The Life of Nancy by Sarah Orne Jewett

There was a fishing-boat coming into the neighboring cove, as has already been said, while Ferris and John Packer stood together talking in the yard. In this fishing-boat were two other men, younger and lighter-hearted, if it were only for the reason that neither of them had such a store of petty ill deeds and unkindnesses to remember in dark moments. They were in an old dory, and there was much ice clinging to her, inside and out, as if the fishers had been out for many hours. There were only a few cod lying around in the bottom, already stiffened in the icy air. The wind was light, and one of the men was rowing with short, jerky strokes, to help the sail, while the other held the sheet and steered with a spare oar that had lost most of its blade. The wind came in flaws, chilling, and mischievous in its freaks. "I ain't goin' out any more this year," said the younger man, who rowed, giving a great shudder. "I ain't goin' to perish myself for a pinch o' fish like this" -- pushing them with his heavy boot. "Generally it's some warmer than we are gittin' it now, 'way into January. I've got a good chance to go into Otis's shoe-shop; Bill Otis was tellin' me he didn't know but he should go out West to see his uncle's folks, -- he done well this last season, lobsterin', -- an' I can have his bench if I want it. I do' know but I may make up some lobster-pots myself, evenin's an' odd times, and take to lobsterin' another season. I know a few good places that Bill Otis ain't struck; and then the scarcer lobsters git to be, the more you git for 'em, so now a poor ketch's 'most better 'n a good one."

"Le' me take the oars," said Joe Banks, without attempting a reply to such deep economical wisdom.