ck; the tide'll
take her right out from under these old buildin's; there's plenty wind
outside."

"Your bo't ain't trimmed proper, Mis' Todd!" exclaimed a voice from
shore. "You're lo'ded so the bo't'll drag; you can't git her before
the wind, ma'am. You set 'midships, Mis' Todd, an' let the boy hold the
sheet 'n' steer after he gits the sail up; you won't never git out to
Green Island that way. She's lo'ded bad, your bo't is,--she's heavy
behind's she is now!"

Mrs. Todd turned with some difficulty and regarded the anxious adviser,
my right oar flew out of water, and we seemed about to capsize. "That
you, Asa? Good-mornin'," she said politely. "I al'ays liked the starn
seat best. When'd you git back from up country?"

This allusion to Asa's origin was not lost upon the rest of the company.
We were some little distance from shore, but we could hear a chuckle
of laughter, and Asa, a person who was too ready with his criticism and
advice on every possible subject, turned and walked indignantly away.

When we caught the wind we were soon on our seaward course, and only
stopped to underrun a trawl, for the floats of which Mrs. Todd looked
earnestly, explaining that her mother might not be prepared for three
extra to dinner; it was her brother's trawl, and she meant to just run
her eye along for the right sort of a little haddock. I leaned over the
boat's side with great interest and excitement, while she skillfully
handled the long line of hooks, and made scornful remarks upon
worthless, bait-consuming creatures of the sea as she reviewed them and
left them on the trawl or shook them off into the waves. At last we came
to what she pronounced a proper haddock, and having taken him on board
and ended his life resolutely, we went our way.

As we sailed along I listened to an increasingly delightful commentary
upon the islands, some of them barren rocks, or at best giving sparse
pasturage for sheep in the early summer. On one of these an eager little
flock ran to the water's edge and bleated at us so affectingly that I
would willingly have stopped; but Mrs. Todd steered away from the rocks,
and scolded at the sheep's mean owner, an acquaintance of hers, who
grudged the little salt and still less care which the patient creatures
needed. The hot midsummer sun makes prisons of these small islands
that are a paradise in early June, with their cool springs and short
thick-growing grass. On a larger island, farther out to sea, m