fishermen do not know.
We had capital good luck that morning, and Georgie and Andrew and I
were all pleased. I had a hand-line, and was fishing part of the time,
and Georgie thought very well of me when he found I was not afraid of a
big fish, and, besides that, I had taken the oars while he tended the
sail, though there was hardly wind enough to make it worth his while.
It was about eight o'clock when we came in, and there was a horse and
wagon standing near the landing; and we saw a woman come out of
Andrew's little house. "There's your aunt Hannah a'ready," said he to
Georgie; and presently she came down the pebbles to meet the boat,
looking at me with much wonder as I jumped ashore.

"I sh'd think you might a' cleaned up your boat, Andrer, if you was
going to take ladies out," said she graciously. And the fisherman
rejoined, that perhaps she would have thought it looked better when it
went out than it did then; he never had got a better fare o' fish
unless the trawls had been set over night.

There certainly had been a good haul; and, when Andrew carefully put
those I had caught with the hand-line by themselves, I asked his sister
to take them, if she liked. "Bless you!" said she, much pleased, "we
couldn't eat one o' them big rock-cod in a week--I'll take a little
ha'dick if Andrer 'll pick me one out."

She was a tall, large woman, who had a direct, business-like
manner,--what the country people would call a master smart woman, or a
regular driver,--and I liked her. She said something to her brother
about some clothes she had been making for him or for Georgie, and I
went off to the house where I was boarding for my breakfast. I was
hungry enough, since I had had only a hurried lunch a good while before
sunrise. I came back late in the morning, and found that Georgie's
aunt was just going away. I think my friends must have spoken well of
me, for she came out to meet me as I nodded in going by, and said, "I
suppose ye drive about some? We should be pleased to have ye come up
to see us. We live right 'mongst the woods; it ain't much of a place
to ask anybody to." And she added that she might have done a good deal
better for herself to have staid off. But there! they had the place,
and she supposed she and Cynthy had done as well there as anywhere.
Cynthy--well, she wasn't one of your pushing kind; but I should have
some flowers, and perhaps it would be a change for me. I thanked her,
and said I shou