Wits' End

BY AMY E. BLANCHARD
Author of Two Girls, Three Pretty Maids, A Girl of 76, Janet's College Career, A Journey of Joy, etc.
Illustrated by L. J. BRIDGMAN
BOSTON DANA ESTES & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1909 By Dana Estes & Company
All rights reserved
Electrotyped and Printed by THE COLONIAL PRESS C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
The tide was half way out, and the rocks were already showing strange shaggy shapes as the water retreated from their weed-draped sides. A man, who had just beached his dory and had loaded his wheelbarrow with gaping cod and shining mackerel, stood looking off toward the cliffs for a moment before he should trundle his burden up the slanting path which led toward a group of white houses.
Look like buffaloes, he said to himself. That furthest one's most like a lion. He turned his gaze from the rocks to the pile of fish in his barrow. You poor miserable wide-mouthed critturs, he said. There's nothing I know of that can look so down-at-mouth as a fish out of water. Every day I think I'll give up, and I don't. What would I do if I did? I guess it's good for me to see something unhappy-looking: it makes me feel as if I weren't the sorriest wretch in the world. Maybe I'm not, either.
He took up the handles of his barrow and started along the path, which led past clumps of bayberry bushes and thickets of wild roses, into a grove of pines, and at last emerged before the door of one of the white houses which, at intervals, dotted the island. It was early morning and as Luther Williams came into the open, he met a party of workmen swinging along, dinner pails in hand. They hailed him cheerily. Good catch, Mr. Williams?
Pretty fair, was the response. What's going on to-day, boys?
We cal'late to start Miss Elliott's cawtage, said the foremost.