"Those are porgies, aren't they?" asked Kate.

"Yes," said the man, "an' I'm going to sliver them for the trawls."

We knew what the trawls were, and supposed that the porgies were to be
used for bait; and we soon found out what "slivering" meant, by seeing
him take them by the head and cut a slice from first one side and then
the other in such a way that the pieces looked not unlike smaller fish.

"It seems to me," said I, "that fishermen always have sharper knives
than other people."

"Yes, we do like a sharp knife in our trade; and then we are mostly
strong-handed."

He was throwing the porgies' heads and backbones--all that was left of
them after slivering--in a heap, and now several cats walked in as if
they felt at home, and began a hearty lunch. "What a troop of pussies
there is round here," said I; "I wonder what will become of them in the
winter,--though, to be sure, the fishing goes on just the same."

"The better part of them don't get through the cold weather," said
Danny. "Two or three of the old ones have been here for years, and are
as much belonging to Deephaven as the meetin'-house; but the rest of
them an't to be depended on. You'll miss the young ones by the dozen,
come spring. I don't know myself but they move inland in the fall of the
year; they're knowing enough, if that's all!"

Kate and I stood in the wide doorway, arm in arm, looking sometimes at
the queer fisherman and the porgies, and sometimes out to sea. It was
low tide; the wind had risen a little, and the heavy salt air blew
toward us from the wet brown ledges in the rocky harbor. The sea was
bright blue, and the sun was shining. Two gulls were swinging lazily to
and fro; there was a flock of sand-pipers down by the water's edge, in a
great hurry, as usual.

Presently the fisherman spoke again, beginning with an odd laugh: "I
_was_ scared last winter! Jack Scudder and me, we were up in the Cap'n
Manning storehouse hunting for a half-bar'l of salt the skipper said was
there. It was an awful blustering kind of day, with a thin icy rain
blowing from all points at once; sea roaring as if it wished it could
come ashore and put a stop to everything. Bad days at sea, them are;
rigging all froze up. As I was saying, we were hunting for a half-bar'l
of salt, and I laid hold of a bar'l that had something heavy in the
bottom, and tilted it up, and my eye! there was a stir and a scratch and
a squeal, and out went some kind of a creatur', a