The first day Miles was bidden to plant corn, putting two shiny alewives into each hole, and Jack Cooke was set to plant the row next him. But unhappily they chattered so much that Miles presently realized, in some horror, that he had supplied several hills with alewives, but no corn, and, while he was pulling up the ground to set the matter right, came Master Hopkins. He was angry; not that he blustered, but he cuffed Miles smartly, and, saying he could not be trusted at such important work, sent him down to the shore to labor hereafter.
From that time on, Miles tugged fish,--a dreary task, in which he was coupled with Francis Billington, another scatter-head. They had a great flat Indian basket, in which they heaped the alewives, taken all slippery from the big pile that lay upon the river brink; then they would lift the basket between them, to each a handle, and, panting and heaving, struggle up the steep bank from the river, and so through the settlement, out to the hot, open fields.
It was not a great load they could carry at one time, so their usefulness depended on the number of trips they made, but there they were sluggish. Often the basket upset, and they had to sit down to refill it; and again, more and more frequently as the hot days went on, they must halt to quarrel, when Francis vowed Miles was bearing down on his end of the basket, and Miles declared Francis was not doing his share.
One morning it came to such a pass that Miles took a basket by himself, but he found the journey single-handed so hard that he was in even less hurry than usual to return from the fields and get a second load. Loitering along, he was amusing himself by trying to carry on his head the empty fish-basket, which _would_ fall off, when, as he paused to pick up the troublesome article for the fifth time, Captain Standish, coming shirt-sleeved and grimy from the fields, overtook him. Rather guiltily, Miles straightened up very erect, and said, "Good morrow, sir," as he always said it to the Captain.
"You're journeying back to the brook, Miles?" asked Standish. "At this speed you'll not come thither ere dinner-time."
"I'm hastening now, sir," Miles answered, accepting the words as an invitation to trot along at the other's side.