"How thankful I am!" chattered Judy. Then, launched into the thick of the arduous work, they both fell into breathless silence and only worked. It was not much Blossom could do, but she did her little splendidly. And Judith toiled with all her strength. They stopped at last, not because there were no more of the glistening, silver fellows about them, but because the old black dory was weighted almost to the water's edge. They had to stop. And then began Judith's terrible hour. For the heavy boat must somehow be worked back, a weary little at a time, to the distant shore. Judith set herself to this new task gallantly, but it was almost too much for her. Over and over again it seemed to her she must give it up and toss overboard part, at least, of her silver freight, to lighten her load. But over and over again she nerved herself to another spurt of strength. She must do it! She could not give up! She would shut her eyes, like this, and row ten more strokes--just ten more. Then she would row ten with her eyes open. Ten, shut--ten, open. Perhaps that would help. She tried it. She tried other poor little devices--calling the strokes "eenie, meenie, minie, mo," the way she and Jemmy Three had "counted out" for tag when they were little--brown--things. Her strength--was surely--giving out--it shouldn't give out! Blossom, watching silently from her weary perch, grew frightened at Judy's tense, set face and began to sob. And then Judy must find breath enough to laugh reassuringly and to nod over her shoulder at the child. They had gone out late--had been out a wearisome time--and the journey back to land was measured off by slow, laboring oar-strokes that scarcely seemed to move the great boat. So it was late afternoon when at length Judith's hard task was done. She seemed to possess but one desire--to rest. To get Blossom over the remaining half mile between her and home and then to tumble over on the bed and sleep--what more could anyone wish than that? But there would be more than that to do. She must get food for tired little Blossom, if not for herself. And before this towered gigantically the two last feats of strength that faced her and seemed to laugh at her with sardonic glee. "Drag me up on the beach--drag me up!" the old black dory taunted her. "Carry me home, Judy, I'm so tired!--carry me home," Blossom pleaded, like a little wilted blossom. She did both things, but she never quite realized just how she could have done them. She remembered telling herself she couldn't and then finding them done. Of covering her load of mackerel with an old rubber blanket she was dimly conscious. It was not until she lay drowsing in utter exhaustion on her own bed that she thought of all of the rest that must be done to that boat-load of precious freight. Then she tried to sit up, with a cry of distress.