is size. But the boat
grated and slid down toward the sand, and I gave her a last push as the
boy perched with one knee on her gunwale and let the other foot drag in
the water for a minute. He was afloat after all; and he took the oars,
and pulled manfully out toward the moorings, where the whale-boats and
a sail-boat or two were swaying about in the wind, which was rising a
little since the sun had set. He did not say a word to me, or I to
him. I watched him go out into the twilight,--such a little fellow,
between those two great oars! But the boat could not drift or loiter
with his steady stroke, and out he went, until I could only see the
boat at last, lifting and sinking on the waves beyond the reef outside
the moorings. I asked one of the fishermen whom I knew very well, "Who
is that little fellow? Ought he to be out by himself, it is growing
dark so fast?"

"Why, that's _Georgie_!" said my friend, with his grim smile. "Bless
ye! he's like a duck; ye can't drown him. He won't be in until ten
o'clock, like's not. He'll go way out to the far ledges when the tide
covers them too deep where he is now. Lobsters he's after."

"Whose boy is he?" said I.

"Why, Andrer's, up here to the fish-house. _She's dead_, and him and
the boy get along together somehow or 'nother. They've both got
something saved up, and Andrer's a clever fellow; took it very hard,
losing his wife. I was telling of him the other day: 'Andrer,' says I,
'ye ought to look up somebody or 'nother, and not live this way.
There's plenty o' smart, stirring women that would mend ye up, and cook
for ye, and do well by ye.'--'No,' says he; 'I've hed my wife, and I've
lost her.'--'Well, now,' says I, 'ye've shown respect, and there's the
boy a-growin' up, and if either of you was took sick, why, here ye
be.'--'Yes,' says he, 'here I be, sure enough;' and he drawed a long
breath, 's if he felt bad; so that's all I said. But it's no way for a
man to get along, and he ought to think of the boy. He owned a good
house about half a mile up the road; but he moved right down here after
she died, and his cousin took it, and it burnt up in the winter. Four
year ago that was. I was down to the Georges Banks."

Some other men came down toward the water, and took a boat that was
waiting, already fitted out with a trawl coiled in two tubs, and some
hand-lines and bait for rock-cod and haddock, and my friend joined
them; they were going out for a night's f