n trousers or darning
ripped sweaters for if you were like Bob, I'd like to know? Who'd be
pestering me to hunt up his cap and mittens? And who would I be frying
clams for?"

"Bob never could abide clam fritters, could he?" put in the younger
brother.

"Bob never had any frivolities," mused Mrs. King, shaking her head.
"Sometimes I've almost wished he had if only to keep the rest of us in
countenance. Many's the time I've feared lest he was going to die he
was that near perfect."

"Well, Ma, you haven't had to lie awake worrying because I was too
good for this world, have you?" chuckled His Highness, breaking into a
grin.

His mother regarded him affectionately.

"Oh, you'll make your way too, sonny, some day. It won't be as Bob has
done it; but you'll make it nevertheless. Folks are going to do things
for you simply because they cannot help it."

The boy studied her with a puzzled expression.

"What do you mean, Mater?"

As if coming out of a reverie Mrs. King started, the mistiness that
had softened her eyes vanishing.

"There! Look at the way you've splashed up my nice clean sink!"
complained she tartly. "Did any one ever see such a child--always
messing up everything! Come, clear out of here and take your fish with
you. It does seem as if you needed four nursemaids and a valet at your
heels to pick up after you. Be off this minute."

With a cloth in one hand and a bar of soap in the other, she elbowed
him away from the dishpan.

"You'll fry these flounders for supper, won't you, Ma?" called the lad
as he disappeared into the shed.

"Fry 'em? I reckon I'll have to. It's wicked to catch fish and not use
'em."

But he saw his mother's eyes twinkle and her grumbling assent did not
trouble him.

CHAPTER II

THE NEW JOB

May at Lovell's Harbor was one of the most beautiful seasons of the
year. In fact the inhabitants of the town often remarked that they put
up with the winters the small isolated village offered for the sake of
its springs and summers. Certain it was that when easterly storms
swept the marshes and lashed the harbor into foam; when every boat
that struggled out of the channel returned whitened to the gunwale
with ice, there was little to induce anybody to take up residence in
the hamlet. How cold and blue the water looked! How the surf boomed up
on the lonely beach and the winds howled and whined around the eaves
of the low cottages!

One buttoned himself tightly into a gre