But hours of sunshine were few now, and more often than not the sky was
leaden and somber, and the wind blew raw and cold, and already the
clouds were spitting snow. The fishing season had passed almost before
they realized it. The weeks of idleness had been costly ones, and when
the time came for them to return to the cabins at the head of Abel's
Bay, and make ready for winter, they had garnered little of the harvest
that had promised so well.
"Every season can't be a good one for us," remarked Skipper Ed as they
struck their camp. "Better luck next year; better luck. And we should be
mighty thankful we're all alive and all well. That's good luck--good
luck, after all."
But they were to be denied many things that winter that the fish they
had not caught would have brought them. The little luxuries in which
they had always indulged occasionally were not to be thought of; and
pork, which is almost a necessity, was to become a rarity and a luxury
to them, and there were to be times when even the flour barrel would be
empty.
But this was a part of the ups and downs of their life, and one and all
they accepted the condition cheerfully, for who, they said, does not
have to endure privations now and again? And they had always done very
well in other years, and the needs of life are small; and so they had no
complaint to make. Comfort and privation are, after all, measured
largely by contrast, and what to them would have been comfortable and
luxurious living would have seemed to you and me little less than
unendurable hardship.
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