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tub of salt water lay at his feet.

"You pitch to dad an' Tom Platt down the hatch, an' take keer
Uncle Salters don't cut yer eye out," said Dan, swinging himself
into the hold. "I'll pass salt below."

Penn and Manuel stood knee-deep among cod in the pen, flourishing
drawn knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and mittens on his
hands, faced Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey stared at the
pitchfork and the tub.

"Hi!" shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up
with a finger under its gill and a finger in its eye. He laid it
on the edge of the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of
tearing, and the fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on
either side of the neck, dropped at Long Jack's feet.

"Hi!" said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod's
liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the
head and offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle
Salters, who snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing,
the backbone flew over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless,
gutted, and open, splashed in the tub, sending the salt water into
Harvey's astonished mouth. After the first yell, the men were
silent. The cod moved along as though they were alive, and long
ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the miraculous dexterity of it
all, his tub was full.

"Pitch!" grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and
Harvey pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch.

"Hi! Pitch 'em bunchy," shouted Dan. "Don't scatter! Uncle Salters
is the best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!"

Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting
magazine pages against time. Manuel's body, cramped over from the
hips, stayed like a statue; but his long arms grabbed the fish
without ceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was easy to
see he was weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him
without breaking the chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled
because he had caught his finger in a Frenchman's hook. These
hooks are made of soft metal, to be rebent after use; but the cod
very often get away with them and are hooked again elsewhere; and
that is one of the many reasons why the Gloucester boats despise
the Frenchmen.

Down below, the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough flesh
sounded like the whirring of a grindstone - a steady undertune to
the "click-nick" of the knives in the pen; the wrench and schloop
of torn heads, dropped liver, and flying offal; the "caraaah" of
Uncle Salters's knife scooping away backbones; and the flap of
wet, opened bodies falling into the tub.

At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest;
for fresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back
ached with the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in
his life that he was one of a working gang of men, took pride in
the thought, and held on sullenly.

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