, like a blush.

"There wouldn't 'a' been but five--" said Jemmy Three, then caught
himself up in confusion. The blush was on his face now.

Judith's cry rang out above the sea-talk. "Then you _put some in!_"
she cried, "instead of helping yourself. You put some in my traps,
Jemmy Three--that's what you did! You put in _twelve!_"

"Guess there's somethin' the matter with your traps, Jude," muttered
the boy. "Guess they better be overhauled--guess a fellow's gotter
right to go shares, ain't he?"

"Jemmy Three, I'm going to hug you!"

"Oh, oh--say, look out; I'm all scales!"

"I had scales on my eyes, but they've fallen off now," laughed the
girl tremulously. "It's worse to have scales on your eyes than all
over the rest o' you. I can see things as plain as day now,
and--and--you look perfectly beautiful!"

"Hold on--I'm dressin' fish! The steamer's due at seven--"

"I don't care if she's due this minute, I've got to talk! If she was
in plain sight--if I could see her smokestack--I should have to talk. I
tell you I can _see_ now, and you look splendid--splendid, and I look
like a little black--blot. To think of my being up home asleep, and
you working down here, dressing _my_ fish--and me thinking those mean
thoughts of you! It makes me so ashamed I cant't hold my kn-knife."

Judith was crying now in good earnest. She had sunk down on the sand,
and her crouching figure with the red glow from the east upon it
looked oddly childish and small. Jemmy Three saw it over his
shoulder.

"Look a-here, Judy," he said gently, dropping his own knife and going
over to the rocking, sobbing figure. "You look _a-here_, I tell you!
What you cryin' for, with eight barrels o' fish 'most packed an' a
good fifty dollars 'most in your pocket? You better laugh! Come on,
get up, and let's give a rouser! Three cheers for the only girl in
the land o' the free an' the home o' the brave that darst tackle a
school o' mack'rel alone! Hip, hip--"

"Jemmy, Jemmy, don't!"

"_Hooray!_ Now let's dress fish. You're all right--don't you worry
about bein' a blot, when I tell you you're a reg'lar brick! I'm proud
o' you!"

It was the longest speech Jemmy Three had ever made, and the
peroration surprised himself as much as it did Judith. He put up his
hand and cleared something away from his eyes--it couldn't have been
scales, for he left the scales there.

At five mother came hurrying down to find Judith. The scale-strewn
beach and the scale