Part 5 (1/2)
”One, two, four--nine,” said To with a practised eye
”Forty-seven Penn, you're it!” Dan let the after-tackle run, and slid him out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own fish
”Hold on!” roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist ”Hold on, I'm a bit mixed in my caount”
He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like ”Pennsylvania”
”Forty-one,” said Tom Platt ”Beat by a farmer, Salters An' you sech a sailor, too!”
”'Tweren't fair caount,” said he, stu up all to pieces”
His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white
”So the newly risen moon, ”ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me”
”An' others,” said Uncle Salters, ”eats the fat o' the land in sloth, an' mocks their own blood-kin”
”Seat ye! Seat ye!” a voice Harvey had not heard called fro Jack, and Salters went forward on the word Little Penn bent above 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 hi casks with a hah supper we git to dressing-down You'll pitch to dad Touin' 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'h in a ood cook ef he do suffer with his brother It's a full catch today, ain't 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 So 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 andhis 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 sory as they were, they waited while ”Pennsylvania” sole Then they stoked in silence till Dan drew breath over his tin cup and demanded of Harvey how he felt
”'Most full, but there's just rooro, and, unlike all the negroes Harvey hadhimself with smiles and dumb-show invitations to eatwith his fork on the table, ”it's jest as I said The young an' handsome men--like me an' Pennsy an' you an'
Manuel--we 're second ha'af, an' we eats when the first ha'af are through They're the old fish; and they're mean an' humpy, an' their stummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which they don't deserve Ain't that so, doctor?”
The cook nodded
”Can't he talk?” said Harvey, in a whisper
”'Nough to git along Not ue's kinder curious Comes from the in'ards of Cape Breton, he does, where the fargers whose folk run in there durin' aour war, an' they talk like the farmers--all huffy-chuffy”
”That is not Scotch,” said ”Pennsylvania” ”That is Gaelic So I read in a book”
”Penn reads a heap Most of what he says is so--'cep' when it comes to a caount o' fish--eh?”
”Does your father just let the them?” said Harvey
”Why, yes Where's the sense of a man lyin' fer a few old cod?”
”Was a man once lied for his catch,” Manuel put in ”Lied every day