rom Boston, but
sometimes we used to chase a butcher who took a drive in his old
canvas-topped cart when he felt like it, and as for fish, there were
always enough to be caught, even if we could not buy any. Our
acquaintances would often ask if we had anything for dinner that day,
and would kindly suggest that somebody had been boiling lobsters, or
that a boat had just come in with some nice mackerel, or that somebody
over on the Ridge was calculating to kill a lamb, and we had better
speak for a quarter in good season. I am afraid we were looked upon as
being in danger of becoming epicures, which we certainly are not, and we
undoubtedly roused a great deal of interest because we used to eat
mushrooms, which grew in the suburbs of the town in wild luxuriance.

One morning Maggie told us that there was nothing in the house for
dinner, and, taking an early start, we went at once down to the store to
ask if the butcher had been seen, but finding that he had gone out
deep-sea fishing for two days, and that when he came back he had planned
to kill a veal, we left word for a sufficient piece of the doomed animal
to be set apart for our family, and strolled down to the shore to see if
we could find some mackerel; but there was not a fisherman in sight, and
after going to all the fish-houses we concluded that we had better
provide for ourselves. We had not brought our own lines, but we knew
where Danny kept his, and after finding a basket of suitable size, and
taking some clams from Danny's bait-tub, we went over to the hull of an
old schooner which was going to pieces alongside one of the ruined
wharves. We looked down the hatchway into the hold, and could see the
flounders and sculpin swimming about lazily, and once in a while a
little pollock scooted down among them impertinently and then
disappeared. "There is that same big flounder that we saw day before
yesterday," said I. "I know him because one of his fins is half gone. I
don't believe he can get out, for the hole in the side of the schooner
isn't very wide, and it is higher up than flounders ever swim. Perhaps
he came in when he was young, and was too lazy to go out until he was so
large he couldn't. Flounders always look so lazy, and as if they thought
a great deal of themselves."

"I hope they will think enough of themselves to keep away from my hook
this morning," said Kate, philosophically, "and the sculpin too. I am
going to fish for cunners alone, and keep my li