"I still haven't any girl."
"Slow," Tradin' Jack asserted. "So much time you have spent around here an' still no girl. Too slow."
"I'll get one," Ramsay promised, "but I've been too busy fishing to look the field over."
Tradin' Jack nodded sadly. "Yes. I heard it. That's what I did, heard it. So you go fishin'. So what happens? Can a trader trade fish? No. He can't. Fish you sell in Chicago. Fishermen are the ruination of traders."
"Not everybody will go fishing," Pieter pointed out. "Enough will stay at farming to keep you supplied. Besides, with all the money the fishermen are going to earn, they can buy a lot more of your goods."
"That's so," Tradin' Jack agreed. "That's so, too, but a man's got to take everything into account. If he wants to stay in business, he has to. Got any eggs for me, Marta?"
"Yaah! Crate after crate."
"I'll take 'em. Take 'em all. Fourteen cents a dozen. Fourteen and a half if you'll take it in trade."
His mind on the Jackson, which even now should be churning its way toward them, Ramsay only half-listened as Tradin' Jack rattled on about the various events which, combined, went to make up life on the west shore of Lake Michigan. Remembering little of what he had heard, Ramsay went upstairs to bed. Snuggling down into the soft, feather-filled mattress, he tried to stay awake and could not. The work was always too hard and the days too long to forego even one minute's slumber.