The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1913-10-10
HER
PROPOSAL
A Story of Fisher
Folk
By F. A. mitchell

q continuous arcllpelaSO from PORT
land to the bay of Fundy. The men
In these villages fish all the year round,
except for a short season in midsum-
mer, when they use the motorboats for
taking out sailing parties on various
excursions. for which they receive
good pay.
In one Of these villages lived two
fishermen whose ownership and man.
agement of a boat gave them the title
Of captain. They were Captain Steve
Williams and Captain Enoch Brown.
Williams was older than Brown, but
they were stanch friends. Both Of
them knew so well the rocks and
shoals of the coast in which they were
used to fish that they could sail around
them or between them in the darkest
night.
They set their nets just before dark
ness fell upon the ocean and took them
in soon after dawn. 1t was a hard
life, this being exposed to the winds
and waves when others were asleep
and sleeping while others were awake,
OuL SO iOh6 do lliCg "ClC gOull5 lhCJ
did not mind it-that is. when the
weather was fair. When it was
stormy they did not go out to fish. but
many a night change would come,
and, being out. they were obliged to
endure the exposure till they could
make the cove from which they had
started.
Captain Steve Williams was mar
ried. and many a time when storms
arose while he was out in his boat his
wife would lie awake dreading with
every shrek of the wind that it might
be blowing her husband on some sunk
en- rock. She would clasp her little
daughter, Edith. tightly to her breast
and mutter a prayer for the man ply
ing his perilous vocation.
Captain Brown had no wife to pray
for him. He had passed the heyday
he could have won almost any of the
girls of the village. He was a well
built man with n clear steel gray eye
an eye that bespoke courage and hon
esty. But the winds and the spray had
begun to pillow burrows in his cheeks,
and a few gray hairs were beginning
to appear in his sandy hair. -
When Edith Williams waya little
child she was sensible of there being a
great trouble in the family. A man
came to the house and took her father
away with him. her mother clinging TO
her husband. weeping. Edith did not
see her father for some time; then he
came home. and the trouble seemed to
be over. IL occurred when she was at
IN age in which children forget. but
she never forgot the scene of her IA
theirs being taken away. And there
was another scene she remembered,
her father holding one of Captain
Browns hands while her mother held
the other, and they were talking to
him with great earnestness.
But both these scenes. though not
grew dim in her memory as
she grew away from them. Perhaps
hey were dwarfed by others that were
present with her. Her father who
was never the same man after the
llAoAOA Ault lLldl NOlllt " ulllls Dt-
gan to dread going out Mt night on
he black ocean to gain a livelihood for
those dependent upon him. And his
wife dreaded to have him go as much |
IS he dreaded going.
Edith wished that the fish would go
INTO the nets during the day as well as
Turing the night. She wished that her /
father could devote himself to some
other calling. And yet when now ,
md then he would make a great haul 4
md dispose of it for a large sum il /
would not seem so dreadful after all
1t least he would not so consider It
himself
And so the battle for life with the
winds and the waves went on. The
wo captains weathered every tempest,
very fog. in which they were caught.
At last little germ so small that it
,ould be seen only with a microscope
got into Captain Williams system and
Effected what the angry breakers roll
ng over some half hidden rock were
Dowerless to do. The fisherman died
quietly in his bed.
He had wrung from the sea enough
% pay for the home I'm which he lived.
besides fund for an income by which.
living economically. his wife and
laughter might keep the wolf from
he door But his wife could not live
without him. There was now nothing
% worry her. but when the wind howl
d at night. from force OF habit. she
would waken and think of the little
boat out on the dark. heaving ocean.
he solitary man in Ii feeling his way
ike a blind person. While she was
sinking away. at the slightest sound
The would start. inquiring II It were
lot the melancholy foghOrn or a gun
from q sinking ship. and at the last she
was sure size heard the thin clang Of a
Instant hell buoy.
Edith waS now alone. There were
riri's Hud acquaintances in plenty.
.ui tI-t Ts-a Ike persons In another
ip.f -i1,. 600 drift away NJ any mo-
rf- Nur ard only one. seemed left
'f fii,i... size had been accustomed 70
-p-arl % part Of the household. Cap