HONEY-MOONING ON THE FLAKES

Jim lapsed into silence and his wife, laying down her mending, poked the fire and soon had tea brewing. The Landers are tea drinkers like the English.

"It's a beautiful story, sir, and we often live it over again," Mrs. Jim said as she poured the tea. I noted the flow-blue china and, answering my query, she said:

"It was my grandfather's. He brought it from England sixty years ago. Of course we're awful careful of it, but we use it, for Jim says the only way to have plenty is to use what you have. We always keep a pot handy and there's always a ready chair, for many a time a neighbor drops in and we wouldn't want to let them go on without a cup o' tea,—a cup o' kindness, Jim calls it."

"Now, I've read books," continued Jim, "and they always end just where they really should begin. When in the book story they decide to get married, then they stop short. If I should ever write a story, which I ain't likely to do, with my little learnin', I'd not stop there, but I'd let that end only the first chapter and I'd let the story go on with its joy and sorrow and its hope and its fear and the problems big and little; the blessings so rare that follow along even as they do in real life.

"If I'm not tiring you, I'd be glad to give you another half chapter afore we all quit and turn in for the night."

Jim put down his empty tea cup with a smack of appreciation at his wife's proper brewing and deliberately cut off a fresh slice of tobacco and crushed it into the bowl of his pipe, and I knew that for at least a half hour, the story would go on, the story that was so real to him and now so fascinating to me.

"Bein' both of us very sure, and the Lord havin' given the sign o' His good pleasure, there beyond Brigus, we didn't wait long afore we were hitched up.

"We begun right here in this house and we started right in here the first night and we went to work on the flakes the next morning. We didn't go off no where's for a honey-mooning.

"I reckon there's no place a real woman would rather go at that time than to the new home where her life is agoin' to be lived, and that vacationing then ain't best for either. In any case we never thought a travelling, for you see the cod was running well and 'twas the height of the season and we had to fill the flakes, while we could.

"A man and a woman who gets married has to get acquainted and adjusted one to the other and there's no better place for learnin' to conform than right where they are agoin' to live and raise their children.

"Course a couple can just pretend for a spell there ain't any work to be done, but there is, and I reckon the sooner they face it, the better for all concerned. If you're agoin' to cut bait, there's no use standin' round dreadin' it.

"When I was a boy we used to have in our house a religious book with pictures of saints in it and every blessed one on' 'em had a ring around their head, halos, I think they call 'em; now I callate that a home ought to have some kind of a halo over it and it's easier to get it fastened on just right when your startin' married life and if you don't get it on then, like's not you'll never have a real home but just a house for feeding and sleeping.

"We got the halo fixed on, eh, Effie," and the fisherman's eyes confirmed his words.

"So, next morning we put on our fishin' clothes and went out on the flakes. We'd clean fish for a spell and then we'd split and spread for a spell. Now I know from the standin' point o' city folks fishin' clothes ain't very scrumptious to look at and they are kinder soused with smell, but our clothes didn't interfere none with our honeymoon.

"Her dress was kinder faded blue, but I always liked blue. It's heaven's color and often the sea borrows it, and that morning it made her cheeks more wonderful pink than I'd seen 'em before.

"There was a kind of down-right, deep-seated satisfaction to both of us in feeling we was at work; both of us a doin' what needed to be done and a sharin' of the burdens or the joys which ever you wants to call 'em. For I have found that some folks get their joys and burdens mixed up and don't seem to know one from 'tother till it's too late and they wake up with a start when they can't change 'em.

"Sharin', I said, and that's a word we set out to understand when we commenced an' with us it's always been a big word ever since.

"After breakfast that first morning we went to the flakes, I took out my wallet and said to her: 'There's no sense of my carryin' this round when you are more likely to need it than I. I'll leave it here behind the clock and when you need money, it's yours and bein' yours you don't have to give any account of it 'cept to your own conscience. More properly speakin' it's 'ourn, for now we're married there ain't no longer yourn or mine, but 'ourn.'

"I callate that if a man can trust a woman to bring up his children, trust her with his house and his reputation and his disposition, he ain't no cause to fear to trust her with his wallet.

"Bob McCartney always says a woman ought to have an allowance, but I tell him too much book-keeping is bad for a married couple and then how's a man able to judge the amount of an allowance anyhow. I guess most women earn more'n an allowance, and a sharin' always seems bigger than an allowance.

"I've heared folks liked honey-moons 'cause they got away from pryin' eyes, but I want you to know that our honeymoon want never once interrupted. The neighbors see we had work to do and they had theirs and we both of us did it. The children of the neighbors was often round with us then, but they made us think of 'ourn that was to come, in the favor of the Lord. And if when I helped her along from plank to plank, I held her hand a little longer than absolutely necessary, who was to care.

"There's been no decided change in the years; we've been honey-mooning along just about the same. Course with the children she had more to do in doors, but she's always managed, if there was an extra run o' fish to come to the flakes and help me over the rush; and if one o' the kids was sick or anything extra come, why I've always toted the load for her."

During the last few sentences Jim was watching the clock intently and as he spoke the last sentence, he crossed the little room and began winding the clock. I looked up and there, sticking out from behind the clock, was a worn, brown wallet. Evidently he was still living up to his habit of sharing.

"It's time all decent folks was in bed," he said. "We done want to ape the city folks."

So bidding them good night I went out into the night. The rain had ceased and there were fast hurrying clouds breaking up and I could see the moon high over the spruces. I felt my way along the road back to St. John's.