“Oh!” cried Jemmy Three softly. But he did not stop working.
“I thought that was why there were only three yesterday—I thought there’d have been fifty to-day,” ran on Judith. The new daylight lighted her ashamed face redly, like a blush.
“There wouldn’t ’a’ been but five—” said Jemmy Three, then caught himself up in confusion. The blush was on his face now.
Judith’s cry rang out above the sea-talk. “Then you put some in!” she cried, “instead of helping yourself. You put some in my traps, Jemmy Three—that’s what you did! You put in twelve!”
“Guess there’s somethin’ the matter with your traps, Jude,” muttered the boy. “Guess they better be overhauled—guess a fellow’s gotter right to go shares, ain’t he?”
“Jemmy Three, I’m going to hug you!”
“Oh, oh—say, look out; I’m all scales!”
“I had scales on my eyes, but they’ve fallen off now,” laughed the girl tremulously. “It’s worse to have scales on your eyes than all over the rest o’ you. I can see things as plain as day now, and—and—you look perfectly beautiful!”
“Hold on—I’m dressin’ fish! The steamer’s due at seven—”
“I don’t care if she’s due this minute, I’ve got to talk! If she was in plain sight—if I could see her smokestack—I should have to talk. I tell you I can see now, and you look splendid—splendid, and I look like a little black—blot. To think of my being up home asleep, and you working down here, dressing my fish—and me thinking those mean thoughts of you! It makes me so ashamed I cant’t hold my kn-knife.”