“Well, when the tide forgets to flow, Uncle Isaac will forget his promise.”
The next day, as Charlie was coming home from fishing, about two o’clock, he thought there was something white in Captain Rhines’s window. The moment he landed, he scampered to the house to look through the glass. Sure enough, there was the signal.
“John meant you should see it,” said Sally, “for he has got his mother’s great table-cloth that father Rhines bought in Europe.”
“That means for me to come over in the morning, if it’s fair weather; if not, the first pleasant day.”
“You had better go to-night; perhaps it may blow hard to-morrow, and be a fair day, too.”
“I will, mother, as soon as I split and salt my fish.”
“I’ll salt them; you split them, and start right off, and you’ll get over there to supper. I’ll have a luncheon for you by the time you get them split.”
The boys found that Uncle Isaac had his potatoes so nearly dug, that, with their help, he finished them in a day, thus completing his harvest. He now had leisure to haul the widow’s wood.
The next day the boys went over and dug her potatoes, and threshed some beans and peas, which she had pulled and dried herself. In the mean time Uncle Isaac, and two more of the neighbors, went and chopped some wood, and the next day hauled it to her. The tears of gratitude and joy streamed down the old lady’s cheeks at the kindness of her neighbors. The only remaining work to be done, was to take the fish, which were in Captain Rhines’s shed, nicely cured, to Mrs. Yelf. The boys felt bashful about carrying them, and wanted Uncle Isaac to do it.
“I should like to catch myself doing it! you caught and cured them, and run some risk in doing it, and ought to, and shall have, the credit of it.”