Mandy did not enjoy the rest of her cake very much,--eating it furtively, so baby should not want it, and dropping crumbs on his little white head, which he kept twisting around, to see what she was doing. She began to think that perhaps she had been rather hasty in accusing Bub; but surely that was the right-hand piece, instead of the left, he was biting from? Well, anyway, it didn't much matter now the cake was all eaten. The old rooster had wandered round the corner of the house, where he was presently heard calling to his favorite hen. She ran, and all the others followed. Baby grew restless, and made little impatient noises, and the sun was getting very hot and bright on the door-step. What _was_ Bub doing down there among the nets on the drying-ground? He had been very still, with his head bent down and his hands moving about for ever so long. Mandy felt that, after their late unpleasantness, it would be more dignified to take no notice of Bub for a while; but curiosity, and baby's restlessness, finally prevailed over pride, and rolling up her troublesome little burden in an old red shawl, she trotted with him down to the river. "Bub," she said, after standing by him some time in silence, watching him driving a row of small sticks into the ground, "_was_ it my piece you was bitin' off?" "I told you 't wasn't. If you don't b'l'eve me, what's the use o' my sayin' so again?" "Well, I'm sorry, Bub. I just caught a sight of you as I turned my head, an' I thought--" "Oh, well, never mind what you thought; we've heard enough 'bout that cake! Shove your foot one side a little? I want to drive another spile there. Them's the hitchin' spiles on the inside." "What you buildin'?" asked Mandy. "Can't you see for yourself? What's built on spiles, I'd like to know! Meetinghouses, may be you think. This is Lewis's dock; all the day boats and barges stop here!" "Where's the water?" asked Mandy. "Oh, you wait till high tide, 'bout four o'clock this afternoon, 'n' you'll see water enough!" Just then, a boy in a blue blouse, with a basket of fish over his shoulder, came whistling along. "Perry! Perry Kent! Where you goin'?" Bub called. "Down to little cove, to clean fish." "Oh, can't I go along and help? I can scale a herrin' first-rate; father said so." "Aint herrin'; they're shad; got to be cleaned very partic'lar, too. But come along, if you want to." "Bub," said Mandy, in an eager whisper, "oh, Bub, wait for me! Baby's fast asleep. I'll lay him right down here, in his shawl; the nets'll keep the sun off, 'n' he'll be real cozy 'n' nice till we get back." "Why don't you take him up to the house?" said Perry, looking with some interest at Mandy's bundle. "'Taint a very good place for him here. You'll find us at the cove, all right."