The three big men smell to heaven of the fragrance of fall fishing. They have tar on their cheeks and tar on their trousers. Peter himself is almost pure tar as he helps pull out the long sprawls of the seines Aunt Hattie will have lots of chances to be cheerful for Peter when his mother will have to use sandpaper on his chin and forehead to get these stains off the boy against the schoolday tomorrow. But what use will his clean face be when Lucy's eyes are another way?
Yet once again work, the healer of all the hurts of love, has Peter in its arms. Peter and his brothers hurry home from school every crisp September night to do what boys had rather do than cat—sit up through the night in a boat on the water.
After supper, Father calls the roll: Uncle Cephus, Uncle Timothy, Peter, Andrew. James, and John. They all get into their long bonis, up to their middles in rubber. They fill the lanterns with oil. Uncle Timothy Mulls his pants with cut plug. Uncle Cephus stows aboard his pipe tobacco. Father, when Mother is looking the other way. slides a bottle of bourdon into his coat pocket against the fall of the frost. Father leads the way. They file down to the work that is really play through the rustling grass of the meadow. Their lanterns make tall gods of them, even the boys, and dark forms go across the stirs of the sky headed towards the bay. They swing the lanterns and have nothing to say, sunk in the silence, and the warmth of their clothes. They file across the night and the stars to the fishing that flourishes in darkness.
Down at the cove the silence is shattered. There is a fine lot of shouting of orders and loud bailings of dories and loading in of seines by rhythmed arms and legs. The tide is nearly down. and all the loaded dories have to be launched through the mud. Uncle Timothy stumbles upon some brand-new oaths the boys have not heard before as he barks his shins on a dory they have pushed up beside his in the dark. The seine dories are afloat at last, down to their gunwales with black nets, and they are made fast to the three empty dories. All hands push off, manning the empties. The men let the boys do the rowing for once, and they sit aft and smoke or chew or wet the dry throat with bourbon.
The dories head up to the bay northwards, to the low-tide channels of Mill Cove. The lanterns are doubled in dark water that is full of mysterious sounds. The four boys let no barnacles grow on their bottoms, for other lanterns are bobbing on the bay, and they want to beat their rivals to the best berths in the two channels to the north there, under the full Dipper, Uncle Cephus pushes against Peter as he pulls, and Father and Uncle Timothy do the same with the boys in their boats.
The family beat the procession of lanterns to the double stakes set in the mud for the first-comers. Father and Uncle Cephus and Uncle Timothy leap out into the water and wade to the loaded dories, make the seines fast to the stakes, give the command to the boys, and each boy starts rowing straight out—Peter and Andrew, and James and John pulling double. The men stand in the sterns and pay out the nets, cork line in right hand, lead line in the left. flinging their arms out into the night.
They are using the upper stakes, and trying their luck on the ebb. Behind them in the dark water the ebbing curtent pushes the seines southward in long bows. The boys put all they have into the ash, bending over double, and their seats burn under them. But the three long loops of nets are out at last, and the boys are at the other side of the channel. All they have to do now is row steadily and quietly, so as not to frighten the down-coming smelts with their oars, and keep the loops from going out towards the sea and hold them across the channel. The men spell the boys and show them how quiet rowing can be.
The large September stars burn silently overhead. The only sound is that of the living water moving with the mysterious power of the tide. It is so still a dog barking miles away on the mainland seems to hurt the whole night. An owl hoots on an island somewhere. but is abashed by all the stillness and falls quiet. The water around the men and boys suddenly comes to amazing murmurings. There are plenty of fish out here tonight, fish by millions.
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