They had gone out late—had been out a wearisome time—and the journey back to land was measured off by slow, laboring oar-strokes that scarcely seemed to move the great boat. So it was late afternoon when at length Judith’s hard task was done. She seemed to possess but one desire—to rest. To get Blossom over the remaining half mile between her and home and then to tumble over on the bed and sleep—what more could anyone wish than that?
But there would be more than that to do. She must get food for tired little Blossom, if not for herself. And before this towered gigantically the two last feats of strength that faced her and seemed to laugh at her with sardonic glee.
“Drag me up on the beach—drag me up!” the old black dory taunted her.
“Carry me home, Judy, I’m so tired!—carry me home,” Blossom pleaded, like a little wilted blossom.
She did both things, but she never quite realized just how she could have done them. She remembered telling herself she couldn’t and then finding them done. Of covering her load of mackerel with an old rubber blanket she was dimly conscious. It was not until she lay drowsing in utter exhaustion on her own bed that she thought of all of the rest that must be done to that boat-load of precious freight. Then she tried to sit up, with a cry of distress.
“I must go! I cant’t stay here! Or I shall lose—Oh, what shall I lose?” she groaned in her drowsiness and dread. Something would happen if she did not get up at once—she would lose something that she mustn’t lose. She must get up now, at once.
“I shall lose Blossom—no, I mean Blossom will lose—oh, yes, Blossom will lose her legs, if I don’t get up,” she drowsed, and fell asleep.
[Chapter IV.]
Judith awoke with a bewildering sensation of guilt and need of action. What had happened? What had she done that she ought not to have done?—or was it something that she ought to? Memory struggled back to her dimly, then flashed upon her in sudden clearness.
She had taken a school of mackerel—that was what she had done that was praiseworthy. She had left them down there in the old black dory, undressed and unpacked—that was the thing she ought not to have done. That was the awful thing! For if they were not dressed and packed at once—