_Cunner-Fishing_


One of the chief pleasures in Deephaven was our housekeeping. Going to
market was apt to use up a whole morning, especially if we went to the
fish-houses. We depended somewhat upon supplies from Boston, but
sometimes we used to chase a butcher who took a drive in his old
canvas-topped cart when he felt like it, and as for fish, there were
always enough to be caught, even if we could not buy any. Our
acquaintances would often ask if we had anything for dinner that day,
and would kindly suggest that somebody had been boiling lobsters, or
that a boat had just come in with some nice mackerel, or that somebody
over on the Ridge was calculating to kill a lamb, and we had better
speak for a quarter in good season. I am afraid we were looked upon as
being in danger of becoming epicures, which we certainly are not, and we
undoubtedly roused a great deal of interest because we used to eat
mushrooms, which grew in the suburbs of the town in wild luxuriance.

One morning Maggie told us that there was nothing in the house for
dinner, and, taking an early start, we went at once down to the store to
ask if the butcher had been seen, but finding that he had gone out
deep-sea fishing for two days, and that when he came back he had planned
to kill a veal, we left word for a sufficient piece of the doomed animal
to be set apart for our family, and strolled down to the shore to see if
we could find some mackerel; but there was not a fisherman in sight, and
after going to all the fish-houses we concluded that we had better
provide for ourselves. We had not brought our own lines, but we knew
where Danny kept his, and after finding a basket of suitable size, and
taking some clams from Danny's bait-tub, we went over to the hull of an