'Is it you, my son?' they both asked at once, for they could not see.
Again he whistled in answer, and the three sat in silence till midnight
when the young man made some sounds as if he would speak.
'Is that you, my son?' asked the father again, and the son replied:
[Illustration: THE DEAD SON HELPS HIS PARENTS]
'Yes,' and made a sign, pointing outside the door, where more devil-fish
were lying.
'In the morning we will go out,' he said in a strange voice, as if
speaking was difficult to him, and his mother gave him a pillow and some
blankets and he slept by the fire.
* * * * *
It was still dark when he took his father by the feet and shook him,
saying 'Get up, it is time to fish,' so they fetched the line and
dragged the canoe to the water's edge. When they were seated the son
took a paddle, and he pulled so hard that they had reached the feeding
grounds of the halibut in only a few minutes. After that he baited the
hooks and fastened the end of the line to the seat.
'Put the blanket over you,' he said, turning to his father, 'and be
careful not to watch me.' But the father _did_ watch him through a hole
in the blanket, and this is what he saw.
The son got up very gently so that the boat should not move, and,
plunging into the sea, put the largest halibut he could find on the
hooks. When no more were to be had, he returned into the canoe and shook
it; his father perceiving this, stretched out his arms drowsily and
inquired if they had had any luck.
'Pull in the lines and see,' answered the son, and as they pulled, one
big halibut after another met their eyes. The canoe was soon full, and
they paddled home again.
On the way back the young man who was standing at the bow with a spear
in his hand threw it at a seal, which he dragged on board the boat, and
killed it with a blow from his fist. But as soon as they touched the
shore he looked at the sky and exclaimed that if he did not make haste
the raven might cry before he could reach a shelter, and ran off up to
the woods.
* * * * *
It took the father and mother all day to take out the halibut and cut
them in pieces and salt them, so that they should always have something
to eat. Darkness came on before they had finished, and in the evening
their son was with them again. Then the father took some of the raw
halibut and set it before him, first cutting it into small mouthfuls.
He knew that drowned men did not like cooked food, and also that they
did not like being watched. So he signed to his wife to say nothing when
the son turned his back, and began to eat very fast, for he was hungry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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