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Well, 'twill soon be the time when the round trippers or tourists as the newspaper calls 'em, will be around again. Every time the coastal steamer anchors in Pigeon INlet they'll be comin' ashore to stretch their legs, and to have a look at the place and see what kind of a crowd we are. And most of 'em will have their cameras and they'll take snapshots to show their friends back home in the Mainland part of Canada or the United States. Mind you, we're glad to see 'em, and I wouldn't say a word to hurt one of their feeling for anything. We do our best to answer their questions and to make them as welcome as we can. In fact, I hear tell as how they gave us a good name afterwards for being hospitable. Yes, that's all very good as far as it goes. But today I'm goin' to to make a remark or two about those round-trippers that I hope won't hurt any feeling, even if any of 'em happens to be listening. It's about these snapshots they take of Pigeon Inlet to show to their friends after they get back home.

There's a hummock on the Sou-Western side of Pigeon Inlet just behind Grampa Walcott's stage, and this hummmock is a favorite spot for these people with their cameras. In the last five summers I've seen a hundred or more of 'em climb that hummock to take their snapshots. It seems that when they're on top of it the sun is always somewhre behind them and the whole waterfront is stretched out in a nice curved line right ahead of them so that they can get all the stages and flakes in on the one snap.

Mind you, they can't get the church or the school or the Lodge or Aunt Sophy's fine boardin' house or any of the other nice-lookin' houses n the place, but they can get the stages and the flakes and that seems to be the thing that interests 'em most, and the thing they're most anxious to show their friends back in Nova Scotia or New York, or wherever they come from. Well, that's alright, only for one thing and that's the thing I want to mention.

You take the case of what happend here one day last August. I help this lady-from New York she said she was-I helped her climb this hummock and she took her snapshots and she was very pleased about it and thanks me very much for helping her. Then I asked her if she wasn't goin' to take any more snap., of the school, or the church, or the Lodge or the children. She said no, because she said these things were much the same in Pigeon Inlet as they were anywhere else. But the stages and flakes, they was different, that's what Mainland people would be interested in. The things that were different-quaint and pictureque, she called them.

"Besides," she said, "we like to see where codfish come from. We eat codfish sometimes."

Well, by this time I figgered I ought to say something.

"Ma'am," said I, "You've got nothin' against us people, have you?"

"Why, no." said she. "I like you people very much."

"And," said I, "you wouldn't like to do anything to hurt us, would you?"

"No," said she, " Of course not. Why?" said she, "will these photographs hurt you? Because" said she, "if I thought they could-"

"No, Ma'am," said I, "These snapshots wont hurt us. It's true these flakes and stages don't look very pretty in snaps and newspaper pictures. They're what you just said, 'quaint and picturesque.' But there it is, ma'am," said I, "they only tell half the story. They only show half the picture and if you're going to show these pictures to people on the mainland, you ought to tell 'em the rest of the story. "

I could see she was interested, so I went on. "Tell em two things," said I. "In the first place, tell 'em that, apart from these quaint and pictureque things, the rest of Pigeon Inlet is much about the same as any small place answhere on the Mainland. The children are just as pretty and well behaved, the houses just as clean and tidy and we grown up folks - well, a bit ornery-lookin, but much about the same as people everywhere else.

|I'll certainly tell them that, " said she. "What else?"

"Tell 'em this," said I. "Tell em that those flakes and stages got nothin' to do with any codfish they ever ate or are even likely to eat."

"But," said she, "you use the flakes for dryin' fish, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," said I. "We use em for curin' fish for poor people- people in Europe and the West Indies. If we used anything more expensive, we might make the fish so dear that they wouldn't be able to buy it. As it is, they can buy it but they don't
pay much for it. That's why we're not very rich ourselves. But it's the best we can do for ourselves and for them. "

"But," said she, "where does the fish come from we get?"

"Ah, ma'am." said I. "That's a different story. Next time," said I, "You're in places like St. John's or Burin or Bonavista or Harbour Grace - places like that, you just ask someone to take you to the fish plant and you'll see where your fish comes from. You'll see fine buildings, best kind of machinery, people workin' in spotless white uniforms. Take some snapshots of them, and tell your friends that that's where their fish comes from. I only wish, " said I. " that by showin' them pictures of our fish plants you could persuade your friends to eat a lot more of our fish. "

"Why?" said she.

"Because then," Said I, "we'd have more and more fish plants and less and less fish flakes. 'Tis nice bein' quaint and picturesque," said I, "The trouble is, there's not much money it. "

That woman wrote me a nice letter afterwards and told me about the lovely snaps she had got of a big fish plant on the southside of St. Johns. She said 'twas as good as anything she'd ever seen in the States, and that she's never have known anything about it if I hadn't put her on to it. She said the only thing she was sorry for was that she didn't have a snapshot of me to show her friends as a typical Newfoundland fishermen.

Well, what do you think of that?

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