his square deep-sea reel and the tangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down full length on the deck, and Dan dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him banging casks with a hammer.
“Salt,” he said, returning. “Soon as we’re through supper we git to dressing-down. You’ll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt an’ Dad they stow together, an’ you’ll hear ’em arguin’. We’re second ha’af, you an’ me an’ Manuel an’ Penn—the youth an’ beauty o’ the boat.”
“What’s the good of that?” said Harvey. “I’m hungry.”
“They’ll be through in a minute. Suff! She smells good tonight. Dad ships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It’s a full catch today, Aeneid it?”
He pointed at the pens piled high with cod. “What water did ye hev, Manuel?”
“Twenty-fife father,” said the Portuguese, sleepily. “They strike on good an’ queek. Some day I show you, Harvey.”
The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder men came aft. The cook had no need to cry “second half.” Dan and Manuel were down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt, last and most deliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down before a tin pan of cod’s tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and fried potato, a loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful coffee. Hungry as they were, they waited while “Pennsylvania” solemnly asked a blessing. Then they stoked in silence