“Yes,” she answered, musing, “I suppose it is. But I am afraid I haven’t thought about it as much as I might.”
She was looking at me, up and down, from my mud-covered rubber boots to my old battered hat. I was clad as a clammer should be clad, and I was not ashamed.
“You are not wicked, are you?” asked the governess. “You are not wasteful?”
“Not of my clothes,” I answered. “I cannot be. And do you suppose my wife would drip salt water upon her best dress?”
I thought I saw a shadow steal across her face. But the sun had left many shadows behind him.
“It isn’t my”— She hesitated and stopped. “Have you a wife?”
“No,” I answered shamelessly. And she laughed aloud, a sweet laugh and low, like—like nothing else in the wide world.
“Are you a fisherman?” she asked.
I had forgotten how the garb of a clammer would be regarded by a governess to the Rich.
“Sometimes,” I said. “I am but a passable fisherman. I can catch enough for myself, or, if need were, for two.”