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 fishing. I watched them hoist
the little sprit-sail, and drift a little until they caught the wind,
and then I looked again for Georgie, whose boat was like a black spot
on the water.

I knew him better soon after that. I used to go out with him for
lobsters, or to catch cunners, and it was strange that he never had
any cronies, and would hardly speak to the other children. He was very
shy; but he had put all his heart into his work,--a man's hard work,
which he had taken from choice. His father was kind to him; but he had
a sorry home, and no mother,--the brave, fearless, steady little soul!

He looked forward to going one day (I hope that day has already
dawned) to see the shipyards at a large seaport some twenty miles
away. His face lit up when he told me of it, as some other child's
would who had been promised a day in fairy-land. And he confided to me
that he thought he should go to the Banks that coming winter. "But
it's so cold!" said I: "should you really like it?"--"Cold!" said
Georgie. "Ho! rest of the men never froze." That was it,--the "rest of
the men;" and he would work until he dropped, or tend a line until his
fingers froze, for the sake of that likeness,--the grave, slow little
man, who has so much business with the sea, and who trusts himself
with touching confidence to its treacherous keeping and favor.

Andrew West, Georgie's father, was almost as silent as his son at
first, but it was not long before we were very good frien