on the coast.
There was the hold overhead for stowing winter fish, and room
down-stairs for the family, the team of seven husky dogs, and even a
cord or two of fire-wood. We kids used to play at Newf'nlanders up in
the hold, when the winter storms were tearing the tops off the hills,
and the Eskimo devil howled blue shrieks outside. The huskies makes wolf
songs all about the fewness of fish, and we'd hear mother give father a
piece of her mind. That's about the first I remember, but all what
mother thought about poor father took years and years to say.

I used to be kind of sorry for father. You see he worked the bones
through his hide, furring all winter and fishing summers, and what he
earned he'd get in truck from the company; All us Liveyeres owed to the
Hudson Bay, but father worked hardest, and he owed most, hundreds and
hundreds of skins. The company trusted him. There wasn't a man on the
coast more trusted than he was, with mother to feed, and six kids,
besides seven huskies, and father's aunt, Thessalonika, a widow with
four children and a tumor, living down to Last Hope beyond the Rocks.
Father's always in the wrong, and chews black plug baccy to keep his
mouth from defending his errors. "B'y," he said once, when mother went
out to say a few words to the huskies; "I'd a kettle once as couldn't
let out steam--went off and broke my arm. If yore mother ever gets
silent, run, b'y, run!"

I whispered to him, "You don't mind?"

He grinned. "It's sort of comforting outside. We don't know what the
winds and the waves is saying. If they talked English, I'd--I'd turn
pitman and hew coal, b'y, as they does down Nova Scotia way--where yore
mother come from."

There was secrets about father, and if she ever found out! You see, he
looked like a white man, curly yaller hair same as me, and he was
fearful strong. But in his inside--don't ever tell!--he was partly small
boy same's me, and the other half of him--don't ever let on!--was
mountaineer injun. I seen his three brothers, the finest fellers you
ever--yes, Scotch half-breeds--and mother never knew. "Jesse," he'd
whisper, "swear you'll never tell?"

"S'elp me Bob."

"It would be hell, b'y."

"What's hell like?"

"Prayers and bein' scrubbed, forever an' ever."

"But mother won't be there?"

"Why, no. It hain't so bad as all that. She'll be in Heaven, making them
angels respectable, and cleaning apostles. They was fishermen, too.
They'll catch it!"

Thar's