So I drew the boots from my basket, and she took them.
“Fisherman,” she said, “these are new. Where did you get them?”
“I had them,” I replied; which was true. I had had them since the morning.
She sat behind a tree and put them on, and I heard her laughing to herself. Then she came forth.
“They are too large,” she said, “but it does not matter.”
I might have known it. But what know I of women’s boots?
“My stock is small,” I answered. “I had no other size.” And that was true, too.
So I showed her how to dig, and when her hoe broke through a shell, she almost wept. But she dug six.
“I am tired,” she said then. “I will dig no more to-night. Does your back get tired, too?”
“Not now,” said I, “but it did at first.”