"What is it you need, my friend? My boats, my nets, my pier, my life? Name it and it is yours!"
"No," Hans said. "What we need is barrels. Good oaken barrels with pliant black ash hoops. We also need salt. We have a net and we have a boat."
"That is all you need?" Baptiste seemed disappointed.
"That is all."
Baptiste turned and in rapid-fire French directed orders at three men who were lingering near. At once they began to take barrels built to hold two hundred pounds of fish from a huge pile near the fishing shanty and to stack them on Baptiste's boat. Ramsay read her name, Bon Homme. Baptiste LeClaire turned to his visitors.
"Now that you are here," he said, "share the hospitality of my poor home."
"With pleasure," Hans agreed.
They went into the house to meet Baptiste's wife, a sparkling little black-eyed French woman. Producing the inevitable jug, Baptiste filled three gourds with fiery whisky. Hans and Baptiste drained theirs with one gulp. Ramsay nursed his, both men laughed at him. But the boy could partake of the delicious fish stew which Baptiste's wife prepared.
A half-hour after Ramsay and Hans returned to the Van Hooven farm, a white sail bloomed out in the bay. She was the Bon Homme, loaded halfway up the mast with barrels and salt. Hans Van Doorst rubbed his hands in undisguised glee.
"Now," he chuckled, "we go fishing!"