"

The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from which their brethren had
just been taken, and Tom Platt and Long Jack moved methodically up and
down the length of the trawl, the boat's nose surging under the wet
line of hooks, stripping the sea-cucumbers that they called pumpkins,
slatting off the fresh-caught cod against the gunwale, rebaiting, and
loading Manuel's dory till dusk.

"I'll take no risks," said Disko then--"not with him floatin' around so
near. Abishai won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories an' we'll
dress daown after supper."

That was a mighty dressing-down, attended by three or four blowing
grampuses. It lasted till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice heard to
chuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish into the hold.

"Say, you're haulin' ahead dretful fast," said Dan, when they ground
the knives after the men had turned in. "There's somethin' of a sea
to-night, an' I hain't heard you make no remarks on it."

"Too busy," Harvey replied, testing a blade's edge. "Come to think of
it, she is a high-kicker."

The little schooner was gambolling all around her anchor among the
silver-tipped waves. Backing with a start of affected surprise at the
sight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, while the
spray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with the report of a
gun. Shaking her head, she would say: "Well, I'm sorry I can't stay any
longer with you. I'm going North," and would sidle off, halting
suddenly with a dramatic rattle of her rigging. "As I was just going to
observe," she would begin, as gravely as a drunken man addressing a
lamp-post. The rest of the sentence (she acted her words in dumb-show,
of course) was lost in a fit of the fidgets, when she behaved like a
puppy chewing a string, a clumsy woman in a side-saddle, a hen with her
head cut off, or a cow stung by a hornet, exactly as the whims of the
sea took her.

"See her sayin' her piece. She's Patrick Henry naow," said Dan.

She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her jib-boom from
port to starboard.

"But-ez-fer me, give me liberty-er give me-death!"

Wop! She sat down in the moon-path on the water, courtesying with a
flourish of pride impressive enough had not the wheel-gear sniggered
mockingly in its box.

Harvey laughed aloud. "Why, it's just as if she was alive," he said.

"She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin'," said Dan
enthusiastically, as he was slung across the deck in