“There’s a whole dinner for a hotel in that fellow,” said he. And, indeed, the fish would weigh fully twenty pounds.
“Not quite so lively sport as catching mackerel, is it?” he remarked, looking at his hands, which were reddened with the chafing of the hard line.
“No, this is more like work,” said Harvey. “But they won’t all run anywhere near as big as that. You’ve caught one of the old settlers.”
The fish were biting in earnest now, and the boys were bringing them in over the rail almost as fast as they could bait and cast overboard. By noon they had two great baskets full, stowed away in the cabin out of the sun, and were glad enough to take a long hour for rest, feasting on one of the smallest of their catch, rolled in meal and fried to a tempting crispness.
Then near sundown they were among the first to weigh anchor and run for harbour, tired but elated over their first day’s rough work.
Will Hackett had advised them how to dispose of their catch. A trader at the head of the harbour bought for salting down all that the fishermen did not sell alive to the schooners that carried them in huge wells, deep in their holds, to the Portland or Boston markets.
So they ran in with the other craft, and took their catch in to his dock in their dory.
The trader, a small, wiry, bright-eyed Yankee, scrutinized Henry Burns and Jack Harvey sharply, as they entered the little den which bore the imposing word “Office” over its door.
“So you’re fishermen, eh?” he remarked. “Rather a fine craft you’ve brought down for the work. Guess you might manage to keep alive somehow if you didn’t fish for a living.”
He was interested, though, when they told him their circumstances.