The skipper of the “Polly J.,” himself perhaps the scion of three generations of fishing captains, may wag his head regretfully, for fishers cannot be choosers; but he knows that his fishing has to be done, and, after all, a “Portygee” is as good a sailor-man and dory-mate as another,--better sometimes,--if he keeps sober. So long as the ship-owner makes his credit good at the store for the people at home, the fisherman takes life as joyfully as a man may who looks at death with every turn of the glass. If he takes his pleasures seriously, it is because he lives face to face with his Maker. Nature, in the awful moods he knows her, makes trivial the little ills that flesh is heir to. So when the crews are aboard, and the stores and salt are being hoisted in, there is a hurry to be among the first away. Chains and windlasses creak and clang, nimble feet fly aloft, hoarse voices ring across the rippling water, and many a cheerful song echoes from ship to shore and back again. Willing hands, strangers for months to hemp and tar, lay on to the tackle, as spar and boom are run into place. The fish-bins below are cleaned and scrubbed to the very quick. Bright-work, if there be any, is polished, and sail-patching and dory-painting and caulking are the order of the day, and most of the night. The black cook, below in the mysterious blackness of the galley, potters with saucepan and kettle, and when the provisions are aboard serves the first meal. There is coffee, steaming hot in the early hours of the morning, and biscuit and meat,--plenty of it. There is not much variety, but, with the work to be done above and below decks, a full-blooded appetite leaves no chance for grumbling. At last the bag and baggage of the crew are tossed aboard,--packs of tobacco innumerable, new rubber clothes, all yellow and shiny in the morning dampness, boots and woollens to keep out the cold of spring on the Bank Sea,--all bought on credit at the store, to be charged against “settling-day.” WAVING GODSPEED TO THE FISHER-FOLK It is morning, just before the dawn. The “Polly J.,” her new paint all silver in the early light, rides proudly at her anchor in the centre of the tideway. The nip of winter lingers in the air, but the snow is gone and the rigging is no longer stiff to the touch. It is just daylight when the last dory is hoisted aboard into its nest. Three or four figures on the wharves, outlined against the purple sky and hills, stand waving Godspeed to their fisher-folk. Women’s voices ring out between the creakings of the blocks, “Good luck! Good luck! ‘Polly J.’; wet your salt first, ‘Polly J.’” It is the well-wishing from the hearts of women, who go back to weep in silence. Which one of them is to make her sacrifice to the god of winds and storms?