When the boy came back the old man was asleep in the chair and the sun was down.The boy took the old army blanket off the bed and spread it over the back of the chair and over the old man's shoulders.They were strange shoulders,still powerful although very old,and the neck was still strong too and the creases did not show so much when the old man was asleep and his head fallen forward.His shirt had been patched so many times that it was like the sail and the patches were faded to many different shades by the sun.The old man's head was very old though and with his eyes closed there was no life in his face.The newspaper lay across his knees and the weight of his arm held it there in the evening breeze. He was barefooted.
“But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks.”“I remember,”the old man said,“I know you did not leave me because you doubted.”
“The month when the great fish come,”the old man said.“ Anyone can be a fisherman in May.”
“I would,”the boy said.“ But I bought these.”
“It was papa made me leave.I am a boy and I must obey him.”
“We can do that,”the boy said.“But what about the eighty-seven of your great record?”
When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbor from the shark factory;but today there was only the faint edge of the odor because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.