NETTING CRABS.
Oh, sisters! judge of my feelings, when directly after Dempster, came a
splendid gentleman--a creature of romance, shaded from the vulgar gaze
by a felt hat, and dressed like a mariner along-shore. He lifted his hat
to me, and also to E. E.--with a lofty reservation in her case.
"Mr. Burke," says Dempster, with a degree of carelessness that, I am
sorry to say, is characteristic--"he will teach you how to catch the
creatures; for there is an art in it."
"Then I shall never succeed," says I, in a low, gentle tone of voice.
"Where anything but pure nature is expected, I must always keep in the
shade. You know, Cousin E. E., what an artless young thing I always
was."
E. E. smiled--not at me but right up in the face of that strange
gentleman. I declare, I never saw anything so bold in my life! But it
was of no use; he came and sat down close to me. In fact, he took the
parasol from my hand with a gallant air that made my heart beat like a
partridge on a log. In one respect that movement wasn't an advantage:
the parasol was not large enough to shade two, and he held it
carelessly, as was natural to a dashing, splendid creature like him; but
somehow the shade always fell on his side. I felt dreadfully certain
that freckles were falling like split peas all over my face. Still he
smiled so sweetly and looked so magnificent that, freckles or no
freckles, I was ready to give him up my beehive, too, if he had only
looked as if he wanted it.
Dear me, how that boat did heel up and rock as we went sailing off down
to a green grassy point, where the gentleman told me the crabs swarmed
like lady-bugs around a full-blown rose--pretty simliar, wasn't it,
sisters, and so original?
I was dying to know what sort of a fish a crab was, never having seen
any in our brooks. Were they like sun-fish, rainbowish and flat; or like
trout, sparkled over with dripping jewels; or small and silvery, like
shiners and pin-fish?
I did not like to ask that magnificent stranger about this, and let him
believe that crabbing had been an amusement of my childhood up in the
Green Mountains--not that I said so outright--but my idea of discretion
is to say nothing of a thing you don't understand, but wait and find
out. What is the good of telling the world how much you don't know?
Well, I hadn't the least idea what a crab was, but the name made me feel
a little rily. The water was full of them; I was pretty sure to find
out; so I waited.
By and by, Dempster flung a great stone co-slash into the water, and
tied us up just below a little green point of land that took the
sunshine in its long grass till it seemed full of drifting gold which
spread out upon the water in soft, shiny ripples.
E. E. shut down her parasol. Mr. Burke shut mine. "Now," says he, "for
the lines."
With this he took up a lump of raw fish, gave it a swing and a splash
into the water, and handed me the other end. Dempster gave another line
and a chunk of fish to his wife, and then took one of the hang-bird nets
and stood by as if he meant to do business.
By and by I felt a sort of hungry nibbling at the end of my line, and
gave it a jerk just as if it had been a brook trout, hard to catch.
"Oh, goodness!" I just dropped the line and screamed like everything,
scared half to death. If ever an innocent female caught a claw-footed
imp, I came near doing it then. Why the animal, varmint, double and
twisted serpent--I don't know what to call it--clung to the bait till I
hauled him clear out of the water, and then fell back with a big sprawl
and an awful splash, sinking down again like a great mammoth spider that
made the water bubble with disgust.
"What was it? What was it?" I said, turning my scared face on Mr. Burke.
"What kind of young sea-devil is this?"
He laughed, and laid down the net he had just taken up.
"You pulled too quick," says he. "Crabs are like women."
"Like women," I shrieked. "What, those horrid things? Sir, I thank you!"
My voice shook so I could hardly get the words out with proper irony. A
generous rage in behalf of my sex possessed me.
"You did not hear me out," says he, pleasant as a sweet apple. "I was
going to say crabs were like women in this respect. They must be led
along, enticed, persuaded up to the bait."
"Oh!" says I, "that is a sentiment I can appreciate, but the comparison
is dreadful."
"There is hardly anything in nature which would not be dreadful compared
to some females that I know of," says he.
I laid one hand on my bosom and bowed, but the next instant I felt one
of those scraggly fiends pulling at my line, and I drew it softly in,
hand-over-hand. Oh, how the beastly thing crept and crawled, and spread
its scraggles as it nibbled and rose with the bait! I declare it made
the flesh creep on my bones.
"That's right, draw gently--lure him up. Ho!"
As he spoke Mr. Burke just slid his net under the varmint, and flashed
him up into the air, bait and all.
Sisters, there is no use in talking; if these creatures they call crabs
ain't great salt-sea spiders, no such animals exist; and eels ain't
fish, that's all.
Oh, I wish you could see them crawl up through the sea-grass and spread
themselves. I declare it is just awful.
Well, down went this crab--which they all gloried in, being a great big
gridiron of a fellow--into a hole in one end of the boat, and out went
my bait after another.
At one great pull I brought up two wapping big fellows at a time, and
trolled them on while Mr. Burke scooped them up. Chasing dragon flies in
the old times was nothing to it.
E. E. was busy as a bee on her side of the boat, Dempster ladled the
animals up for her, till we had a couple of dozen trying to creep away,
and fighting each other like chickens in a coop.
By this time I could see that E. E., like a good many other people I
could mention, was getting sort of restless for other attentions than
those her husband could give. She kept casting side-glances at Mr.
Burke, and at last says she to Dempster:
"Dempster, it isn't expected that a man should always be a-hanging about
his wife. It's time for you to do some netting for Phœmie."
E. E. said this almost in a whisper, but I heard it, and all the temper
in me riled up to my throat.
Sisters, this married woman was just dying to change off her husband for
the beau that was devoting all his energies to me. I felt that the
crisis had come that self-interest and a high moral standard demanded
that I should keep this man from the lure of a married woman. I owed it
to myself, to Dempster, and, above all, to the cause of morality, to
hold that man firmly to his post.
"Phœmie," says Dempster, coming up to me and looking as if butter
wouldn't melt in his mouth, "let me scoop for you?"
Before I could speak Mr. Burke took that nefarious hint and went over to
E. E.
I gave Dempster a look of withering contempt, and flung my bait out with
a splash that must have scared all the crabs out of a year's growth.
"No," says I, "you may be willing to desert the marital outposts, but I
will not help you. Go back to your wife; I can catch all the crabs I
want without help."
"Well, just as you like," says Dempster, and, settling down on the bow
of the boat, he pulled his hat over his eyes and went to sleep, then and
there.
Three crabs come up to my bait--nibble, nibble, nibble. I drew in the
line, they crawled through the water after it. Still I drew and drew.
Three great plump fellows came to the top of the water. It was a good
chance to call Burke away. He was leaning over E. E. and whispering,
while she listened.
"Here, here!" screamed I, "three at a haul. Will nobody help me?"
That man did not seem to hear me, but kept on whispering, while E. E.
listened with a smile on her lips and her eyes half shut. The sight made
me awful mad.
"I'll catch them myself," says I, and down I plunged my hand into the
water. I meant to grip the crab, but he gripped me.
Oh, mercy, how he pinched and bit, and screwed his claws around my hand.
It seemed as if he were twisting it into a corkscrew. I shrieked--I
yelled--I tried to shake the varmint off--to dash him to atoms against
the side of the boat. It was of no use: his sharp claws dug into me in
fifty places; he bit like fury. The blood ran down my fingers, my voice
grew weaker, but it broke up that flirtation. It was a cruel price, but
I paid it cheerfully. While I retain my moral sense, no married woman
shall degrade her sex by a flirtation in my presence. Never, never!
Yes, my screams broke up that well-arranged plan to delude Mr. Burke
from my side, and it broke up the crabbing party too.
Dempster woke up and hauled in the lines. We had thirty crabs
floundering in the hold, all fighting like imps of darkness.
"We'll have them for dinner," says Dempster, ferociously, "they won't be
so lively half an hour from now."
He was right, it took us just fifteen minutes to sail back to that white
house with the long stoop. Fifteen minutes after that, every crab was in
water so hot that they gave up clawing and began to turn furiously red.
Half an hour after we sat around a long table out under the trees, with
a great platter of those scrawny creatures lying with their red shells
uppermost, a good deal easier to catch than they had been, I can tell
you.
Mr. Burke was busy as could be, telling me how to put in my knife under
the red shell, so as to lay the sweet white flesh open.
I say nothing, but it seemed to me there was one jealous female around
those premises, and that female certainly was not me.
The meat of those creatures is just delicious--what there is of it.
Take it altogether, sisters, it seems to me that catching and eating
crabs is an amusement which promises better than bathing.
If I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Burke held my hand longer than was
quite necessary when he said good-night after we reached the hotel. I
saw E. E. looking at us sideways, and I let it rest--rest lovingly in
his clasp long enough to wring her heart. What right has she to have any
feeling about it, I should like to know? Isn't she married?