“Good!” he exclaimed. “Well, I’m paying a dollar a hundredweight for cod caught on hand-lines, and less for trawl-caught. But you don’t calculate to do trawl-fishing, I reckon.”
“Not just yet,” answered Harvey.
They hitched the tackle at the end of the pier on to the baskets of fish, and the cod were hoisted up to the scales.
“Three hundred and sixty pounds, I make it,” said the trader. “That’s three dollars and sixty cents.”
The boys went away, clinking three big silver dollars, a fifty-cent piece, and a dime, and passing the money from hand to hand, admiringly.
“That never seemed like very much money to me before,” said Harvey, thoughtfully. “It makes a difference whether you earn it or not—and how, doesn’t it?”
“It’s all right for the first day,” said Henry Burns. “We’ll do better as we get the hang of it. And then later, if we get a catch of mackerel on the first run of the fish, why, we’ve got the boat to make a fast trip over to Stoneland, and sell them to the hotel. There’ll be money in that.”
The next morning, beating out of the harbour early, they had an unpleasant experience.
They had anchored off the dock at the head of the harbour, and had just begun to work their way out through the channel, which was there quite narrow, against a light southwest breeze. Henry Burns had the wheel, with Harvey tending sheet, and Tom and Bob working the single jib that they had set. A little way ahead of them a boat was coming in, running free.
“There’s our friend,” remarked Henry Burns, noting the pinkey’s sharp, queer stern. “It’s old Martel coming in from under-running his hake-trawls. We’ll try to keep clear of him.”