soon as we left the pond. Paine wanted to save it for an emergency and then ration it out if things got too desperate. So there was a pull and tug, friendly of course, and as I said, I was in the middle. That’s how it is when you don’t choose your company and get mixed up with a minister and a Storekeeper. One has his eye on eternity and the other is hell-bent for a quick turnover."

“So, you got over and spent the day shooting ducks and then it was too windy to get back?”

“Right, the old dory, you know. The bottom was pretty shaky and l was afraid it | rowed too strong, I’d put my heels through the bottom. As soon as we got around the West point, I knew. I said ‘that’s it boys, we’re going back.”' And back we went. We went clumping along the shore to the old MacCormack place.

There was the remains of the stove and an old bed-spring instead of a kitchen couch. We got a fire going with shingles and broken boards and I found a can of lard and set it on the stove to melt. I figured we could make a lamp with the lard and a bit of cloth. Your grandfather pulled off his socks and put them on the oven door to dry. “‘Now he says, we’ll have a drink while my socks are drying.’ I couldn’t think of any good reason not to agree but Paine had other ideas. ‘l recommend that we preserve the water of life until tomorrow,’ he says, ‘and we start rationing it if we cannot go back to the mainland. After all, we may be here for a week,‘ I had to get my oar in, ‘ and there may be ice on the Bay come daylight.’

"He’s a damn liar,‘ your grandfather said. ‘How can it freeze if the wind is blowing and besides, it’ll be as calm as a clock in the morning.’

I figured as how you grandfather was right but I liked to keep them going at one another. It sort of kept their spirits up. We took a vote on it and, of course, the whiskey won out. Your grandfather suggested Paine could wait until the morning for his ration but he took his medicine the same as us.”

“So, you had the stove and the whiskey to warm you up. You weren’t as hard up as all that.”

Uncle Billy went, “humph” through his nose. “Sure we had it good; rotten boards for a fire, one or two sandwiches, no tea, which would have been better than the whiskey. We had a flashlight that the owner was watching like a hawk, an axe, shotguns, and that‘s

about all except for tiredness and hunger. Just when the fire was 42