perceived that he was still on top of the sea, for it was running round him in silver-colored hills, and he was lying on a pile of half-dead fish, looking at a broad human back clothed in a blue jersey. It's no good, thought the boy. I'm dead sure enough, and this thing is in charge. He groaned, and the figure turned its head, showing a pair of little gold rings half-hidden in curly black hair. Ah-ha! You feel some pretty well now? It said. Lies still so. We trim better. With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a foamless sea that lifted her twenty full feet, only to slide her into a glassy pit beyond. But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt Blue Jersey's talk. Fine good job, I say, that I catch you. Eh, what? Better good job, I say, your boat not catch me. How you come to fall out? I was sick, said Harvey. Sick and couldn't help it. Just in time I blow my horn in your boat she-yaw a little. Then I see you come all down. Eh, what? I think you're cut into baits by this screw, but you are drift-drift to me, and I make a big fish of you. So you shall not die this time. Where am I? Said Harvey, who could not see that life was particularly safe where he lay. You are with me in the Dory. Manuel, my name, and I come from Schooner. We're here of Gloucester. I live to Gloucester. By and by we get supper, eh, what? He seemed to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast iron. For not content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must need stand up to it, swaying with a sway of the flat bottom dory, and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember. For he lay back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he heard a gun, and a horn, and a shouting. Something bigger than the Dory, but quite as lively loomed alongside. Several voices talked at once. He was dropped into a dark, heaving hole where men and oil-skins gave him a hot drink and took off his clothes, and he fell asleep. When he waked, he listened for the first breakfast bell on the steamer, wondering why his stateroom had grown so small. Turning, he looked into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung against a huge square beam. A three-cornered table within arm's reach ran from the angle of the boughs to the formast. At the after-end, behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling gray eyes. He was dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots. Several pairs of the same sort of footwear, an old cap and some worn-out woolen socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow oil-skins swayed to and fro beside the bunks. The place was packed as full of smells as a bale is of cotton. The oil-skins had a peculiarly thick flavor of their own which made a sort of background to the smells of fried fish, burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco. But these, again, were all hooped together by one encircling smell of ship and saltwater. Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets on his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps and nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not that of a steamer. She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather wriggling herself about in a silly, aimless way, like a colt at the end of a halter. Water noises ran by close to his ear, and beams creaked and whined about him. All these things made him grunt despairingly and think of his mother. "'Feeling better?' said the boy, with a grin. "'Have some coffee?' he brought a ten-cup full and sweetened it with molasses. "'Isn't there milk?' said Harvey, looking round the dark double tear of bunks, as if he expected to find a cow there. "'Well, no,' said the boy. "'Near there ain't likely to be till about mid-September. Taint-bag, coffee. I've made it.' Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of pieces of crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously. "'I've dried your clothes. Guess they've shrunk some,' said the boy. "'They ain't our style much. None of them. Twist round and see if you're hurt any.' Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report any injuries. "'That's good,' the boy said heartily. "'Fix yourself and go on deck. Dad wants to see you. I'm his son. Dan, they call me. And I'm Cook's helper and everything else aboard that's too dirty for the man. There ain't no boy here set me since Otto went overboard, and he was only a duchy and twenty-year-old at that. How'd you come to fall off on a dead-flat calm?' "'Twasn't a calm,' said Harvey socally. It was a gale, and I was seasick. Guess I must have rolled over the rail.' "'There was a little commonswell yesterday and last night,' said the boy. "'But if that's your notion of a gale,' he whistled. "'Wheew! You'll know more for your through. Hurry! Dad's waiting.' Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his life received a direct order. Never, at least without long and sometimes tearful explanations of the advantage of obedience and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Shane lived in fear of breaking his spirit, which perhaps was the reason that she herself walked on the edge of nervous prostration. He could not see why he should be expected to hurry for any man's pleasure and said so. "'Your dad can come down here if he's so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to New York right away. It'll pay him.'" Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on him. "'Say, dad,' he shouted up the folksal hatch. "'He says you can slip down and see him if you're anxious that way. Here, dad?' The answer came back and the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard from a human chest. Quit fooling down and send him to me." Dan sniggered and threw Harvey his warped bicycle-shoes. There was something in the tones on the deck that made the boy disemble his extreme rage and console himself with the thought of gradually unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth on the voyage home. This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his friends for life. He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular ladder and stumbled aft over a score of obstructions to where a small, thick set, clean-shaven man with gray eyebrows sat on a step that led up to the quarter-deck. The swell had passed in the night, living along oily sea, dotted round the horizon with the sails of a dozen fishing-boats. Between them lay little black specks showing where the dories were out fishing. The schooner, with a triangular writing sail on the main mast, played easily at anchor, and except for the man by the cabin-roof, house, they call it, she was deserted. "'Morning. Good afternoon, I should say. You've nice slept the clock round, young feller,' was the greeting. "'Morning,' said Harvey. He did not like being called young feller, and as one rescued from drowning expected sympathy. His mother suffered agonies whenever he got his feet wet, but this mariner did not seem excited. "'Now, let's hear all about it. It's quite providential, first and last, for all concerned. What might be your name? Where from? We mistrust its New York. And where bound? We mistrust its Europe.' Harvey gave his name, the name of the steamer, and a short history of the accident, winding up with the demand to be taken back immediately to New York, where his father would pay anything anyone chose to name. "'Hah!' said the shavin' man, quite unmoved by the end of Harvey's speech. I can't say we think special of any man, or boy even, that falls overboard from that kind of packet and a flat calm. Least of all when his excuse is that he's sea-sick.' "'Excuse?' cried Harvey. Do you suppose I'd fall overboard into your dirty little boat for fun?' "'Not knowing what your notions of fun may be, I can't rightly say, young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn't call the boat which, under providence, was the means of saving you names. And the first place, it's blame irreligious. In the second, it's annoying to my feelings, and I'm disco-troop of the We're Here, a Gloucester, which you don't seem rightly to know.' "'I don't know, and I don't care,' said Harvey. "'I'm grateful enough for being saved, and all that, of course. But I want you to understand that the sooner you take me back to New York, the better it'll pay you.' "'Meaning how?' Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a suspiciously mild blue eye. "'Dollars and cents,' said Harvey, delighted to think that he was making an impression. Cold dollars and cents.' He thrust a hand into a pocket and threw out his stomach a little, which was his way of being grand. "'You've done the best day's work you ever did in your life when you pulled me in. I'm all the son Harvey Shane has.' "'He's been favored,' said disco, dryly. "'And if you don't know who Harvey Shane is, you don't know much. That's all. Now turn her around and let's hurry.' Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled with people discussing and envying his father's dollars. "'Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. Take a reef in your stomach, young feller. It's full of my vitals.' Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy by the stump formast, and the blood rushed to his face. "'We'll pay for that, too,' he said. "'When do you suppose we should get to New York?' "'I don't use New York any. Nor Boston. We may see Eastern Point about September and your paw. I'm real sorry I ain't here to tell a hymn. May give me ten dollars after all you talk.' Then, of course, he mayn't. "'Ten dollars? See here I—' Harvey dived into his pocket for the wad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes. Not lawful currency, and bad for the lungs. Heave him overboard, young feller, and try again.' "'It's been stolen,' cried Harvey, hotly. "'You'll have to wait till you see your paw to reward me, then?' "'A hundred and thirty-four dollars all stolen,' said Harvey, hunting wildly through his pockets. Give them back!' A curious change flitted across old troops' hard face. "'What might you have been doing at your time of life with one hundred and thirty-four dollars, young feller?' "'It was part of my pocket money for a month.' This Harvey thought would be a knock-down blow, and it was, indirectly.' "'Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his pocket money, for one month only. You don't remember hitting anything when you fell over, do you? Crack against a stanchion, let's say?' "'Old man Haskin of the Eastwind!' Troop seemed to be talking to himself. He tripped on a hatch and butted the main mast with his head, hardish. About three weeks afterwards old man Haskin he would have it that the Eastwind was a commerce destroyer man of war. And so he declared war on Sable Island because it was British, and the shoals run out too far. They sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head and feet appearing, for the rest of the trip, and now he's home in Essex playing with little rag-dolls.' Harvey chugged with rage, but Troop went on consolingly. "'We're sorry for you. We're very sorry for you. And so young. We won't say no more about the money, I guess.' "'Course you won't. You stole it.' "'Suit yourself. We stole it, if it's any comfort to you. Now, about going back. Allow it we can do it, which we can't. You ate a no-fit state to go back to your home, and we've just come on to the banks, working for our bread. We don't see the half of a hundred dollars a month, let alone pocket money. And with good luck we'll be assured again somewhere as about the first weeks of September.' "'But—but it's May now, and I can't stay here doing nothing just because you want a fish. I can't, I tell you.' "'Right and jest. Just and right. No one asks you to do nothing. There's a heap as you can do. For Otto he went overboard on LeHav. I mistrust he lost his grip in a gale we found there. Anyways, he never come back to deny it. You turned up plain, plum providential for all concerned. I mistrust, though, there's rather few things you can do. Ate that so.' "'I can make it lively for you in your crowd when we get ashore,' said Harvey with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about piracy, at which troupe almost—not quite—smiled.' "'Cept talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more on you've a mind to aboard the We're Here. Keep your eyes open and help Dan to do as he's bid, and such like, and I'll give you. You ain't worth it, but I'll give ten and a half a month, say, thirty-five at the end of the trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you can tell us all about your dad and your maw and your money afterwards.' "'She's on the steamer,' said Harvey, his eyes filled with tears. "'Take me to New York at once.' "'Poor woman! Poor woman! When she has you back, she'll forget it all, though. There's eight of us on the We're Here, and if we went back now—it's more than a thousand miles—we'd lose the season. The men, they wouldn't have it. Alow and I was agreeable.' "'But my father would make it all right.' "'He'd try. I don't doubt he'd try,' said troupe. But a whole season's catch is eight men's bread, and you'll be better in your health when you see him in the fall. Go forward and help Dan. It's ten and a half a month, as I said, and, of course, I'll find, just as the rest of us.' "'Do you mean I'm to clean pots and pans and things?' said Harvey.' "'And other things. You've no call to shout, young feller.' "'I won't. My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little fish-kettle,' Harvey stamped on the deck, ten times over, if you take me to New York safe, and you're in a hundred and thirty by me anyway.' "'How?' said troupe, the iron-faced darkening. "'How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want me to do menial work.' Harvey was very proud of that adjective. "'Till the fall. I tell you, I will not. You hear?' Troop regarded the top of the main mast with deep interest for a while, as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him. "'Hush,' he said at last. I'm figuring out my responsibilities in my own mind. It's a matter of judgment.' Dan stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. "'Don't go to tamper him with Dad any more,' he pleaded. "'You've called him a thief two or three times over, and he don't take that from any living being.' "'I won't,' Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and still troupe meditated. "'Seems kinder, unneighborly,' he said at last, his eye traveling down to Harvey. "'I don't blame you, not a mite, young feller. "'Nor you won't blame me when the bile's out of your system. "'Be sure you sense what I say.' "'Ten and a half for Second Boy on the scooter. And all fund.' "'For to teach you, and for the sake of your health.' "'Yes or no?' "'No,' said Harvey. "'Take me back to New York, or I'll see you.' He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in the scuppers, holding on to a nose that bled, while troupe looked down on him serenely. "'Dad,' he said to his son, "'I was set against this young feller when I first saw him, on account of hasty judgements. Never you be led astray by hasty judgements, Dad. "'Now I'm sorry for him because he's clear distracted in his upper works. He ain't responsible for the names he's give me, nor for his other statements, nor for jump and overboard, which I'm about half convinced he did. You be gentle with him, Dad, or I'll give you twice what I give him. Them hemorrhages clears the head. Let him sluice it off.' Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older men bunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless air to thirty millions. CHAPTER II I warned you," said Dan as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark oiled planking. "'Dad ain't no ways hasty, but you fair earned it. Pshaw! There's no sense taken on so.' Harvey's shoulders were rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing. I know the feeling. First time Dad laid me out was the last, and that was my first trip. Makes you feel sickish and lonesome. I know.' "'It does,' moaned Harvey. That man's either crazy or drunk, and I can't do anything.' "'Don't say that to Dad,' whispered Dan. He said again all liquor. And, well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made you call him a thief? He's my dad.' Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing lot of bills. "'I'm not crazy,' he wound up. Only, your father has never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it.' "'You don't know what the weir here is worth. Your dad must have a pile of money. How did he get it?' Dad says Looney's can't shake out a straight yarn. Go ahead.' "'In gold mines and things, West?' "'I've read that kind of business. Out West, too. Does he go round with a pistol on a trick pony, same as the circus? They call that the Wild West, and I've heard that their spurs and bridles was solid silver.' "'You are a chump,' said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. My father hasn't any use for ponies. When he wants to ride, he takes his car.' "'How? Lobster car?' "'No, his own private car, of course. You've seen a private car some time in your life.' "'Slayton Beaman he has won,' said Dan cautiously. I saw her at the Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hogging her run.' Dan meant cleaning the windows. But Slayton Beaman he owns about every railroad on Long Island, they say, and they say he's bought about half New Hampshire, on a lion-fence rounder, and filled her up with lions and tigers and bears and buffalo and crocodiles and such all. Slayton Beaman he's a millionaire. I've seen his car, yes?' "'Well, my father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has two private cars. One's named for me, the Harvey, and one for my mother, the Constance.' "'Hold on,' said Dan. "'Dad don't ever let me swear, but I guess you can. Before we go ahead I want you to say, hope you may die if you're lying.' "'Of course,' said Harvey. "'That ain't enough. Say, hope I may die if I ain't speaking truth.' "'Hope I may die right here,' said Harvey, if every word I've spoken isn't the cold truth.' "'Hundred and thirty-four dollars in all?' said Dan. "'I heard you talking to Dad, and I'd half looked you to be swallowed up, same as Jonah.' Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young person along his own lines, and ten minutes questioning convinced him that Harvey was not lying much. Besides, he had bound himself by the most terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he sat alive with a red-ended nose in the scuppers, recounting marvels upon marvels. "'Gosh!' said Dan at last, from the very bottom of his soul, when Harvey had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour. Then a grin of mischievous delight overspread his broad face. "'I believe you, Harvey. Dad's made a mistake for once in his life.' "'He has, sure,' said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge. "'He'll be mad clear through. Dad just hates to be mistook in his judgments.' Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. "'Oh, Harvey, don't you spoil the catch by letting on?' "'I don't want to be knocked down again. I'll get even with him, though.' Never heard any man ever got even with Dad. But he'd knock you down again, sure. The more he was mistook, the more he'd do it. But gold mines and pistols! I never said a word about pistols,' Harvey cut in, for he was on his oath. "'That's so. No more you did. Two private cars, then. One name for you, and one for her, and two hundred dollars a month pocket money. All knocked into the scuppers for not working for ten and a half a month. It's the top haul of the season.' He exploded with noiseless chuckles. "'Then I was right,' said Harvey, who thought he had found a sympathizer. "'You was wrong, the wrongest kind of wrong. You take right hold and pitch in alongside of me, or you'll catch it, and I'll catch it for backing you up. That always gives me double helps, because I'm his son, and he hates favoring folk. Guess you're kind of mad at Dad. I've been that way time and again, but Dad's a mighty just man. All the fleet says so.' "'Looks like justice, this, don't it?' Harvey pointed to his outraged nose. "'That's nothing. Let's the shore-blood out of you. Dad did it for your health. Say, though, I can't have dealings with a man that thinks me or Dad or any one on the We're Heers, a thief. We ain't any common wharf and crowd by any manner of means. We're fishermen, and we've shipped together for six years and more. Don't you make any mistake on that? I told you Dad don't let me swear. He calls them vain oaths and pounds me. But if I could say what you said about your pap and his fixings, I'd say that about your dollars. I'd know what was in your pockets when I dried your kit, for I didn't look to see. But I'd say, using the very same words as you used just now, neither me nor Dad, and we was the only two that touched you after you were brought aboard, knows anything about the money. That's my say. Now?' The bloodletting had certain cleared Harvey's brain, and perhaps the loneliness of the sea had something to do with it. "'That's all right,' he said. Then he looked down confusedly. "'Seems to me that for a fellow just saved from drowning I haven't been over and above. Grateful, Dan!' "'Well, you was shook up and silly,' said Dan. "'Anyway, there was only Dad and me aboard to see it. The cook—he don't count.' "'I might have thought about losing the bills that way,' Harvey said, half to himself, instead of calling everybody inside a thief. "'Where's your father?' "'In the cabin. What do you want of him again?' "'You'll see,' said Harvey, and he stepped rather groggily, for his head was still singing, to the cabin steps where the little ship's clock hung in plain sight of the wheel. The ship in the chocolate-and-yellow-painted cabin was busy with a note-book and an enormous black pencil, which he sucked hard from time to time. "'I haven't acted quite right,' said Harvey, surprised at his own meekness. "'What's wrong now?' said the skipper. "'Walked into Dan, have you?' "'No, it's about you.' "'I'm here to listen.' "'Well, I—I'm here to take things back,' said Harvey. Very quickly. "'When a man's saved from drowning,' he gulped. "'Hey, you'll make a man yet if you go on this way.'" He oughtn't begin by calling people names. "'Just and right, right and jest,' said Troop, with a ghost of a dry smile. "'So I'm here to say, I'm sorry,' another big gulp. Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and held out an eleven-inch hand. "'I mistrusted, toward you, sights are good. And this shows I weren't mistook in my judgements.' A smothered chuckle on deck caught his ear. "'I am very seldom mistook in my judgements.' The eleven-inch hand closed on Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "'We'll put a little more gristle to that, for we're done with you, young feller. And I don't think any worse of you for anything that's gone by. You wasn't fairly responsible. Go right about your business, and you won't take no hurt.' "'You're white,' said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to the tips of his ears. "'I don't feel it,' said he. "'I didn't mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows he don't think the worst of any man, Dads gave himself away. He hates to be mistook in his judgements, too. Ho, ho! Once Dad has a judgment he'd sooner dip his colours to the British than change it. I'm glad it settled right end up. Dad's right when he says he can't take you back. It's all the livin' we make here, fishin'.' The men'll be back like sharks after a dead whale in half an hour.' "'What for?' said Harvey. "'Supper, of course. Don't your stomach tell you? You've a heap to learn.' "'Guess I have,' said Harvey dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropes and blocks overhead. "'She's a daisy,' said Dan enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. "'Wait till our mainsail's bent, and she walks home with all her salt wet. There's some work first, though.' He pointed down into the darkness of the open main hatch between the two masts. "'What's that for? It's all empty,' said Harvey. "'You and me and a few more have got to fill it,' said Dad. "'That's where the fish goes.' "'Alive?' said Harvey. "'Well, no. There's supposed to be rather dead, and flat, and salt. There's a hundred hogshead of salt in the bins, and we hate more and covered our tonnage to now. Where are the fish, though?' "'In the sea,' they say. "'In the boats we pray,' said Dan, quoting a fisherman's proverb. "'You come in last night with about forty of them.' He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarter-deck. "'You and me will sluice that out when we're through. Send we'll have full pens to-night. I've seen her down half a foot with fish waiting to clean, and we stood to the tables till we was splitting ourselves instead of them. We was so sleepy. Yes, they're coming in now.' Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories, rowing towards them over the shining, silky sea. "'I've never seen the sea from so low down,' said Harvey. "'It's fine.' The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden lights on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green mackerel shades in the hollows. Which schooner in sight seemed to be pulling her dories toward her by invisible strings, and the little black figures in the tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys. "'They've struck on good,' said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. Manuel ain't room for another fish. Lo is a lily-pad and still water, eh-dee. Which is Manuel. I don't see how you can tell him way off, as you do. I spoke to the Southerner. He find you last night,' said Dan, pointing. "'Manuel rose portugousi, and you can't mistake him. East of him—he's a heap better than he rose—is Pennsylvania, loaded with Salaratus by the looks of him. East of him—see how pretty they string out all along with the humpy shoulders—is Long Jack. He's a Galway man inhabiting South Boston, where they all live mostly, and mostly them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away yonder—you'll hear him tune up in a minute—is Tom Platt, man of war's man he was, on the old Ohio, first of our navy, he says, to go round the horn. He never talks of much else, except when he sings, but he has fair fishing-luck. There, what did I tell you?' A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. Harvey heard something about somebody's hands and feet being cold, and then— "'Bring forth the chart, the doleful chart, see where them mountains meet. The clouds are thick around their heads, the mists around their feet.' "'Full boat,' said Dan, with a chuckle. "'If he gives us, O Captain, it's top and full.' The bellow continued, "'And now to thee, O Captain, most earnestly I pray, that they shall never bury me in church or cloister-grey.' "'Double game for Tom Platt, he'll tell you all about the old Ohio to-morrow. See that blue-dory behind him? He's my uncle, Dad's own brother, and if there's any bad luck loose on the banks, she'll fetch up again, Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he's rowing. I'll lay my wage and share he's the only man stung up to-day, and he's stung up good.' "'What'll sting him?' said Harvey, getting interested. "'Strawberries, mostly. Punkins, sometimes, and sometimes lemons and cucumbers. Yes, he's stung up from his elbows down. That man's luck perfectly paralyzing. Now we'll take a hold of the tackles and heist them in. Is it true what you told me just now, that you never done a hands turn of work in all your born life? Must feel kinder awful, don't it?' "'I'm going to try to work any way,' Harvey replied stoutly. Only it's all dead new. Lay a hold of that tackle, then, behind you.' Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the stays of the main mast, while Dan pulled down another that ran from something he called a topping-lift, as Manuel drew alongside in his loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey learned to know well later, and a short-handled fork began to throw fish into the pan on deck. "'231!' he shouted. "'Give him the hook,' said Dan, and Harvey ran it into Manuel's hands. He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory's bow, caught Dan's tackle, hooked it to the stern becket, and clambered into the schooner. "'Pull!' shouted Dan, and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how easily the dory rose. "'Hold on, she don't nest at the cross-trees!' Dan laughed, and Harvey held on, for the boat lay in the air above his head. "'Lower away!' Dan shouted, and as Harvey lowered Dan swayed the light boat with one hand till it landed softly just behind the main mast. "'They don't weigh nothing empty. That was right smart for a passenger. There's more trick to it in a sea-way.' "'Haha!' said Manuel, holding out a brown hand. You are some pretty well now. This time last night the fish they fish for you. Now you fish for fish. Eh, what?' "'I'm—I'm ever so grateful,' Harvey stammered, and his unfortunate hand stole to his pocket once more, but he remembered that he had no money to offer. When he knew Manuel better, the mere thought of the mistake he might have made would have covered him with hot, uneasy blushes in his bunk. "'There is no to be thankful for to me,' said Manuel. "'How shall I leave you dreaf-dreafed all around the banks? Now you are a fisherman, eh, what?' "'Ooh! Ah!' He bent backward and forward stiffly from the hips to get the kinks out of himself. "'I have not cleaned boat to-day. Too busy. They struck on quick. Danny, my son, clean for me!' Harvey moved forward at once. Here was something he could do for the man who had saved his life. Dan threw him a swab and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the slime clumsily, but with great good will. "'Hike out the foot-boards. They slide in them grooves,' said Dan. "'Swab them and lay them down. Never let a foot-board jam. You may wander bad some day. Here's Long Jack.' A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside. "'Manuel, you take the tackle. I'll fix the tables. Harvey clear Manuel's boat. Long Jack's nested on the top of her.' Harvey looked up from his swamming at the bottom of another dory just above his head. "'Just like the engine puzzle-boxes, ain't they?' said Dan as the one boat dropped into the other. "'Takes to it like a duck to water,' said Long Jack, a grisly chinned, long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro exactly as Manuel had done. Disco in the cabin growled up the hatchway and they could hear him suck his pencil. "'One hundred and forty-nine and a half. Bad luck to you, discobulus!' said Long Jack. "'I'm murdering myself to fill up your pockets. Slate it for a bad catch. The Portuguese has baited me.' Whack came another dory alongside and more fish shot into the pen. "'203. Let's look at the passenger.' The speaker was even larger than the Galway man, and his face was made curious by a purple cut running slant-wise from his left eye to the right corner of his mouth. Not knowing what else to do Harvey swabbed each dory as it came down, pulled out the foot-boards, and laid them in the bottom of the boat. "'He's caught on good,' said the scarred man, who was Tom Platt, watching him critically. "'There are two ways of doing everything. One's fisher fashion, and he ends first in a slippery hitch overall, and the other's, what we did on the old Ohio!' When interrupted, brushing into the knot of men with a log board on legs, get out of here, Tom Platt, and leave me fix the tables.' He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, kicked out the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging blow from the man-o'-war's man. "'And they did that on the Ohio, too, Danny. See?' said Tom Platt, laughing. "'Guess they were swivel-eyed then, for it didn't get home, and I know who'll find his boots on the main-truck if he don't leave us alone. All ahead. I'm busy, can't you see?' "'Danny, you lie on the cable and sleep all day,' said Long Jack. "'You're the hide of impudence. And I'm persuaded you'll corrupt our supercargo in a week.' "'His name's Harvey,' said Dan, waving two strangely-shaped knives, and he'll be worth five of any South Boston clam-digger for long.' He laid the knives tastefully on the table, cocked his head on one side, and admired the effect. "'I think it's forty-two,' said a small voice, over side, and there was a roar of laughter as another voice answered. "'That my luck's turned for once, because I'm forty-five, though I'd be stung out of all shape.' "'Forty-two or forty-five? I've lost count,' the small voice said. "'It's Pan and Uncle Salter's count-and-catch. This beats the circus any day,' said Dan. "'Just look at them.' "'Come in, come in,' roared Long Jack. It's wet out yonder, children.' "'Forty-two,' you said. That was Uncle Salter's. "'I can't again, then,' the voice replied meekly. The two dories swung together and bunted into the schooner's side. "'Patience, uh, Jerusalem,' snapped Uncle Salter's, backing water with a splash. "'What possessed a farmer like you to set foot in a boat beats me? You've nice-stove me all up.' "'I'm sorry, Mr. Salter's. I came to see on account of nervous dyspepsia. You advised me, I think.' "'You and your nervous dyspepsia be drowned in the whale-hole,' roared Uncle Salter's, a fat and tubly little man. "'You're coming down on me again. Did you say forty-two or forty-five?' "'I've forgotten, Mr. Salter's. Let's count.' "'Don't see as it could be forty-five. I'm forty-five,' said Uncle Salter's. "'You count careful, Penn.' Disco troop came out of the cabin. "'Sulters, you pitch your fish in now at once,' he said in the tone of authority. "'Don't spoil the catch, Dad.' Then murmured, "'Them two are only just beginning. Mother of delight! He's forkin' the one by one! How long, Tom!' As Uncle Salter's got to work laboriously, the little man in the other door accounting a line of notches on the gunnel. "'That was last week's catch,' he said, looking up plaintively, his forefinger where he had left off. Manwell nudged Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and leaning far overside slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manwell made her fast forward. The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat in, man, fish, and all. "'One, two, four, nine,' said Tom Platt, counting with a practice eye. "'Forty-seven. Penn, you're it!' Dan let the after-tackle run, and slid him out of the stern onto the deck amid a torrent of his own fish. "'Hold on!' roared Uncle Salter's, bobbing by the waist. "'Hold on! I'm a bit mixed up on my count!' He had no time to protest, but was hoeve-inboard and treated like Pennsylvania. "'Forty-one,' said Tom Platt, beat by a farmer, Salter's, and you such a sailor, too.' "'Twerent fair count,' said he, stumbling out of the pen, and I'm all stung up to pieces.' The cans were puffy and modelled purpley-white. "'Some folks will find Strawberry Bottom,' said Dan, addressing the newly risen moon, "'if they have to dive for it, seems to me.' "'And others,' said Uncle Salter's, eats the fat of the land in sloth and mocks their own blood-kin.' "'Seachy, seachy!' A voice Harvey had not heard called from the folksle. Let's go, Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salter's went forward on the word. Little pen bent above his square deep-sea reel and the tangled cod lines. Manuel lay down full length on the deck, and Dan dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him banging casks with a hammer. "'Salt,' he said, returning, "'soon as we're through supper we get the dressing down. You'll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt and Dad, they stow together, and you'll hear him arguing. We're second half, you and me and Manuel and Pen, the youth and beauty of the boat.' "'What's the good of that?' said Harvey. "'I'm hungry.' "'They'll be through in a minute. Sniff! She smells good to-night. Dad ships a good cook if he do suffer with his brother. It's a full catch to-day, ain't it?' he pointed to the pens piled high with cod. "'What water did you have, Manuel?' "'Twenty-five, father,' said the Portuguese, sleepily. "'They strike on good and quick. Someday I show you, Harvey.' The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder men came aft. The cook had no need to cry second half. Dan and Manuel were down at the hatch and at table, Air Tom Platt, last and most deliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. They followed pen, and sat down before a tin pan of cod's tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and fried potato, a loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful coffee. Hungry as they were, they waited while Pennsylvania solemnly asked a blessing. Then they stoked in silence till Dan drew breath over his tin cup, and demanded of Harvey how he felt. Most full, but there's just room for another piece. Cook was a huge jet-black negro, and unlike all the negro's Harvey had met, did not talk, contending himself with smiles and dumb-show invitations to eat more. "'See, Harvey,' said Dan, wrapping with his fork on the table, "'it's just, as I said, the young and handsome men, like me and Pensy, and you and Manuel, we're second half, and we eats when the first half are through. They're the old fish, and they're mean and humpy, and their stomachs has to be humored, so they come first, which they don't deserve. Ain't that so, doctor?' The cook nodded. "'Getty talk?' said Harvey, in a whisper. "'Noth to get along. Not much anything we know. His natural tongues kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton. He does, where the farmers speak homemade scotch. Cape Breton's full of niggers whose folk run in there during our war, and they talk like the farmers, all huffy-chuffy. "'That is not scotch,' said Pennsylvania. "'That is Gaelic, so I read in a book.' "'Pen reads a heap. Most of what he says is so. Set when it comes to a count of fish, eh?' "'Does your father just let them say how many they've caught without checking them?' said Harvey. "'Why, yes. Where's the sense of a man lying for a few old cod?' "'Was a man once lied for his catch,' man well put in, lied every day. Five, ten, twenty-five more fish than come he say there was.' "'Where was that?' said Dan. "'None of our folk.' "'Frenchmen of Aguille?' "'Ah, those West Shore Frenchmen don't count anyways. As to reason they can't count. If you run across any of their soft-hooks, Harvey, you'll know why,' said Dan, with an awful contempt. "'Always more and nevertheless every time we come to dress.' Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the second half scrambled up at once. The shadow of the mass and rigging, with a never-furrowed riding-sale, rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight, and the pile of fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disco Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork and led him to the inboard end of the rough table where Uncle Salters was drumming impatiently with a knife- half. A tub of salt-water lay at his feet. "'You pitched Dad and Tom Platt down the hatch, and take care Uncle Salters don't cut your eye out,' said Dan, swinging himself into the hold. "'I'll pass salt below.' Penn and Manuel stood knee-deep among cod in the pen, flourishing drawn knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and mittens on his hands, faced Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and the tub. "'Hi,' shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up with a finger under its gill and a finger in its eye. He laid it on the edge of the pen, the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of tearing, and the fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either side of the neck, dropped at Long Jack's feet. "'Hi,' said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mitten hand. The cod's liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head an awful flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, who snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, the backbone flew over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, gutted and open, splashed in the tub, sending the salt water into Harvey's astonish mouth. After the first yell, the men were silent. The cod moved along as though they were alive, and long ear Harvey had ceased wondering at the miraculous dexterity of it all, his tub was full. "'Pitch,' grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and Harvey pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch. "'Hi! Pitch'''''m bunchy!' shouted Dan. "'Don't scatter!' Uncle Salters is the best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!' Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting magazine pages against time. Manuel's body, cramped over it from the hips, stayed like a statue, but his long arms grabbed the fish without ceasing. Pen toiled valiantly, but it was easy to see he was weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him without breaking the chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled because he had caught his finger in a Frenchman's hook. These hooks are made of soft metal to be re-bent after use, but the cod very often get away with them and are hooked again elsewhere, and that is one of the many reasons why the Gloucester boats despise the Frenchman. Down below the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough flesh sounded like the whirring of a grindstone, a steady undertune to the click-nick of the knives in the pen, the wrench and schloop of torn heads, dropped liver and flying awful, the craah of Uncle Salter's knife scooping away backbones, and the flap of wet opened bodies falling into the tub. At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest, for fresh, wet cod way more than you would think, and his back ached with the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his life that he was one of a working gang of men, took pride in the thought and held on sullenly. "'Knife, oh!' shouted Uncle Salter's, at last. Pen doubled up gasping among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a black shadow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, and retreated. "'Blood ends for breakfast and head chowder,' said Long Jack, smacking his lips. "'Knife, oh!' repeated Uncle Salter's, waving the flat curved splitter's weapon. "'Look by your foot, Harve!' cried Dan, below. Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch combing. He dealt these around, taking over the dulled ones. "'Water!' said Disco Troop. "'Scuttlebutts forward, and the dippers alongside. Hurry, Harve!' said Dan. He was back in a minute with a big dipper full of stale brown water which tasted like nectar, and loosed the jaws of Disco and Tom Platt. "'These are cod!' said Disco. "'They ain't Dermascus figs, Tom Platt, nor yet silver bars. I've told you that every single time since we've sailed together.' "'A matter of seven seasons,' returned Tom Platt, coolly. "'Good stoans, good stoan, all the same, and there's a right and a wrong way of stoan ballast, even. If you'd ever seen four hundred ton of iron set into the—' "'Ha!' with a yell from Manuel the work began again. I never stopped till the pen was empty. The instant the last fish was down Disco Troop rolled af to the cabin with his brother. Manuel and Long Jack went forward. Tom Platt only waited long enough to slide home the hatch, ere he too disappeared. In half a minute Harve heard deep snores in the cabin, and he was staring blankly at Dan in pen. "'I did a little better that time, Danny,' said Pen, whose eyelids were heavy with sleep. "'But I think it is my duty to help clean.' "'Wouldn't have your conscience for a thousand quintal,' said Dan. "'Turn in, Pen. You've no call to do boys' work. Draw a bucket, Harvey. "'Oh, Pen, dump these in the gurry butt for you sleep. Can you keep awake that long?' Dan took up the heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a cask with a hinged top, lashed by the folk-soul. Then he too dropped out of sight in the cabin. "'Boys clean up after dressing down, and first watch in calm weather is boys' watch on the weir here.' Dan slewced the pen energetically, unshipped the table, set it up to dry in the moonlight, ran the red-knife blades through a wad of oakum, and began to sharpen them on a tiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offle and backbones overboard under his direction. At the first splash a silvery white ghost rose, bolt upright from the oily water, and sighed a weir whistling sigh. Harvey started back with a shout, but Dan only laughed. "'Grampus,' said he, begging for fish-heads, they up-end that way when they're hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, haity! A horrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of white sank, and the water bubbled oilily. Hey,'d you never seen a grampus up-end before? You'll see him by hundreds for your through. Say, it's good to have a boy aboard again. Otto was too old, and a duchy at that. Him and me we fought considerable. Wouldn't it cured for that if he'd had a Christian tongue in his head?' "'Sleepy?' "'Dead sleepy,' said Harvey, nodding forward. "'Mustn't sleep on watch. Rouse up and see if our anchor light's bright and shining. You're on watch now, Harve.' "'Pasha, what's to hurt us? Bright as day. Just when things happen,' Dan says, fine weather's good sleeping, and for you know, maybe, you're cut in two by a liner, and seventeen brass-bound officers, all gentlemen, lift their hand to it that your lights was out and there was a thick fog. Harve, I've kind of took to you, but if you nod once more I'll lay into you with a rope's end.' The moon, who sees many strange things on the banks, looked down on a slim youth and knicker-bockers and a red jersey, staggering around the cluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner, while behind him, waving a knotted rope, walked, after the manner of an executioner, a boy who yawned and knotted between the blows he dealt. The last wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted a little in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the miserable procession continued. Harve expostulated, threatened, whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words clotting on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness, and slashed away with a rope's end, punishing the dories as often as he hid Harve. At last the clock and the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke little pen crept on deck. He found two boys and two tumbled heaps, side by side on the main hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to their births. CHAPTER III It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish. The blood ends the cook had collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mass, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swapped down the folk-soul, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, and investigated the for-hold where the boat's stores were stacked. It was another perfect day, soft, mild and clear, and Harve breathed to the very bottom of his lungs. More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas were full of sails and dories. Far away on the horizon, the smoke of some liner, her hull invisible, smudged the blue, and eastward a big ship's top-gallant sails, boat-lifting, made a square nick in it. Disco troupe was smoking by the roof of the cabin, one eye on the craft around, and the other on the little fly at the main-mass-head. "'When Dad kerflummoxes that way,' said Dad in a whisper, "'he's doing some high-line thinking for all hands. I'll lay my wage and share, we'll make birth soon.' Dad he knows the cod, and the fleet they know Dad knows. See him coming up, one by one, looking for nothing in particular, of course, but scouting on us all the time? There's the Prince Leboa. She's a Chatham boat. She's crept up since last night. And see that big one with a patch in her foresole and a new jib? She's the Carrie Pittman from West Chatham. She won't keep her canvas long on lesser luxe change since last season. She don't do much, except drift. There ain't an anchor made a little holder. When the smoke puffs up a little rings like that, Dad's studying the fish. If we speak to him now, he'll get mad. Last time I did, he just took and hove a boot at me. Disco Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes that saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fish, pitting his knowledge and experience on the banks against the roving cod in his own sea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive schooners on the horizon as a complement to his powers. But now that it was paid, he wished to draw away and make his birth alone, till it was time to go up to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that roaring town upon the waters. So Disco Troop thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, food supplies, and other domestic arrangements, from the point of view of a twenty-pound cod, was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself, and looked remarkably like one. Then he removed the pipe from his teeth. Dad, said Dan, we've done our chores. Can't we go over side a piece? It's good catchin' weather. Not in that cherry-colored rig nor them half-baked brown shoes. Give him somethin' fit to wear. Dad's pleased, that settles it, said Dan delightedly, dragging Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. Dad keeps my spare rig where he can overhaul it, cos ma says I'm careless. He rummaged through a locker, and in less than three minutes Harvey was adorned with fishermen's rubber boots that came half up his thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the elbows, a pair of flippers, and a sowester. Now you look somethin' like, said Dan, hurry! Keep nigh and handy, said Troop, and don't go visitin' round the fleet. If any one asks you what I'm cacolatin' to do, speak the truth, for you don't know. A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay a stern of the schooner. Dan hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, while Harvey tumbled clumsily after. That's no way of getting into a boat, said Dan. If there was any sea you'd go to the bottom shore. You've got to learn to meet her. Dan fitted the thul pins, took the forward thwart, and watched Harvey's work. The boy had rode, in the ladylike fashion, on the Adirondack ponds, but there is a difference between squeaking pins and well balanced rollox, light skulls and stubby eight-foot sea oars. They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted. Short! Row short! Said Dan. If you cramp your oar in any kind of sea, you're liable to turn her over. Ain't she a daisy? Mine, too! The little dory was specklessly clean. In her boughs lay a tiny anchor, two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, brown dory-roading. A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under Harvey's right hand, beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and a shorter wooden stick. A couple of lines, with very heavy leads and double cod-hooks, all neatly coiled on square reels, were stuck in their place by the gunnel. Where's the sail amassed? Said Harvey, for his hands were beginning to blister. Then chuckled. You don't sail fishing-dory's much. You pull, but you needn't pull so hard. Don't you wish you owned her? Well, I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked him. Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family till then. That's so! I forgot your dad's a millionaire. You don't have a millionaire any, now. But a dory in craft and gear! Then spoke as though she were a whale-boat. Coss a heap! Think your dad'd give you one for a pet-like? Shouldn't wonder. It would be most the only thing I haven't stuck him for yet. Must be a expensive kinder kid to home. Don't slitheroo that way, Harve! Shorts the trick, because no seas ever dead still, and the swells'll crack. The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and knocked him backward. That was what I was going to say. I had to learn, too, but I wasn't more than eight years old when I got my schooling. Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown. No good get mad at things, Dad says. It's our own fault if we can't handle him, he says. Let's try here. Manuel'll give us the water. The Portuguese was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan upended an oar he waved his left arm three times. Thirty fathom, said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. Over with the dough-boys. Bait same as I do, Harve, and don't snow, you're real. Dan's lime was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of baiting and heaving out the lads. The dory drifted along easily. It was not worthwhile to anchor till they were sure of good ground. Here we come! Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on Harvey's shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. Muckle, Harvey, muckle! Under your hand! Quick! Evidently, Muckle could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed over the mall, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled it inboard and wrenched out the hook with a short wooden stick he called a gobb-stick. Then Harvey fell to tug, and pulled up zealously. Why, these are strawberries! He shouted, look! The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one side and white on the other, perfect reproductions of the land fruit, except that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipey and slimy. Don't touch them! Slat them off! Don't! The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the hook and was admiring them. Ouch! He cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had grasped many nettles. Now you know what Strawberry Bottom means. Nothing set fish should be touched with the naked fingers, Dan says. Slat him off again the gunnel and bait up, Harve. Looking won't help me. It's all in the wages. Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, and wondered what his mother would say if she could see him hanging over the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered agonies whenever he went out on Saranac Lake, and by the way, Harvey remembered distinctly that he used to laugh at her anxieties. Suddenly, the line flashed through his hand, stinging even through the flippers, the woollen circlates supposed to protect it. He's a logie! Give him room according to his strength! cried Dan. I'll help you. No, you won't. Harvey snapped as he hung on to the line. It's my first fish. Is—is it a whale? Halibut, maybe? Dan peered down into the water alongside and flourished the big muckle ready for all chances. Something white and oval flickered and fluttered through the green. I'll lay my wage and share. He's over a hundred. Are you so everlast and anxious to land him alone? These knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been banged against the gunnel. His face was purple-blue between excitement and exertion. He dripped with sweat and was half-blinded from staring at the circling sunlit ripples around the swiftly moving line. The boys were tired long ere of the halibut, who took charge of them and the dory for the next twenty minutes. But the big flat fish was gaffed and hauled in at last. Beginner's luck! said Dan, wiping his forehead. He's all of a hundred. Harvey looked at the huge gray and mottled creature with unspeakable pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs of shore, but it never occurred to him to ask how they came inland. Now he knew, and every inch of his body ached with fatigue. If Dan was along, said Dan, hauling up, he'd read the signs as plain as print. The fish are running smaller and smaller, and you've took about as loggy a halibut as we're apt to find this trip. Yesterday's catch, did you notice it, was all big fish and no halibut. Dad, he's read them signs right off. Dad says everything on the banks is signs, and can be read wrong or right. Dad's deeper in the whale-hole. Even as he spoke, someone fired a pistol on the We're Here, and a potato basket was run up in the fore-rigging. What did I say now? That's the call for the whole crowd. Dad's on to something, or he'd never break fish in this time of day. Reel up, Harvey, and we'll pull back. They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the dory over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them to Penn, who was careering about a fixed point for all the world like a gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down again with enormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his dory swung round and snubbed herself on a rope. We'll have to help him, else he'll root in seed here, said Dan. What's the matter? said Harvey. This was a new world where he could not lay down the law to his elders but had to ask questions humbly, and the sea was horribly big and unexcited. He was fouled, Penn's always losing him, lost to this trip already, unsant he bought him, too, and Dad says next one he loses, sure as fishing, he'll give him the Kellig. That'd break Penn's heart. What's a Kellig? said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be some kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the story-books. Big stone instead of an anchor. You can see a Kellig riding in the bow's fur as you can see a dory, and all the fleet knows what it means. They'd guy him dreadful. Penn couldn't stand that no more in a dog with a dip or two his tail. He's so everlasting, sensitive. Hello, Penn, stuck again? Don't try any more of your patents. Come up on her and keep your rodent straight up and down. It doesn't move, said the little man, panting. It doesn't move at all, and indeed I tried everything. What's all this harass-ness for? said Dan, pointing to a wild tangle of spare oars and dory-roading, all matted together by the hand of inexperience. Oh, that! said Penn proudly. Is a Spanish windless? Mr. Salter showed me how to make it, but even that doesn't move her. Dan bent low over the gunnel to hide a smile, twitched once or twice on the rodent, and, behold, the anchor drew at once. Hall up, Penn! he said, laughing, or she'll get stuck again. They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor with big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely. Oh, say, while I think of it, Harve! said Dan, when they were out of earshot. Penn ain't quite all cocked. He ain't no eyes dangerous, but his minds give out. See? Is that so, or is it one of your father's judgments? Harvey asked, as he bent to his oars. He felt he was learning to handle them more easily. Dad ain't mistook this time. Penn's a sure enough loony. No, he ain't that exactly. So much as a harmless idgit. It was this way. You're rowing quite so, Harve. And I tell you, because it's right, you ought to know. He was a Moravian preacher once. Jacob Bowler was his name, Dad told me, and he lived with his wife and four children somewhere out Pennsylvania way. Well, Penn, he took his folks along to a Moravian meeting, camp meeting most like, and they stayed over just one night in Johnstown. You hear talk of Johnstown? Harvey considered. Yes, I have, but I don't know why. It sticks in my head same as Ash de Bula. Both was big accidents. That's why, Harve. Well, that one single night Penn and his folks was to the hotel, Johnstown was wiped out, damned bust and fluttered her, and the houses struck a drift and bumped into each other and sunk. I've seen the pictures, and they're dreadful. Penn he saw his folks drowned all in the heat before he rightly knew what was coming. His mind give out from that on. He mistrusted something had happened up to Johnstown, but for the poor life of him he couldn't remember what, and he just drifted around smiling and wondering. He didn't know what he was, nor yet what he had been. In that way he run again Uncle Salters, who was visiting Allegheny City. Half my mother's folks they live scattered inside of Pennsylvania, and Uncle Salters he visits around winters. Uncle Salters he kind of adopted Penn, well knowing what his trouble was, and he brought him east and he gave him work on his farm. Why I heard him call him Penn a farmer last night when the boats bumped. Is your Uncle Salters a farmer? Farmer! shouted Dan. There ain't water enough between here and Hatteras to wash the fur mold off of his boots. He's just everlasten farmer. Why harve I've seen that man hitch up a bucket, long toward sundown, and set twidlin' the spigot to the scuttle-butt same as most was a cow's-bag. He's that much farmer. Well, Penn and he, they ran the farm up Exeter Way Twas. Uncle Salters he sold at this spring to a J from Boston as wanted to build a summer house, and he got a heap for it. Well them two loonies scratched along till one day Penn's church he'd belonged to, the Moravians, found out where he was drifted in land, and wrote to Uncle Salters. Never heared what they said, exactly, but Uncle Salters was mad. He's a Piscopalia mostly, but he just let him have it both sides of the bow, as if he was a Baptist, and says he warn't going to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. Then he came to dead, tow him Penn, that was two trips back, and says he and Penn must fish a trip for their health. Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn't hunt the banks for Jacob and Buller. Dad was agreeable, for Uncle Salters had been fishing off and on for thirty years, when he warn't inventing patent manures, and he took quarter share in the We're Here, and the trip done Penn so much good, Dad made a habit of taking him. Someday Dad says he'll remember his wife and kids and Johnstown, and then like as not, he'll die, Dad says. Don't you talk about Johnstown nor such things to Penn, for Uncle Salters he'll heave you overboard. Poor Penn, murmured Harvey. I should never have thought Uncle Salters cared for him by the look of him together. I like Penn though, we all do, said Dad. We ought to have given him a tow, but I wanted to tell you first. They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little behind them. You needn't heave in the doories till after dinner, said Troop from the deck. We'll dress down right off. Fixed table, boys. Deeper in the whale deep, said Dan with a wink as he set the gear for dressing down. Look at them boats that have edged up since morning. They're all waitin' on Dad. See him, Harve? They are all alike to me. And indeed to a landsman the knotting schooners around seemed run from the same mold. They ain't, though. That yell or dirty packet with its bow sprit, Steve that way. She's the hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her skipper, the meanest man on the banks. We'll tell him so when we strike the main ledge. Way off yonder's the day's eye, the two year olds own her. She's some Harwich, fastish, too, and his good luck. But Dad, he'd find fish in a graveyard. Them other three sat along. They're the Margie Smith, Rose, and Edith C. Whelan, all from home. Guess we'll see the Abbey M. Deering tomorrow, Dad, won't we? They're all slippin' over from the Shoal of Quiro. You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny. When Troop called his son Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. Boys were too crowded. He went on, addressing the crew as they clambered inboard. We'll leave them to bait big and catch small. He looked at the catch in the pen, and it was curious to see how little and level the fish ran. Saved for Harvey's halibut, there was nothing over 15 pounds on deck. I'm waiting on the weather, he added. You have to make it yourself, disco, for there's no sign I can see," said Long Jack, sweepin' the clear horizon. And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the bank fog dropped on them. Between fish and fish, as they say, it drove steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colorless water. The men stopped dressing down without a word. Long Jack and Uncle Salters slipped the windless breaks into their sockets, and began to heave up the anchor, the windless jarring as the wet hempen cable strained on the barrel. Manuel and Tom Platt gave a hand at the last. The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail bellied as troops steadied her at the wheel. "'Up-jib and fore-sail,' said he. "'Slippin' in the smother,' shouted Long Jack, making fast the jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the fore-sail, and the fore-boom creaked as the we're here looked up into the wind and dived off into blank, whirling white. "'There's wind behind this fog,' said Troop. It was all wonderful beyond words to Harvey, and the most wonderful part was that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from Troop, ending with, "'That's good, my son.' "'Never seen anchor wade before?' said Tom Platt, to Harvey, gaping at the damp canvas of the fore-sail. "'No. Where are we going?' "'Fish and make berth, as you'll find out for you've been a week aboard. It's all new to you, but we never know what may come to us. Now take me, Tom Platt. I'd never have thought.' "'It's better than $14 a month and a bullet in your belly,' said Troop, from the wheel. "'Eas your jumbo a grind.' "'Dollars and cents better!' returned the man of war's man, doing something to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. But we didn't think of that when we manned the windless breaks on the Miss Jim Buck, outside Buford Harbour, with Fort Macon heaving hot shot at our stem, and a living gale at top of all. Where was you then, Disco?' "'Just here, or hear abouts,' Disco replied, earning my bread on the deep waters, and dodging red privateers. Sorry, I can't accommodate you with red hot shot, Tom Platt, but I guess we'll come out all right on wind, for we see Eastern Point.' There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the boughs now. Varyed by a solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered down on the folksle, the rigging dripped clammy drops and the men lounged along the lee of the house, all save Uncle Salder's, who sat stiffly on the main hatch, nursing his stung hands. "'Guess she'd carry Stasel,' said Disco, rolling one eye at his brother. "'Guess she wouldn't to any sort of profit. What's the sense of wasting canvas?' the farmer sailor replied. The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disco's hands. A few seconds later a hissing wavetop slashed diagonally across the boat, smote Uncle Salder's between the shoulders, and drenched him from head to foot. He rose sputtering and went forward, only to catch another. "'See, Dad, chase him all around the deck,' said Dan. Uncle Salder's, he thinks his quarter-shares are canvas. Dad's put this duck and act up on him two trips running. Ha! Hi! That found him where he feeds.' Uncle Salder's had taken refuge by the fore-mast, but a wave slapped him over the knees. Disco's face was as blank as the circle of the wheel. "'Guess she'd lie easier under Stasel, Salder's,' said Disco, as though he had seen nothing. "'Set your old kite, then,' roared the victim, through a cloud of spray. "'Holy don't lay it to me if anything happens. Pen you go below right off and get your coffee, and you ought to have more sense than to bum around on deck this weather.' "'Now they'll swill coffee and play checkers till the cows come home,' said Dan, as Uncle Salder's hustled pen into the fore-cabin. "'Looks to me like if we'd all be doing so for a spell. There's nothing in creation, deader, limpsy, idler in a banker when she ain't on fish.' "'I'm glad you spoke, Danny,' cried Long Jack, who had been casting round in search of amusement. "'I'd clean forgot we'd got a passenger under that T-warf hat. There's no idleness for them that don't know their ropes. Pass them along, Tom Platt, and we'll learn him.' "'Taint my trick this time,' grinned Dan. "'You've got to go it alone. Dan learned me with a rope's end.' For an hour Long Jack walked his prey up and down, teaching, as he said, things at the sea that every man must know, blind, drunk, or sleep. There is not much gear to a seventy-ton schooner with a stump-formast, but Long Jack had a gift of expression. When he wished to draw Harvey's attention to the peak-howards, he dug his knuckles into the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze for half a minute. He emphasized the difference between fore and aft, generally by rubbing Harvey's nose along a few feet of the boom, and the lead of each rope was fixed on Harvey's mind by the end of the rope itself. The lesson would have been easier, had the deck been at all free, but there appeared to be a place on it for everything and anything, except a man. Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the chain and hemp cables, all very unpleasant to trip over. The folksal stove-pipe and the gurry-butts by the folksal hatch to hold the fish-livers. After these the fore-boom and booby of the main hatch took all the space that was not needed for the pumps and dressing-pens. Then came the nests of dories lashed to ring-bolts by the quarter-deck, the house, with tubs and oddments lashed all around it, and last, the sixty-foot main-boom in its crutch, splitting things lengthwise, to duck and dodge under every time. Tom Platt, of course, could not keep his oar out of the business, but ranged alongside with enormous and unnecessary descriptions of sales and spars on the old Ohio. Never mind what he says, attend to me, innocence! Tom Platt, this ballet-hoo's not the Ohio, and you're mixing the boy bad! He'll be ruined for life, beginning on a fore-and-after this way!" Tom Platt pleaded. Give him a chance to know a few leading principles. Salen's an art, Harvey, and I'll show you if I had you in the fore-top of the— I know it! You'd talk him dead and cold. Silence, Tom Platt! Now, after all I've said, how'd you reef the forsel, Harve? Take your time answering. Hall that in, said Harvey, pointing to Leeward. What? The North Atlantic? No, the boom. They run—then run that rope you show me back there. That's no way, Tom Platt burst in. Quiet! He's learning, and it's not the name's good yet. Go on, Harve. Oh, it's the reef pennant. I'd hook the tackle onto the reef pennant, and then let down. Lower the sail, child! Lower, said Tom Platt, in a professional agony. Lower the throat and peak howyards. Harvey went on. Those names stuck in his head. Lay your hand on him, said Long Jack. Harvey obeyed. Lowered till that ruplope on the after-leech chris—no, it's Kringle, till the Kringle was down on the boom. Then I'd tire up the way you said, and then I'd hoist up the peak and throat howyards again. You've forgot to pass the tack-eering, but with time and help you'll learn. There's good and just reason for every rope aboard, or else to be over-bored. Do you follow me? To his dollars and cents I'm puttin' into your pocket, ya skinny little supercargo, so that when you're filled out you can ship from Boston to Cuba and tell him Long Jack learned ya. Now I'll chase ya around to peace, callin' the ropes, and you lay your hand on him as I call. He began, and Harvey, who was feeling rather tired, walked slowly to the rope named. A rope's end licked round his ribs, and nearly knocked the breath out of him. When you own a boat, said Tom Platt, with severe eyes, you can walk, till then take all orders at the run—once more, to make sure. Harvey was in a glow with the exercise, and this last cut warmed him thoroughly. Now he was a singularly smart boy, the son of a very clever man, and a very sensitive woman, with a fine-resolute temper that systematic spoiling had nearly turned to mulish obstinacy. He looked at the other men, and saw that even Dan did not smile. It was evidently all in a day's work, though it hurt abominably, so he swallowed the hint with a gulp, and a gasp, and a grin. The same smartness that led him to take such advantage of his mother made him very sure that no one on the boat, except maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One learns a great deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over, half a dozen more ropes, and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb tide, one eye on Tom Platt. Very good, very good, Dan, said Manuel. After supper I show you a little schooner I make, with all her ropes, so we shall learn. First class, for a passenger, said Dan, Dad, he's just allowed you be worth your salt, maybe, before you drown. That's a heap for Dad. I'll learn you more on our next watch together. Tarler, grunted Disko, peering through the fog as it smoked over the boughs. There was nothing to be seen ten feet beyond the surging jib-boon, while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn, pale waves, whispering and upping one to the other. Now, I'll learn you something, Long Jack can't, shouted Tom Platt. As from a locker by the stern he produced a battered, deep-sea lead hollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of mutton tallow, and went forward. I'll learn you how to fly the blue pigeon. Shoo! Disko did something to the wheel that checked the schooner's way, while Manuel with Harvey to help, and a proud boy was Harvey, let down the jib and a lump on the boom. The lead sung a deep droning song as Tom Platt whirled it round and round. Go ahead, man, said Long Jack impatiently. We're not drawing twenty-five foot off Fire Island in a fog. There's no trick to it. Don't be jealous, Galway. The released lead plopped into the sea far ahead as the schooner surged slowly forward. Sounding is a trick, though, said Dan. When your dipsy leads all the eye you're like to have for a week. What do you make it, Dad? Disko's face relaxed. His skill and honor were involved in the march he had stolen on the rest of the fleet, and he had his reputation as a master artist who knew the bank's blindfold. Sixty, maybe, if I'm any judge. He replied with a glance at the tiny compass in the window of the house. Sixty, sung out Tom Platt, hauling in great wet coils. The schooner gathered way once more. Heave, said Disko, after a quarter of an hour. What do you make it? Dan whispered, and he looked at Harvey proudly. But Harvey was too proud of his own performances to be impressed just then. Fifty, said the father. I mistrust we're right over the nick of Green Bank on old sixty-five. Fifty! roared Tom Platt. They could scarcely see him through the fog. She's bust with any art, like the shells at Fort Macon. Bait up, Harvey, said Dan, diving for a line on the reel. The schooner seemed to be straying promiscuously through the weather. Her head sailed, banging wildly. The men waited and looked at the boys who began fishing. Ha! Dan's lines twitched on the scoured and scarred rail. Now, how in thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It's a big one. Poke-hook, too. They hauled together and landed a goggle-eyed twenty-pound cod. He had taken the bait right into his stomach. Why, he's all covered with little crabs, cried Harvey, turning him over. By the green-hook block, they're lousy already, said Long Jack. Disco, you keep your spare eyes under the keel. Splash went the anchor, and they all heaved over the lines, each man taking his place at the bow-works. Are they good to eat? Harvey panted as he lugged in another crab-covered cod. Sure! When they're lousy, it's a sign they've all been herding together by the thousand, and when they take the bait that way, they're hungry. Never mind how the bait sets, they'll bite on the bare-hook. Say, this is great! Harvey cried as the fish came in gasping and splashing, nearly all poke-hooked, as Dan had said. Why can't we always fish from the boat instead of from the dories? All is can till we begin to dress down. After that the heads and offals would scare the fish to fundy. Boat-fish ain't reckoned progressive, though, unless you know as much as Dad knows. Guests will run out our trawl to-night, harder on the back this than from the dory, ain't it? It was rather back-breaking work, for in a dory the weight of a cod is water-borne till the last minute, and you are, so to speak, abreast of him, but a few feet of a schooner's free-board makes so much extra dead-hauling, and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the stomach. But it was wild and furious sport, so long as it lasted, and a big pile lay aboard when the fish ceased biting. Where's Pan and Uncle Salters? Harvey asked, slapping the slime off his oil-skins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation of the others. Gets coffee and sea. Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pall-post, the folks still table down and opened. Utterly unconscious of fish or weather sat the two men, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters snarling at pens every move. What's the matter now? Said the former, as Harvey, one hand in the leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the cook. Big fish and lousy, heaps and heaps! Harvey replied, quoting Long Jack. How's the game? Little Pen's jaw dropped. Twernt none of his fault, snapped Uncle Salters. Pen's thief. Checkers weren't it? Said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with a steaming coffee and a tin pail. That lets us out of cleaning up to-night. Dad's a just man, they'll have to do it. The two young fellers I know bait up a tub or so of trawl while they're cleaning, said Disco, lashing the wheel to his taste. Uh, guess I'd rather clean up, Dad. Don't doubt it. You won't, though. Dress down, dress down, the panel pitch while you two bait up. Why and thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on? Said Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. That's Knife's gum-blunt, Dan. If sticking out cable don't wake you, guess you'd better hire a boy of your own, said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs full of trawl-line, lashed to whimward of the house. Oh, Harvey, don't you want to slip down and get's bait? Bait as we are, said Disco. I mistrust shag fish and we'll pay better as things go. That meant the boys would bait with selected awful of the cod as the fish were cleaned, and improvement on paddling bear-handed in the little bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line carrying a big hook every few feet, and the testing and baiting of every single hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it should run clear when shot from the dory, was a scientific business. Dan managed it in the dark without looking, while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs and bewailed his fate. But the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like tatting on an old maid's lap. I helped bait up trawl ashore, for I could well walk, he said. But it's a putter-in-job all the same. Oh, Dad!" This shouted towards the hatch where Disco and Tom Platt were salting. How many skates you reckon we'll need? About three. Hurry! There's three hundred fathom to each tub, Dan explained. One enough to lay out tonight. Ouch! Slipped up there, I did. He stuck his finger in his mouth. I tell you, Harve, there ain't money in Gloucester had hired me to ship on a regular trawler. It may be progressive, but, barren that, it's the putter-in-est slim-jammest business top of earth. I don't know what this is, if it isn't regular trawlin', said Harvey soquely. My fingers are all cut to frazzles. Pshaw! This is just one of Dad's blame experiments. He don't trawl, lest there's mighty good reason for it. Dad knows. That's why he's baitin' as he is. We'll have her saggin' full when we take her up, or we won't see a fin. Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disco had ordained, but the boys profited little. No sinner were the tubs furnished than Tom Platt and Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory with a lantern, snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some small painted trawl-booies, and hoved the boat overboard into what Harvey regarded it as an exceedingly rough sea. They'll be drowned while the dory's loaded like a freight-car, he cried. We'll be back, said Long Jack, in case you're not looking for us, we'll lay into you both at the trawl, snarled. The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemed impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's side, slid over the ridge and was swallowed up in the damp dusk. Take a hold here, and keep ringin' steady, said Dan, passing Harvey the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass. Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But Disco in the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a murderer, and when he went to supper he even smiled dryly at the anxious Harvey. "'This ain't no weather,' said Dan. "'Why, you and me could set that trawl. They've only gone out just far enough so as not to foul our cable. They don't need no bell, really.' Clang, clang, clang! Harvey kept it up, varied with occasional rubber-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bump alongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory tackle. Long Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together. It seemed one-half the North Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them in the air, landing with a clatter. "'Narious snarl,' said Tom Platt, as he dripped. "'Danny, you'll do yet.' "'The pleasure of your company to the banquet,' said Long Jack, squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant, and stuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey's face. We do be condescended to honor the second-half with our presence.' And off they all four rolled to supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to the brim on fish-chowder and fried pies, and fell fast asleep just as Manuel produced from a locker a lovely two-foot model of the Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and was going to show Harvey the ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingers as Penn pushed him into his bunk. "'It must be a sad thing, a very sad thing,' said Penn, watching the boy's face, for his mother and his father, who think he's dead. To lose a child. To lose a man-child.' "'Get out of this, Penn,' said Dan. "'Go after and finish your game with Uncle Salters. Tell Dad I'll stand Harvey's watch if he don't care. He's played out.' "'Very good boy,' said Manuel, slipping out of his boots and disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. "'Spec, he make good man, Danny. I know see he is any so mad as your papa, he says. A what?' Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore. It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder men stretched their watches. The hours struck clear in the cabin. The nosing boughs slapped and scuffled with the seas. The folksal stove-pipe hissed and sputtered as the spray caught it, and the boys slept on, while Disco, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, each in turn, stumped aft to look at the wheel, forward to see that the anchor held, or to veer out a little more cable against chafing, with a glance at the dim anchor light between each round.