' But then, I ain't been eatin' it as a steady
shore diet much more'n sixty-five year."
"Don't you run down your victuals, Ira," said his wife.
"No, I don't cal'late to. But if I may be allowed to express my
likes and dislikes, I got to be honest and say that there's victuals
I eat that would have suited me better for a steady diet than
pollack and potatoes. And now we don't even have the potatoes,
'cause we can't raise 'em no more."
"But you have land. I see a garden," said Ida May briskly.
"Yes, it's land," said Cap'n Ira, in the same pessimistic way. "But
it ain't had a coat of shack fish for three years and this spring
not much seaweed. Besides that, after the potatoes are planted, who
is to hoe 'em and knock the bugs off?"
"Oh!" commented Ida May, with a small shudder.
He grinned broadly.
"There's a whole lot o' work to farming. I'd rather plow the sea
than plow the land, and that's no idle jest! Never could see how a
man could be downright honest when he says he likes to putter with a
garden. Why, it's working in one place all the time. When he looks
up from his job, there's the same old reefs and shoals he's been
beatin' about for years. No matter how often he shoots the sun, the
computation's bound to be just the same.
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