But I fear the Indians of Cleveland

and the boy carried the wooden boat with the coiled, hard-braided brown lines, the gaff
and the harpoon with its shaft. The box with the baits was under the stern of the skiff
along with the club that was used to subdue the big fish when they were brought
alongside. No one would steal from the old man but it was better to take the sail and the
heavy lines home as the dew was bad for them and, though he was quite sure no local
people would steal from him, the old man thought that a gaff and a harpoon were
needless temptations to leave in a boat.
They walked up the road together to the old man’s shack and went in through its
open door. The old man leaned the mast with its wrapped sail against the wall and the
boy put the box and the other gear beside it. The mast was nearly as long as the one room
of the shack. The shack was made of the tough budshields of the royal palm which are
called guano and in it there was a bed, a table, one chair, and a place on the dirt floor to
cook with charcoal. On the brown walls of the flattened, overlapping leaves of the sturdy
fibered [15] guano there was a picture in color of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and another
of the Virgin of Cobre. These were relics of his wife. Once there had been a tinted
photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him too
lonely to see it and it was on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt.
“What do you have to eat?” the boy asked.
“A pot of yellow rice with fish. Do you want some?”
“No. I will eat at home. Do you want me to make the fire?”
“No. I will make it later on. Or I may eat the rice cold.”
“May I take the cast net?”
“Of course.”
There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went
through
this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this
too. “Eighty-five is a lucky number,” the old man said. “How would you like to see me
bring one in that dressed out over a thousand pounds?” “I’ll get the cast net and go for
sardines. Will you sit in the sun in the doorway?”
[16] “Yes. I have yesterday’s paper and I will read the baseball.” The boy did not
know whether yesterday’s paper was a fiction too. But the old man brought it out from
under the bed.
“Perico gave it to me at the bodega,” he explained. “I’ll be back when I have the
sardines. I’ll keep yours and mine together on ice and we can share them in the morning.
When I come back you can tell me about the baseball.”
“The Yankees cannot lose.”
“But I fear the Indians of Cleveland.”

The old man carried the mast on his shoulder

“I remember everything from when we first went together.”
The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, confident loving eyes.
“If you were my boy I’d take you out and gamble,” he said. “But you are your father’s
and your mother’s and you are in a lucky boat.”
“May I get the sardines? I know where I can get four baits too.”
“I have mine left from today. I put them in salt in the box.”
“Let me get four fresh ones.”
“One,” the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they
were freshening as when the breeze rises.
“Two,” the boy said.
“Two,” the old man agreed. “You didn’t steal them?”
“I would,” the boy said. “But I bought these.”
“Thank you,” the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained
humility. But he [13] knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it
carried no loss of true pride.
“Tomorrow is going to be a good day with this current,” he said.
“Where are you going?” the boy asked.
“Far out to come in when the wind shifts. I want to be out before it is light.”
“I’ll try to get him to work far out,” the boy said. “Then if you hook something truly
big we can come to your aid.”
“He does not like to work too far out.”
“No,” the boy said. “But I will see something that he cannot see such as a bird
working and get
him to come out after dolphin.” “Are his eyes that bad?” “He is almost blind.” “It is
strange,” the old man said. “He never went turtle-ing. That is what kills the eyes.” “But
you went turtle-ing for years off the Mosquito Coast and your eyes are good.”
“I am a strange old man”
“But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?”
“I think so. And there are many tricks.”
“Let us take the stuff home,” the boy said. “So I can get the cast net and go after
the sardines.”
They picked up the gear from the boat. The old man carried the mast on his shoulder