That even as he was twisting the jigger out of the cod's mouth, he was already tallying his own worth-unlike the hours spent over school books, studying letters and figures that made no sense. It was this, the immediacy of it, that fulfilled him. 'Ah,' he grunted with satisfaction and, sitting back down, pulled in the fish. He figured he could do it.Īfter scarcely five minutes of jigging, his left jigger hooked. Rising, he planted both feet firmly on either side of his boat and began jigging: left forearm up, right forearm down right forearm up, left forearm down. Wrapping his fishing twine around each hand, he tossed the ends holding the jiggers overboard, their hooks more silvery than the underbelly of a herring as they sank into the sea. Rowing half a mile along the rugged coastline, he anchored two stone's throws from where Pollock's Brook rushed out of a small estuary into the sea. Tucked inside his pants pocket was a credit note for his confirmation suit, priced at thirty-two quintals of dried salt fish (on hold at the merchant's), and tucked around his feet were two coils of fishing twine, the end of each tightly knotted to a cod jigger. Sylvanus now had just turned fourteen that morning when he burst through the school doors for summer, shoved his dory off from the calm shores of Cooney Arm, paddled through the narrow channel protecting the cove, and headed for the choppy waters of the open Atlantic.

Sylvanus Now by Donna Morrissey