Bearings for a New Course

They who bought made the poor wretches feel that it constituted a
special favor to take their fish at any price.

They seemed to come into their own that first day at market when the
Ethel and May made her bigness in the dock at the city fish-house.
Masterful men represented them in the dealings with the buyers. The crew
hid their delighted grins behind rough palms when Captain Epps Candage
bawled out bidders who were under market quotations; they gazed with awe
on Captain Mayo when he read from printed sheets--print being a
mystery they had never mastered--and figured with ready pencil and even
corrected the buyer, who acknowledged his error and humbly apologized.
No more subservient paltering at the doors of fish-houses!

Back home the women and the children and the old folks had a good roof
over their heads; the fishers had the deck of a tidy schooner under
their feet. Shiftlessness departed from them. After years of oppression
they had found their opportunity. More experienced men would have
found this new fortune only modest; these men grasped it with juvenile
enthusiasm.

They were over the side of the schooner and out in their dories when
more cautious trawlsmen hugged the fo'c'sle. On their third trip,
because of this daring, they caught the city market bare on a Thursday
and made a clean-up.

"I'm told that Saint Peter started this Friday notion because he was
in the fish business," stated Captain Candage, sorting money for the
shares. "All I've got to say is, he done a good job of it."