FullReads

“Dear man!” says Peter; “you’ve firewood for half a dozen winters.”

“They’ll need it,” says Tom.

“Ay,” says Peter; “but will you lie idle next winter?”

“Next winter?” says Tom. And he laughed. “Oh, next winter,” says he, “I’ll have another occupation.”

“Movin’ away, Tom?”

“Well,” says Tom, “I is an’ I isn’t.”

There come a day in March weather of that year when seals was thick on the floe off Gingerbread Cove. You could see un with the naked eye from Lack-a-Day Head. A hundred thousand black specks swarming over the ice three miles and more to sea! “Swiles! Swiles!” And Gingerbread Cove went mad for slaughter. ‘Twas a fair time for off-shore sealing, too–a blue, still day, with the look and feel of settled weather. The ice had come in from the current with a northeasterly gale, a wonderful mixture of Arctic bergs and Labrador pans, all blinding white in the spring sun; and ’twas a field so vast, and jammed so tight against the coast, that there wasn’t much more than a lane or two and a Dutchman’s breeches of open water within sight from the heads. Nobody looked for a gale of off-shore wind to blow that ice afore dawn of the next day.

“A fine, soft time, lads!” says Pinch-a-Penny. “I ‘low I’ll go out with the Gingerbread crew.”

“Skipper Peter,” says Tom Lane, “you’re too old a man t’ be on the ice.”

“Ay,” says Peter, “but I wants t’ bludgeon another swile afore I dies.”

“But you creaks, man!”

“Ah, well,” says Peter, “I’ll show the lads I’m able t’ haul a swile ashore.”

“Small hope for such as you on a movin’ floe!”

“Last time, Tom,” says Peter.

“Last time, true enough,” says Tom, “if that ice starts t’ sea with a breeze o’ wind behind.”

“Oh, well, Tom,” says Peter, “I’ll take my chances. If the wind comes up I’ll be as spry as I’m able.”

It come on to blow in the afternoon. But ’twas short warning of off-shore weather. A puff of gray wind come down; a saucier gust went by; and then a swirl of galish wind jumped over the pans. At the first sign of wind, Pinch-a-Penny Peter took for home, loping over the ice as fast as his lungs and old legs would take un when pushed, and nobody worried about he any more. He was in such mad haste that the lads laughed behind un as he passed. Most of the Gingerbread crew followed, dragging their swiles; and them that started early come safe to harbor with the fat. But there’s nothing will master a man’s caution like the lust of slaughter: give a Newfoundlander a club, and show un a swile-pack, and he’ll venture far from safety. ‘Twas not until a flurry of snow come along of a sudden that the last of the crew dropped what they was at and begun to jump for shore like a pack of jack-rabbits.

With snow in the wind, ’twas every man for himself. And that means no mercy and less help.

By this time the ice had begun to feel the wind. ‘Twas restless. And a bad promise: the pans crunched and creaked as they settled more at ease. The ice was going abroad. As the farther fields drifted off to sea, the floe fell loose inshore. Lanes and pools opened up. The cake-ice tipped and went awash under the weight of a man. Rough going, ecod! There was no telling when open water would cut a man off where he stood. And the wind was whipping off-shore, and the snow was like dust in a man’s eyes and mouth, and the landmarks of Gingerbread Cove was nothing but shadows in a mist of snow to windward. Nobody knowed where Pinch-a-Penny Peter was. Nobody thought about him. And wherever poor old Pinch-a-Penny was–whether safe ashore or creaking shoreward against the wind on his last legs–he must do for himself. ‘Twas no time to succor rich or poor. Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.