_ACTION_
Restlessly Ramsay picked up a big whitefish and cleaned it. Salting it,
he threw the fish into a barrel and picked up another. A freckle-faced
urchin about ten years old stood near, watching him. The youngster was
Johnny O'Toole, son of Shamus O'Toole. In the summer Shamus did odd
jobs. In winter, when boats could not run, he drove one of the sleds
that carried leather from Three Points to Milwaukee and cattle hides
from Milwaukee to Three Points.
"You goin' to fix a sturgeon?" Johnny demanded.
"Sure," Ramsay said absently. "Pretty soon."
Ramsay's eyes kept straying out on the lake, past the solid wooden pier
which Hans, Pieter and Ramsay, had erected. The past days, it seemed,
had been nothing but work. Up with the dawn and out to make another
catch of fish. Pack the catch, and spend any time that remained working
on the pier. Weeds were sprouting as high as the corn, oats were heading
untended and unheeded on their stalks, and the farm was getting only the
skimpiest attention. All this because they had decided to gamble on
fishing.
When the _Jackson_, summoned by Hans, had nosed into their pier, she had
taken on board a hundred and twenty barrels--twenty-four thousand
pounds of whitefish--and forty thousand pounds of sturgeon. The
whitefish, Hans had assured them, would bring not less than five cents a
pound in the Chicago market and the sturgeon were worth three cents a
pound. When they had their money they would be able to buy a pound net,
a pound boat, more salt and barrels, and be ready for fishing on a
really big scale.
Ramsay's eyes kept darting toward the lake. The _Jackson's_ skipper had
said that, depending on how much cargo he had to take on in Chicago and
the number of stops between Chicago and Three Points, the ship would be
back Tuesday or Wednesday. This was Tuesday, and Ramsay could not
control his impatience.
"Fix a sturgeon," Johnny pleaded. "Fix a sturgeon now."
"I ... All right, Johnny."
Ramsay began to dismember a hundred-pound sturgeon, and Johnny O'Toole's
eyes danced. He stood anxiously near, trying to remember his manners,
but his impatience triumphed. "Gimme his nose, will ya? Can I have his
nose?"
"Sure, Johnny."
Ramsay, who had learned a lot about dressing fish since his first
halting attempts, sliced the sturgeon's nose off with one clean stroke
of his knife. The nose was round as a ball, and as rubbery, and every
one of the numberless freckles on Johnny O'Toole's face danced with
delight when Ramsay tossed it to him.
Immediately, Johnny began bouncing the sturgeon's nose up and down on
the hard-packed ground. He had only to drop it, and the nose bounded
higher than his head. This was the rubber ball, and sometimes the only
plaything, of children who lived among the commercial fishermen of Lake
Michigan. Johnny began throwing the nose against a tree, catching it in
his hand as it rebounded to him.
Ramsay--Hans and Pieter were down at the lake, strengthening the
pier--picked up another sturgeon and filled a barrel. He sprinkled the
usual two handfuls of salt on top of the filled barrel, fitted a head to
it, and bound it tightly with a black ash hoop. Ramsay looked at the two
sturgeon remaining from this morning's catch, and decided that they
would just about fill a barrel. He rolled one of their dwindling supply
over.
"Can I have their noses, too?" Johnny begged. "Can I? Huh?"
"Sure, Johnny."
"Gee! Thanks!"
Johnny O'Toole began to play with his four sturgeon noses, sometimes
bouncing all of them at once and sometimes juggling them. Ramsay
continued to steal glances at the lake. If everything worked out the way
Hans said it would, they would have ... Ramsay dared not think of it,
but, even after they paid the skipper of the _Jackson_ for hauling their
catch to Chicago, there would be a great deal.
"I'd better be goin'," Johnny O'Toole said. "My Pa, he whales me if I
stay out after dark. Thanks for the sturgeon noses. I can trade two of
'em to my brother for a knife he's got."
"You're welcome, Johnny. Come back when we have some more sturgeon."
"I'll do that!"
Bouncing one of the sturgeon noses ahead of him, Johnny O'Toole started
up the beach toward Three Points. Ramsay watched him go, then cleaned
the last of the sturgeon, put them in a barrel and sealed it. As the
evening shadows lengthened, he looked again at the bay. The _Jackson_
still had not put in, and he gave up. The ship would not be here until
tomorrow. He left the barrels where they were and went toward the house.
Tradin' Jack Hammersly's four-wheeled cart was again in the yard, its
curtains rolled up to reveal the trader's tempting array of wares. His
gray horse was in the corral with the little black, and Tradin' Jack
Hammersly's stovepipe hat was decorously placed on the bench outside the
door. Ramsay grinned faintly as he washed up. The Trader was an
eccentric character, and Ramsay suspected that his eccentricities were
planned; they made good advertising. But he was likeable, and now they
would get more news. Ramsay went into the house.
"Hi, Ramsay," Tradin' Jack greeted him. "How about a pretty ribbon for
that girl of yours?"
"I still haven't any girl."
"Slow," Tradin' Jack asserted. "So much time you have spent around here
an' still no girl. Too slow."
"I'll get one," Ramsay promised, "but I've been too busy fishing to look
the field over."
Tradin' Jack nodded sadly. "Yes. I heard it. That's what I did, heard
it. So you go fishin'. So what happens? Can a trader trade fish? No. He
can't. Fish you sell in Chicago. Fishermen are the ruination of
traders."
"Not everybody will go fishing," Pieter pointed out. "Enough will stay
at farming to keep you supplied. Besides, with all the money the
fishermen are going to earn, they can buy a lot more of your goods."
"That's so," Tradin' Jack agreed. "That's so, too, but a man's got to
take everything into account. If he wants to stay in business, he has
to. Got any eggs for me, Marta?"
"Yaah! Crate after crate."
"I'll take 'em. Take 'em all. Fourteen cents a dozen. Fourteen and a
half if you'll take it in trade."
His mind on the _Jackson_, which even now should be churning its way
toward them, Ramsay only half-listened as Tradin' Jack rattled on about
the various events which, combined, went to make up life on the west
shore of Lake Michigan. Remembering little of what he had heard, Ramsay
went upstairs to bed. Snuggling down into the soft, feather-filled
mattress, he tried to stay awake and could not. The work was always too
hard and the days too long to forego even one minute's slumber.
* * * * *
The sun was only half-awake when Ramsay got up, breakfasted and went
back to the place where they cleaned their fish. Everything that could
be was packed and the grounds were clean, but yesterday they had ripped
a ragged gash in the seine and now that needed repair. Ramsay, assisted
by Hans, set to work with a ball of linen twine. He lost himself in what
he was doing. The important thing, if they wanted fish, was to get the
net into the water and use it. Even one half-hour must not be wasted.
Ramsay was jerked out of his absorption in the net by two shrill blasts.
He sat up, and sprang to his feet as the blasts were repeated. Looking
in the direction of the pier, he saw the _Jackson_, her wheel churning
up a path of foam, nosing toward the mooring place. Pieter appeared, and
Marta. All four raced to the pier, and they reached it before the
approaching steamer did. Ramsay and Hans secured mooring lines which a
deck hand threw to them, and Captain Williamson of the _Jackson_ came
down a short ladder.
He was a bustling little man who wore a blue-and-gold uniform which,
Ramsay thought, would have graced an admiral in any navy. But he was
efficient and he knew the lake. For eleven years he had been running the
_Jackson_ between Three Points and Chicago without getting her into or
even near trouble.
Captain Williamson took a white sheet and a wallet from an inner pocket,
and he read from the sheet, "Twenty-four thousand pounds of whitefish
you gave me. It brought five cents a pound, or twelve hundred dollars,
less a cent a pound for the hauling. Here you are, nine hundred and
twenty dollars."
From the wallet he extracted a sheaf of bills and handed them to Hans.
Ramsay looked questioningly at him. "The sturgeon?" he asked.
"Ha!" Captain Williamson snorted. "There's enough sturgeon layin' on the
Chicago pier to run the whole city for the next six weeks. Nobody's
buying it but, since I hauled, I have to be paid. See you later,
gentlemen."
Captain Williamson scrambled back up his ladder, which was hauled in
after him. Snorting like an overworked draft horse, the _Jackson_ backed
away from her mooring, made a wide circle into the lake, and puffed on
toward Three Points. Ramsay looked incredulously at the money in Hans'
fist, slow to realize that, even if they split it among the four of
them, it would be more than half a year's wages for each and they had
earned it in less than two weeks. Then he looked at Marta's face and
burst out laughing.
From the first, Marta had been with them only half-heartedly and only
because Pieter could not be swayed from fishing. Now, seeing enough
money to buy a farm, and with tangible evidence that fishing paid well,
she had swung completely to their side. Pieter and Hans joined in
Ramsay's laughter while Marta looked puzzled. She was, as Hans had
declared, a good Dutch girl. Definitely she was not avaricious, but no
good Dutch girl could fail to be impressed by the sight of so much
money. Hans clasped the bills firmly and looked at his partners. "What
do you say?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" Ramsay inquired.
"Pound nets we need, pound boats. Men to help us set them. More salt and
more barrels. We owe Baptiste. Or shall we divide what we have and keep
on fishing with the seine?"
"Will it take so much to buy those things of which you speak?" Marta
inquired.
"This and more, if we really want to take fish."
"Then let's do it!" Marta declared.
"Pieter?" Hans inquired.
"Fishing beats farming."
"Ramsay?"
"I came here to fish."
"Come with me."
Hans hitched the little black horse, and Ramsay climbed up on the cart
beside him. Captain Klaus, hurrying frantically from his perch atop the
house, alighted on the cart and caressed Hans with his bill. The Dutch
fisherman whistled happily as he drove along, and Ramsay grinned. This
was the way to get things done; work every second of every day to catch
fish and then, without even thinking twice about it, invest everything
they had earned in more equipment so they could catch even more fish.
Captain Klaus winged off the cart to go and see what some of his wild
relatives along the lake shore were doing.