"
"He is very good to us."
"Because we beat Don Pietro Casale. Don Pietro cheated him last year. I
saw the cottonseed oil he mixed with the good, in that load we brought
down."
"Perhaps the fishing is not for fish," suggested little Sebastiano,
curling himself up and laying his head on the end of the chock.
They did not know what time it was when Don Antonino gently stirred them
with his big foot. They sprang up wide awake and saw in the starlight
that he had a pair of oars and a coil of rope in his hands.
"As I launch her, take the chocks from behind and put them in front," he
said in a low voice.
Then he laid the oars softly in the bows and dropped the rope into the
bottom, and began to push the boat slowly down to the sea. The boys did
as he had told them to do, and in a few minutes the bows were in the
rippling water. The old sailor took off his shoes and stockings and put
them on board, and rolled up his trousers. Then with a strong push he
sent her down over the pebbles and got upon the bows as she floated out.
To look at his heavy form you would not have thought that he could move
so lightly and quickly when he pleased.
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