“I’ll sit still as two mice. Needn’t think o’ me!” answered the little one proudly. Did Judy think she was little like that? Just because she hadn’t legs that would go! They didn’t need to go, did they, out here in the middle of the sea!
“What makes it look so ripply an’ bubbly out there?” she questioned with grown-up dignity. Judy should see she could sit still and talk like anybody.
“Where?” asked Judith absently. She did not take the trouble to follow the little pointing finger with her eyes.
“There—why don’t you look? It’s all pretty an’ ripply an’ kind of queer. Doesn’t look like plain water ’xactly. Look, Judy—why don’t you?”
“I am looking now—Oh, Oh, wait! It looks like—Blossom, I believe it’s a school! That’s the way the water always loo—Blossom, Blossom, do you hear me, it’s a school! A school of mackerel—a school, I tell you!”
“Well, you needn’t keep on a-telling me.” Blossom, anyway, was calm. “I’m not deaf o’ hearing, am I? If it’s a school, le’s us go right straight out there an’ fish it up, Judy.”
Judy was going right straight out there with all the strength of her powerful young arms. She was not calm; her face was quivering with excitement and joy. A school! A school! Oh, but that meant so much for the Blossom-fund, to put away in the stocking in the bureau drawer! If it should prove a big school—but she and Blossom could not manage a big one, never in the world. If Jemmy Thr—no, no, not Jemmy Three! This was not Jemmy Three’s school—what had he to do with it?
In all the stress and excitement of sending the old dory out there where the water was rippling its news to her, Judy had time to think of several things. She had time to remember how she and Jem Three had used, from the time they were little brown things in pinafores, to plan about their first school o’ mackerel—what they would do with all the wealth it should bring them, how they would share it together, how they would pull in the silvery, glistening fellows, side by side. What plans—what plans they had made! They had practiced a shrill, piercing call that was to summon the one of them who should happen to be absent when the “school” was descried out there in the bay. Even lately, big and old as they had grown, they had laughingly reviewed that call. Now—this minute—if Judith were to utter it, piercing and far-carrying and jubilant, perhaps Jemmy Three might hear and come plowing through the waves to get his share—had he any share? Because when they were little brown things they had made vows, did that give him any rights now?
Of course, if—if things had been different—lobster-things—Judith might have pursed her lips into that triumphant summons. But—
“Sit still! I’m going to swing her round!” called Judith sharply. “I’ve got to go ashore for father’s old net. It’s in the boat-house.”