One day he broke through that old notion that Doanes didn't work on other men's boats and half in a joke proposed to Captain Cook that he fire a ginnie or two and give him a berth on the _Elizabeth_. And Bill Cook was _rattled_. Finally he laughed and said, "Why, Joe, you ought to be on your own vessel"--which was a way of saying he didn't want him on _his_. Why didn't he? Did they think because he hadn't made a trip for so long that he wasn't good for one? Did they think a Doane couldn't take orders? Well, there weren't many boats he _would_ go on. Most of them in the harbor now were owned by Portuguese. He guessed it wouldn't come natural to him to take orders from a Portagee--not at sea. He was taking orders from one now at the cold storage--but as the cold storage wasn't where he belonged it didn't make so much difference who he took orders from. At the close of that day Bill Cook told him he ought to be on his own vessel, Joe Doane sat at the top of those steps which led from his house down to the sea and his thoughts were like the sails coming round the Point--slowly, in a procession, and from a long way off. His father's boats used to come round that Point this same way. He was lonesome to-night. He felt half like an old man and half like a little boy. Mrs. Cadara was standing over on the platform to the front of her house. She too was looking at the sails to the far side of the breakwater--sails coming home. He wondered if she was thinking about Joe Cadara--wishing he was on one of those boats. _Did_ she ever think about Joe Cadara? Did she ever wish he would come home? He'd like to ask her. He'd like to know. When you went away and didn't come back home, was all they thought about how they'd get along? And if they were getting along all right, was it true they'd just as soon be without you? He got up. He had a sudden crazy feeling he wanted to _fight_ for Joe Cadara. He wanted to go over there and say to that fireless cooker woman, "Trip after trip he made, in the cold and in the storm. He kept you warm and safe here at home. It was for you he went; it was to you he came back. _And you'll miss him yet._ Think this is going to keep up? Think you're going to interest those rich folks as much next year as you did this? Five years from now you'll be on your knees with a _brush_ to keep those kids warm and fed." He'd like to get the truth out of her! Somehow things wouldn't seem so _rotten_ if he could know that she sometimes lay in her bed at night and cried for Joe Cadara.