Americans -- Philippines -- Fiction; Short stories
He fumbled through his pockets and drew two pieces of sorry twine. She
turned her back upon him, worked mysteriously at her garments, and
handed him five pins. "Bend them into hooks," she said.
He kneeled down and, after pricking his fingers several times, succeeded
in bending two pins against the thwart. He passed them through the ends
of the twine, and they were the possessors of two fishing lines.
"You fish in front and I'll fish in back," she said; "that way we won't
catch the same fish."
"No," said the Maestro, looking behind at the water where the black fin
seemed playfully trying to cut its initials; "you fish at the bow and
I'll fish at the stern."
They took their respective positions and cast conscientiously. Jack,
interested, began to run from one to the other, barking. "S-s-s-h,"
hissed the Maestro; "you'll scare the fish!" But the warning evidently
came too late; the fish refused to bite.
"I'm lonely," finally said a voice at the bow; "come here and talk to me
while I fish."
The Maestro dropped his tackle with suspicious alacrity and went
forward. The bride continued casting with a gradual diminuendo of
enthusiasm.
"I don't think this is much fun, do you?" she pouted. "Let's stop."
So they sat down again, she on his knees, Jack in her arms. The wind was
going down, the sun was less scorching, and it was pleasant and quiet.
To the left the palm-lined shore showed farther and farther away; and
they were still drifting in the grip of some stubborn current. Suddenly
she was laughing, a quiet, self-contained peal at some pleasant thought
hers only.
"It's dinner time," she said between two musical ripples.
"But you didn't catch any fish," he said.
She laughed again. "Bring me my grip," she ordered. And she pointed to a
little dripping satchel, to which, with the tenacity of unconsciousness,
she had clung throughout the crisis, and which now lay, unheeded, at the
bottom of the boat.
He handed it to her; but when they went to open it, they found it
locked, and she had lost the key.
He brought his knife out of his pocket and opened the blade.
"Oh, my poor grip," she exclaimed in dismay. But he slashed at it
unsentimentally.
The interior was only slightly wet. Through the gaping hole she took a
white lace kerchief and spread it upon the centre thwart. Again her hand
went into the grip and successively she drew a little bottle of olives,
four figs, three crackers, and a diminutive flask of milk. She arranged
them daintily upon the cloth and then, sitting at the bottom of the boat
with the table between them, face to face, they gaily dined together.
"Oh, I've eaten so much," she sighed at last as she presented the last
fig to Jack, who gulped it down trustingly. "I think I should have a
nap, don't you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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