"Fishermen are pretty careful of what they use for bait, aren't they, John?"
John, after consideration, said:
"Bank fishermen are maybe more careful than most, ma'am; though, when we was hard put to it, I've seen some pretty poor quality o' stuff cut up for bait."
Mrs. Pentle looked down the ladder to the maid.
"Tell Mr. Henston there is no answer. Tell him to go to New York and that, hereafter, he had better stay there and look after the silks exclusively."
For as long as the falling darkness would allow, John saw Mrs. Pentle picking out the plunging course of Peter's vessel through the green-white waters. And then, turning to him, she said:
"I've been thinking that I ought to take more interest in my young girls when they marry. On the day the Cruddens have a baby born to them I shall make over the Celia Pentle to the baby."
For all she smiled when she said that—and in John's opinion she should 'a' been a happy woman to be able to say things like that—for all that there was what John called a melancholy in her voice and a sort of vapor in her eyes when she said it; and, looking after her making her lonesome way over to the big house with all the lighted windows, he couldn't help thinking that for all they said she was such a boss of a woman—for all that—there ought to be somebody more than a lot of butlers and maids and cooks to meet her at the door.
There is the story of Peter's stop ashore, as old man Flaxley, John Ferguson, and Fred Lichens know it. Fred had to add that he couldn't see where Peter's stop ashore ever hurt him any.
"Certainly," said Fred, "since the baby came, he has been making fishing history in the Celia!" He looked over to Mr. Duncan when he said that.