The Argosy, August 1914 — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

28 another. And they fish all the year around.” “Your description is uncompli- mentary to yourself and your grand- father,” Jack reminded her. ‘“Oh, we are not natives,” the girl replied. ‘‘ We’re only here for the fishing season. If we’re not sorry we came for that long before we get through I shall be glad.” “Why, isn’t the fishing good?” the young man asked. If anybody had told him two weeks earlier that he would feel pleasure in sitting in the kitchen of a fisherman’s shanty talking with a _ fisherman’s granddaughter, he would have scoffed at the idea. The statement would have caught him on the flood of his affair with Vesta Dawn, when life as mirrored in New York’s Tenderloin had represented the summit of ambi- tion here below. Yet here he was, absolutely satisfied with his surroundings. He made him- self useful as well as ornamental by shelling some peas for Jessica. “The fishing? Oh, yes, that’s all right,’ she answered. “It’s always good off Barratry. You see, the tide comes out of the bay above here and strikes the northward current. That causes.a back eddy that seems to swing the fish around this shore. Although,” she added, “it hasn’t been so very good so far this season.” “What makes you think you'll be sorry, then?” he persisted. She side-tracked the subject with a personal criticism. “You don’t act as if you’d had much practise shelling peas,” said she. “If we're going to have them for dinner, i sec Ul have to lend a hand.” Suiting action to the words, she drew a chair up to his and with her deft fingers made short work of the task she had set him. “You may bea sailor,’ she re- marked doubttully when it was done, “but you're no pea-sheller. You'd. bet- ter go lie down again after that-effort.”’ “You don’t even believe I’ma sailor, THE ARGOSY. then?” he challenged. ‘ How can I convince you? Shall I box the com- pass, or do you want me to recite the ropes on a full-rigged ship?” “ Run along and take a nap,” she returned. ‘ Invalids mustn’t overtax their brains.” For the first two days after getting out of bed he was willing enough to play the convalescent. His stern nurse laid down rigid rules covering food, exercise, and hours of rest. ‘The last- mentioned included going to bed at sundown. She allowed him the privilege, however, of leaving his door ajar, closing it herself after he had fallen asleep. Thus he happened to over- hear a scrap of conversation between Jessica and her grandfather. Captain Zed was in bed soon after night had fallen, his occupation com- pelling him to turn out at three, get his fish out of the nets, and have them, iced and barreled, on the steamboat wharf in time to load on the morning boat, which sailed at seven. Jessica, although her grandfather’s house- keeper, was relieved of the necessity of rising to prepare his breakfast, the old man frequently going without, or, when hungry, sharing with his gang, the members of which had their own house. ““T looked at th’ Polly Ann’s com- pass this afternoon, Jess,” he remarked in grave tones, pushing his chair back from the supper-table. “Did you find out what was the matter with it?” the girl inquired. “Well, it was far_enough off to throw you out coming across from New Galilee, so *t if you hadn’t happened to run across sone one in the fog you might have gone clear to Europe be- fore you knew you were wrong.” “ Yes, I know all that, grandfather,” said Jessica. “‘ But how did it hap- pen? Was the needle demagnetized or anything like that?” ‘““No, that wasn’t it,” said Captain Zed slowly. ‘‘ Sometimes a compass goes wrong of its own account, and Connie oOOolkKs (C@