“Bring that to bear over the western pint of the Junk of Pork, at high-water mark; then bring the north-west side of Smutty Nose, and the south-east side of Oak Island, just touching on to each other, and you’ll be on a kelp shoal, where there’s plenty of rock cod, and where it is so shallow that at low water you can see them bite. Your grandfather showed me those marks. It isn’t everybody that knows that spot, and I don’t want you to tell them to anybody. Be sure, if it breaks, to anchor to the leeward of the breaker, because, if your anchor should drag, you might drift into it. It’s a good bit to sea, but there’s three of you, good stout boys, to row, that ain’t afraid of trifles. The wind is north-west; I think it will be smooth, and you can take the big canoe.”
“But father will want that to go to the funeral,” said Charlie; “and mine is not large enough to go so far.”
“Well, then, take mine; I’ll go home in yours, and we will swap at the beach.”
“I wish I could do more for the poor woman; it is not much to get her a lot of fish.”
“Not much for you, but it will be a great deal to her, though. They have got potatoes in the ground, and that will give them hash all winter; and beans growing, and a little piece of corn, that won’t come to much, but it will fat their pig, that’s now running in the woods. I’ll tell you what else you can do. When I come to make my cider, you can all come to our house; we will take my oxen and haul her wood enough to last all winter; and you can have just as many apples, and as much new cider, as you want.”
“What shall we have for bait? There are no menhaden in the bay.”
“You don’t want any; rock fish will bite at clams; and it is most low water; then you can get some; and if you could get a lobster it would be first rate. I want you, while you are young, to get in the way of feeling for your fellow-critters, and then it will grow on you just as rum-drinking grows on a drunkard. When God wants us he calls for us. I’m sure I hope when he calls for me, he will find me with my hand stretched out, putting something into some poor critter’s mouth, and not drunk in a hog-sty.”
“Did God call Uncle Yelf?” asked John.
“No; he went without being called; killed himself; and it’s dreadful to think what has become of his soul.”
It was nearly night when Uncle Isaac dropped his oars into the water. The boys went directly to digging clams by the bright moonlight; and as Ben and Sally helped them,—Sally picking them up and washing them,—it was soon accomplished. While this was going on, Charlie, with his spear, poked some lobsters from beneath the rocks. Ben was so much occupied with thoughts about Uncle Yelf’s funeral, that he never asked a question in respect to the ball, or where they found it, merely saying, as he saw it in Fred’s hand, “So you got your ball.”