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Page 27
"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters?" Harvey asked, slapping the
slime off his oilskins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation
of the others.
"Git 's coffee and see."
Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post, the foc'sle
table down and opened, utterly unconscious of fish or weather, sat
the two men, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters
snarling at Penn's every move.
"What's the matter naow?" said the former, as Harvey, one hand in
the leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the
cook.
"Big fish and lousy--heaps and heaps," Harvey replied, quoting
Long Jack. "How's the game?"
Little Penn's jaw dropped. "'Tweren't none o' his fault," snapped
Uncle Salters. "Penn's deef."
"Checkers, weren't it?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with the
steaming coffee in a tin pail. "That lets us out o' cleanin' up
to-night. Dad's a jest man. They'll have to do it."
"An' two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o' trawl, while
they're cleanin'," said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste.
"Um! Guess I'd ruther clean up, Dad."
"Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress daown! Dress daown!
Penn'll pitch while you two bait up."
"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?"
said Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. "This knife's
gum-blunt, Dan."
"Ef stickin' out cable don't wake ye, guess you'd better hire a boy
o' your own," said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs
full of trawl-line lashed to windward of the house. "Oh, Harve,
don't ye want to slip down an' git 's bait?"
"Bait ez we are," said Disko. "I mistrust shag-fishin' will pay
better, ez things go."
That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as
the fish were cleaned--an improvement on paddling bare-handed in
the little bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line
carrying a big hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of
every single hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it
should run clear when shot from the dory, was a scientific
business. Dan managed it in the dark, without looking, while
Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs and bewailed his fate. But
the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like tatting on an old maid's
lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore I could well walk," he said.
"But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh, Dad!" This shouted
towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt were salting. "How
many skates you reckon we'll need?"
"'Baout three. Hurry!"
"There's three hundred fathom to each tub," Dan explained;
"more'n enough to lay out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I did."
He stuck his finger in his mouth. "I tell you, Harve, there ain't
money in Gloucester 'u'd hire me to ship on a reg'lar trawler. It may
be progressive, but, barrin' that, it's the putterin'est, slimjammest
business top of earth."
"I don't know what this is, if 'tisn't regular trawling," said Harvey
sulkily. "My fingers are all cut to frazzles."
"Pshaw! This is just one o' Dad's blame experirnents. He don't
trawl 'less there's mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet's why
he's baitin' ez he is. We'll hev her saggin' full when we take her up
er we won't see a fin."
Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the
boys profited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom
Platt and Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory
with a lantern, snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some
small, painted trawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what
Harvey regarded as an exceedingly rough sea. "They'll be drowned.
Why, the dory's loaded like a freight-car," he cried.
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