“’Bout twenty-four.”
Jemmy Three had got twenty-four! Judith turned away in bitterness and envy, and afterwards suspicion.
There was nothing the matter with her traps. If Jem Three got twenty-four lobsters in his, why did she get only three in hers? Twenty-four and three. What kind of fairness was that! She could set lobster-traps as well as any Jem Three—or Jem Four—or Five—or Six.
There had always been good-natured rivalry between the fisher-boy and the fisher-girl, and Judith had usually held her own jubilantly. There had never been any such difference as this.
Suddenly was born the evil thought in Judith’s brain. It crept in slinkingly, after the way of evil things. “How do you know but he helped himself out o’ your traps?” That was the whisper it whispered to Judith. Then, well started, how it ran on! “When you and he quarreled a while ago, didn’t he say, ‘I’ll pay you back’?—didn’t he? You think if he didn’t.”
“Oh, he did,” groaned Judith.
“Well, isn’t helping himself to your lobsters paying you back?”
“Yes—oh, yes, if he did. But Jemmy Three never—”
“How do you know he never? Is twenty-four to three a fair average? Is it? Is it?”
“No, oh, no! But I don’t believe—”