“I let it for a week or more to two gals,” said the woman complacently. “Got five dollars out of ’em for Manny. He’ll be needin’ the money. Better stay awhile and try the fishin’.”
“Goodness! Two girls alone?” asked Agnes.
“Yes. Younger’n you are, too. But they knowed their way around, I guess,” said the woman. “Good lookin’ gals. Nice clo’es. Town folks, I guess. Mebbe they wasn’t older’n my Bob, and he’s just turned twelve.”
“Twelve years old! And two girls alone?” murmured Agnes.
“Oh, there ain’t nobody to hurt you here. We don’t never need no constable out here on the ice. There’s plenty of women folks—Miz’ Ashtable, and Hank Crummet’s wife, and Mary Boley and her boys. Oh, lots o’ women here. We can help make money in the winter.
“There! See that set-line bob?”
She dropped the potato she was paring and crossed to the well. One of the flags had dipped. With a strong hand she reeled in the wet line. At its end was a big pickerel—the biggest pickerel the visitors had ever seen.
“There!” exclaimed the woman. “Sorry I didn’t git that before Joe Jagson went with his load of fish. That’s four pound if it weighs an ounce.”
She shook the flopping fish off the hook into a basket and then hung the basket outside the door. In the frosty air the fish did not need to be packed in ice. It would literally be ice within a very few minutes.
“Got to hang ’em up to keep the dogs from gettin’ them,” said the woman, rebaiting the hook and then returning to her potato paring. “Can’t leave ’em in a creel in the water, neither; pike would come along an’ eat ’em clean to the bone.”