Accordingly we threw out our lines, and the fish taking the bait freely, we soon hauled in more than a dozen large fish, which I put into the bathing-pool.
“What use can we make of that long line which they have left?”
“A good many; but the best use we can make of it, is to turn it into fishing-lines, when we require new ones.”
“But how can we do that, it is so thick and heavy?”
“Yes, but I will show you how to unlay it, and then make it up again. Recollect, Frank, that I have been the wife of a Missionary, and have followed my husband wherever he went; sometimes we have been well off, sometimes as badly off as you and I are now—for a Missionary has to go through great dangers, and great hardships, as you would acknowledge if you ever heard my life, or rather that of my husband.”
“Won’t you tell it to me?”
“Yes, perhaps I will, some day or another; but what I wish to point out to you now is, that being his wife, and sharing his danger and privation, I have been often obliged to work hard and to obtain my living as I could. In England, women do little except in the house, but a Missionary’s wife is obliged to work with the men, and as a man very often, and therefore learns to do many things of which women in general are ignorant. You understand now?”
“Oh yes. I have thought already that you appear to know more than Jackson did.”
“I should think not; but Jackson was not fond of work I expect, and I am. And now, Frank, you little thought that when you so tardily went to work the other day to plant potatoes for the benefit of any one that might hereafter come to the island, that you were planting for yourself, and would reap the benefit of your own kind act; for if you had not assisted, of course I could not have done it by myself: so true it is, that even in this world you are very often rewarded for a good action.”
“But are not you always?”