"Amelia won't," announced Marian. "She said she couldn't clean fish, it turned her stomach."
"I wouldn't keep a maid that wouldn't clean fish." Charles dropped Letty on the broad granite step of the farmhouse, and settled beside her. "Who'll get me some shoes?" He hauled at his red rubber boot, and the clam mud flew off in a shower.
Letty grabbed again at the string of fish as Spencer stood incautiously near her.
"Take them into the sink, Spen," said Catherine. "Marian, can you find Daddy's sneakers? You'll all need a scrub, I'll say."
She looked at them a moment. Marian, dark; irregular small features, tanned to an olive brown; slim as witch grass. Spencer, stocky, with fair cropped head and long gray eyes like her own. Charles—he looked heavier, and certainly well; the sun had left a white streak under the brim of his battered hat and behind his spectacles, but the rest of his face was fiery.
"Cold cream for you, old man," she said. "You aren't used to our Maine sun and sea burn."
"I think I'll be a captain," said Spencer, seriously, turning from his opening of the door. "And fight. Like father." He gazed admiringly at the old service hat on the step.
Catherine's mouth shut grimly and her lids drooped over her eyes.
"Plan some other career, my son. Your father didn't fight, anyway. Did he say he did?"