years old, he was so stunted and small; yet he was a strong
little fellow; his hands were horny and hard from handling the clumsy
oars, and his face was so brown and dry from the hot sun and chilly
spray, that he looked even older when one came close to him. The first
time I saw him was one evening just at night-fall. I was sitting on
the pebbles, and he came down from the fish-house with some
lobster-nets, and a bucket with some pieces of fish in it for bait,
and put them into the stern of one of the boats which lay just at the
edge of the rising tide. He looked at the clouds over the sea, and at
the open sky overhead, in an old, wise way, and then, as if satisfied
with the weather, began to push off his boat. It dragged on the
pebbles; it was a heavy thing, and he could not get it far enough out
to be floated by the low waves, so I went down to help him. He looked
amazed that a girl should have thought of it, and as if he wished to
ask me what good I supposed I could do, though I was twice his 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 of his wife. I was telling of him the other day: 'Andrer,' says
I, 'ye