unks. It was forever out and after them,
heave the seine, purse up and bail in, ice some, and dress the rest
along the way, and the vessel with everything on driving for Boston.

We stood to it that week, you may be sure, until coming on the fifth
day some of us fell asleep over the keelers as the Johnnie was coming
into T Wharf. I remember that I could just barely see in a kind of a
hazy way the row of people along the cap-log when we made fast. And
yet after that we had to hoist them out of the hold and onto the dock.
That day, going out again, the skipper made all but the watch and
himself turn in. That afternoon, when everybody had had a little kink,
the skipper himself, who had been under a heavier strain than any of
us, suddenly fell backward over the house and sound asleep. And there
he lay all the rest of that day and that night.

After ten or twelve hours of it we tried to wake him, but not a budge.
We tried again, but no use. At last he came to and without any help at
all. Sitting up, he asked where we were, and being told, he said
nothing for a moment or so, and then suddenly--"That so? How long was
I asleep?" We told him--seventeen hours. "Good Lord!" he groaned, and
after a mug-up scooted for the mast-head like a factory hand with the
seven o'clock whistle blowing. "He's a fisherman, the skipper," said
the gang as they watched him climb the rigging.

And he was a fisherman. All that summer he drove things with but
little time for us ashore. Twice he put into Gloucester with a day to
ourselves and another time we had a chance to run down after we had
put into Boston for market, and that we suspected was because the
skipper found he could not keep away himself any longer. Things, we
judged, were going pretty well with him in Gloucester. He did not
pretend any longer now that he was not interested in Miss Foster, and
from my cousin Nell I got occasional hints, most of which I confided
to Clancy, who explained them as if they were so many parables.

"It'll be all right," said Clancy, "if only Minnie Arkell stands
clear. I'm glad she's away for the summer, but she'll turn up in the
fall. You'll see her just before the race large as life, and some of
her swell-dressed friends, and a yacht, I'll bet."

Considering how deeply the skipper was interested in Miss Foster, some
of us thought he ought to be putting in a little time ashore between
trips. After a run into the Boston fresh fish market, say, we would
ha