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    If meagre, I said.
    I paced off the house and it was thirty-seven feet long.
    Tom on the side called out, Fourteen feet wide.
    Your feet or my feet?
    Just regular twelve-inchers, sir. I made an allowance.
    Fourteen feet, then.
    Pointing to a hollow, You can do your nuisance over there until we fix you up an outhouse.
    There were two chimneys. A wealth of chimneys. I turned back to town.
    Dont you want to have a look inside, sir?
    I’m used to the insides of things, Tom. And I’ll tell you, the outside of a thing will inform you a lot of its innards. Now let’s go meet the rest of the world.
13
    I hired on Tom Dobie. What William Blake wrote: He whose face gives no light will never become a star. I subscribe to this, though it’s not the entire story. If you are full of light then you must be aware that smaller lights are intimidated. Light attracts but also makes people close their eyes. And so it’s never enough to be large and generous. A star must permit smaller lights to shine. This is something I did not know until I was in my forties. I was a brash young light who read Blake.
    We spent the days shovelling the house out, removing some hay the Pomeroys had stacked in there. The ceilings were an even six feet. Lucky I’m a short man. We pried off the boards and caulked in the windows. I got one fireplace working half-heartedly. We stripped the walls and glued on muslin and walked to Chafe’s to pick out some pretty paper. Tom Dobie nodded to Chafe.
    How’s your mother, Bud said.
    Thanks Mr Chafe. She’s fine.
    You’ll be needing salt pork.
    We’re all right.
    Havent come in for anything in a while.
    How’s the credit.
    Youre all right, Tom.
    I chose colours I knew Kathleen would like.
    Jas Kelly came in and asked for some flour. A butt of pork. Some molasses. Chafe took up a ledger and marked it down. Jas pencilled in an X and took his supplies.
    As we walked back I asked Tom about it. So you dont pay for it.
    Chafe tots her up.
    And when do you pay for it.
    He lets us have it on credit until the fall. Then takes off what our fish brung in.
    You sell your fish to Bud Chafe.
    He has a culler. What come in and tells him the price.
    So you dont know the price.
    Chafe is good. He gives us what is fair.
    So he pays you and you pay him?
    There’s no money as such.
    Does Jas Kelly know what that flour cost him?
    It’s all in the ledger. Chafe got it in the book.
    Does it matter if he buys it today or next month?
    I guess the price changes. Yes, she do change. Chafe writes her down, the provision and the date.
    So youre saying Jas Kelly doesnt know what he spent today.
    Fishermen usually just get the provisions they need. It’s there in the book. Chafe keeps her all written up.
    It sounds odd. It sounds feudal. So you dont know what you owe Chafe.
    He says our credit is good.
    But youre reluctant to get some provisions.
    We didnt have a good year last year, okay? Chafe’s been good to keep us supplied. Mother doesnt want us to be too beholden.
    I slept at the Bartletts’. I asked Rupert about how Chafe deals with goods. The truck system, Rupert said. Fishermen in debt to merchants. There are worse than Chafe.
    But you deal with fish.
    The Labrador fishery, yes. And we set a price after St John’s. We keep it competitive. Now a young man like Tom Dobie, he’s to his gills in with Bud Chafe. Been with him now so long, through his father. Can’t get out from under him.
    So you could call him an indentured servant.
    The system, Kent. It works.
    To whose benefit.
    Well, men like Dobie and Jas Kelly get grub and supplies when they have no money. They’d starve if not for Bud Chafe.
    But theyre at the mercy of Chafe in the fall. Chafe can set his own price for fish.
    There’s no other way to do it, Kent. Unless youre angling to have a fellow like William Coaker move in. And that’s bad news. A union. All that’ll do is create another level of bureaucrats. No it’s best this way.
    After a week I moved into