y
entertaining companion showed me with glee the small houses of two
farmers who shared the island between them, and declared that for three
generations the people had not spoken to each other even in times of
sickness or death or birth. "When the news come that the war was over,
one of 'em knew it a week, and never stepped across his wall to tell the
other," she said. "There, they enjoy it; they've got to have somethin'
to interest 'em in such a place; 'tis a good deal more tryin' to be
tied to folks you don't like than 'tis to be alone. Each of 'em tell
the neighbors their wrongs; plenty likes to hear and tell again; them
as fetch a bone'll carry one, an' so they keep the fight a-goin'. I must
say I like variety myself; some folks washes Monday an' irons Tuesday
the whole year round, even if the circus is goin' by!"

A long time before we landed at Green Island we could see the small
white house, standing high like a beacon, where Mrs. Todd was born and
where her mother lived, on a green slope above the water, with dark
spruce woods still higher. There were crops in the fields, which we
presently distinguished from one another. Mrs. Todd examined them while
we were still far at sea. "Mother's late potatoes looks backward; ain't
had rain enough so far," she pronounced her opinion. "They look weedier
than what they call Front Street down to Cowper Centre. I expect brother
William is so occupied with his herrin' weirs an' servin' out bait to
the schooners that he don't think once a day of the land."

"What's the flag for, up above the spruces there behind the house?" I
inquired, with eagerness.

"Oh, that's the sign for herrin'," she explained kindly, while Johnny
Bowden regarded me with contemptuous surprise. "When they get enough for
schooners they raise that flag; an' when 'tis a poor catch in the weir
pocket they just fly a little signal down by the shore, an' then the
small bo'ts comes and get enough an' over for their trawls. There, look!
there she is: mother sees us; she's wavin' somethin' out o' the fore
door! She'll be to the landin'-place quick's we are."

I looked, and could see a tiny flutter in the doorway, but a quicker
signal had made its way from the heart on shore to the heart on the sea.

"How do you suppose she knows it is me?" said Mrs. Todd, with a tender
smile on her broad face. "There, you never get over bein' a child long's
you have a mother to go to. Look at the chimney, now; she's gone right