The high tide was due in mid-afternoon. As the time approached, the Gulf seas swelled to appalling size. The gale was at its height. At three o’clock, with a great heaving and rolling, there came in what is still known on the river as the high salt tide. It writhed up the river like a sea-serpent, in and out among the islands, and flooded land that had never been submerged before.

“Mart,” Florry asked, “we kin stay here right on? You kin fish with Harper’s? Or the fish-house mebbe credit you on a boat and net?”

Yet she knew the answer. He shook his head.

“Reckon not. Harper cain’t no more’n use his own kin-folks in the dory. He’s studyin’ on movin’ down to Cedar Key. Fishin’s some better there. The fish-house feller was down to Harper’s this mornin’. He’s closin’ up.”

“We could ketch enough fish for our own rations,” she persisted, “and we got a fine garden comin’ on. I seed yestiddy the beans was up, and the cabbage jest comin’ thu.”

They walked back to the kitchen window to look out at the garden on the low slope back of the house. The high salt tide was on it. The new green sprouts just had their heads above the sucking water. Tomorrow the brine would have made black wisps of them. Florry’s lips twitched.

“Hit’ll be plumb destroyed,” she whispered.

Mart looked at her curiously.

“Ain’t you gittin’ to be a froggy leetle ol’ thing?” he said. “I got me good plans. Eph Harper ain’t been gittin’ but seventy-five cents a gallon for his ’shine. He says there be good money in ’shine in the right place. He’s fixin’ to clare out for Putnam County and start him a still in the scrub. He says Putnam County likker bring a fine price, two, three dollars a gallon, if you take time to run it thu twicet, so it ain’t raw. He says he’d as leave carry me with him as not. I ain’t never been in the scrub, but I allus hankered to see it. You’d like it fine.”

She pondered.

“Would I jest leave the ol’ cat here, like I found it?”

“Shore. You cain’t tote cats from one county to another. They allus runs away.”

“Kin I carry the pig?”

“Eph wouldn’t want no pig messin’ up his flivver. Tell you, Florry, we kin barbecue the pig jest afore we starts and carry it for rations.”

“Mart, dogged if I could eat ary mouthful o’ that leetle ol’ critter. The longer I chawed it, the bigger it’d git.”

He frowned.

“Hit’s take it that-a-way or leave it, one. Pigs was meant for eatin’. Hit’ll git et some’eres else if we don’t eat it. Hit’ll jest be pork when it’s dead. Now don’t you take on, Florry,” he soothed her. “Hit don’t make no special difference where we goes nor what we does. Rations is rations, right on. Hit don’t make no difference where we squats to eat ’em.”