But,he thought,I keep them with precision.Only I have no luck any more.But who knows?Maybe to day.Every day is a new day.It is better to be lucky.But I would rather be exact.Then when luck comes you are ready.
Now is no time to think of baseball,he thought.Now is the time to think of only one thing.That which I was born for.There might be a big one around that school,he thought. I picked up only a straggler from the albacore that were feeding.But they are working far out and fast.Everything that shows on the surface today travels very fast and to the northeast.Can that be the time of day?Or is it some sign of weather that I do not know?
Now the man watched the dip of the three sticks over the side of the skiff and rowed gently to keep the lines straight up and down and at their proper depths.It was quite light and any moment now the sun would rise.
In the dark the old man could feel the morning coming and as he rowed he heard the trembling sound as flying fish left the water and the hissing that their stiff set wings made as they soared away in the darkness.He was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the ocean.He was sorry for the birds,especially the small delicate dark terns that were always flying and looking and almost never finding,and he thought,“The birds have a harder life than we do except for the robber birds and the heavy strong ones.Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?She is kind and very beautiful.But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly,dipping and hunting,with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea.”