s so. You can say a thing until
you make other people think it's so. He joked about standing between
them and a fireless cooker until he could see them _thinking_ about it.
All the time he hated his old job at the cold storage. A Doane had no
business to be ashore _freezing_ fish. It was the business of a Doane
to go out to sea and come home with a full vessel.

One day he broke through that old notion that Doanes didn't work on
other men's boats and half in a joke proposed to Captain Cook that he
fire a ginnie or two and give him a berth on the _Elizabeth_. And Bill
Cook was _rattled_. Finally he laughed and said, "Why, Joe, you ought to
be on your own vessel"--which was a way of saying he didn't want him on
_his_. Why didn't he? Did they think because he hadn't made a trip for
so long that he wasn't good for one? Did they think a Doane couldn't
take orders? Well, there weren't many boats he _would_ go on. Most of
them in the harbor now were owned by Portuguese. He guessed it wouldn't
come natural to him to take orders from a Portagee--not at sea. He was
taking orders from one now at the cold storage--but as the cold storage
wasn't where he belonged it didn't make so much difference who he took
orders from.

At the close of that day Bill Cook told him he ought to be on his own
vessel, Joe Doane sat at the top of those steps which led from his house
down to the sea and his thoughts were like the sails coming round the
Point--slowly, in a procession, and from a long way off. His father's
boats used to come round that Point this same way. He was lonesome
to-night. He felt half like an old man and half like a little boy.

Mrs. Cadara was standing over on the platform to the front of her house.
She too was looking at the sails to the far side of the
breakwater--sails coming home. He wondered if she was thinking about Joe
Cadara--wishing he was on one of those boats. _Did_ she ever think about
Joe Cadara? Did she ever wish he would come home? He'd like to ask her.
He'd like to know. When you went away and didn't come back home, was all
they thought about how they'd get along? And if they were getting along
all right, was it true they'd just as soon be without you?

He got up. He had a sudden crazy feeling he wanted to _fight_ for Joe
Cadara. He wanted to go over there and say to that fireless cooker
woman, "Trip after trip he made, in the cold and in the storm. He kept
you warm and safe here at home. It was for you he wen