Ramsay finished eating and pushed his dishes back. Pierre LeDou's wife,
who had already finished washing the rest of the dishes, put Ramsay's in
the dish water and left them there. She smiled at him. "It would be well
if you rested."
"I'm not tired. Really I'm not."
"You should rest. Badly were you hurt."
"Let me sit here a while."
"As long as you sit."
She went to a cupboard and took from it a big ball of strong linen
thread. From the table she caught up a small board. Wrapping the thread
twice around the board, she knotted it. Slipping the thread from the
board, she hung the loop she had made on a wooden peg and made a new
loop. Her hands flew so swiftly that in a few moments she had seventeen
of the meshes, all joined together.
"What are you doing?" Ramsay inquired interestedly.
"Making a gill net," she explained. "It was ordered by Baptiste LeClair,
a fisherman, and is to have a four and a half-inch mesh. So we use a
mesh board that is exactly two and a quarter inches wide and wrap the
thread twice around. Now I have seventeen. See?"
"I see."
She strung the seventeen meshes on a wooden rod, placed two chairs far
enough apart so that the meshes stretched, tied the rod to them and
began knitting on the net she had started. "The net is to be seventeen
meshes, or seventy-six and one-half inches, wide. Now I lengthen it."
Under the boy's interested eyes the gill net grew swiftly, and as it
lengthened she wrapped it around the rod. Ramsay watched every move.
"How long will it be?" he queried.
"One net," she told him, "is about two hundred and fifty feet long. But
usually several are tied together to form a box of nets. A box is about
fourteen hundred feet."
"Isn't that a lot?"
She smiled. "A crew of three good men, like Hans Van Doorst or Baptiste
LeClair, with a good Mackinaw boat can handle two boxes."
"Could you make this net longer if you wished to?"
"Oh, yes. It could be many miles long. Two hundred and fifty feet is a
good length for one net because, if it is torn by strong water or heavy
fish, it may be untied and repaired while the rest may still be used."
"What else must you do?"
"After the net is two hundred and fifty feet long, I will use fifteen-
or sixteen-thread twine through from three to six meshes on the outer
edge. This, in turn, will be tied to ninety-thread twine which extends
the full length."
Ramsay was amazed at the way this quiet little woman reeled off these
figures, as though she were reciting a well-learned lesson. But he
wanted to know even more. "How do they set such a net?"
"The fishermen gather small, flat stones, about three to the pound, and
cut a groove around them so that they can be suspended from a rope.
These are called sinkers, and are tied to the net about nine feet apart.
For floats they use cedar blocks, about two feet long by one-quarter of
an inch thick and an inch and a quarter wide. They bore a small hole
one inch from the end, then split the block to the bored hole. The
floats--and the number they use depends on the depth to which they sink
the net--are pushed over the ninety-thread twine."
"Let me try!" Ramsay was beginning to feel the effects of idleness and
wanted action.
"But of course, M'sieu."
Ramsay took the mesh board in his hand and, as he had seen her do,
wrapped the thread twice around it. But, though it had looked simple
when she did it, there was a distinct knack to doing it right. The mesh
board slipped from his fingers and the twine unwound. Madame LeDou
laughed. "Let me show you."
Patiently, carefully, she guided his fingers through the knitting of a
mesh, then another and a third and fourth. Ramsay felt a rising elation.
He had liked the _Spray_ when he saw her and now he liked this. Fishing,
from the making of the nets to setting them, seemed more than ever a
craft that was almost an art. He knitted a row of meshes across the gill
net, and happily surveyed his work.
At the same time he remained aware of the fact that she could knit three
times as fast as he. Ramsay thrust his tongue into his cheek and grimly
continued at his work.
After an hour Madame LeDou said soberly, "You do right well, M'sieu. But
should you not rest now?"