by Hayward J. Prince<br /> I sat beside the kitchen window peering out at the pathway leading to our red front gate. I was anxiously waiting to catch a glimpse of Mr. Adams striding up the hill towards our house, but as time went by it was becoming increasingly difficult to see out the window. Drifting snow was piling higher and higher beside the house and on the sill, blocking my view. Eventually even that last glimmer of light winked out and all was darkness. Now the only way I would know he had arrived would be the sound of his knock on the porch door.<br /> It was herring season, and Dad had just returned from hauling his nets from beneath the thick ice covering the bay, only a stone&acirc;��s throw from our house over the brow of the forested hill. That morning, Dad had taken the horse and sleigh out on the ice to bring home his catch, frozen and stacked in old wooden lobster boxes. Now we were waiting for the buyer, Mr. Adams, to arrive to pick up the boxes of those shiny fresh fish that had been swimming around just a few hours earlier. He would truck them home and his smokehouse would magically transform them into delicious kippers. I liked Mr. Adams. He was a kindly, jolly man, and his visits were high points in my young life. <br /> I was ready to give in to disappointment, thinking "It must be too stormy for him to travel all the way from Milton, Trinity Bay,"when that soft knock I had been waiting for sounded on the porch door. I ran to greet him; I should have known that, no matter what the weather conditions, Mr. Adams always came for Dad's freshly-caught herring. He was of the opinion that Dad's herring was the best in the bay. Of course, he might have arrived at that opinion from a certain young boy who was extremely proud of his Dad. He stamped the snow off his big boots, shrugged out of his snowy coat and handed it to Mom, who shook it and then hung it near the woodstove to steam dry. <br /> It was close to lunch time and of course Mr. Adams was invited to stay. Mom had already quite a stack of herring fillets fried and sitting on the warmer above the hot wood stove. Soon lunch was on the table. I was anxious to get my fork into one of those brown, crispy fillets, the perfect complement to Mom's freshly-baked bread. Purity Jam Jam cookies lay temptingly just out of reach across the table, and a hot cup of Red Rose tea would wash it all down . Of course, I knew Mr. Adams, being our guest, had to be served first, but patience doesn't come easily to an eleven-year-old.<br /> The atmosphere in the kitchen that snowy day is with me still, with the window covered in snow, the heat radiating from the wood stove, the aroma from Mom's cooking, and friendly conversation as we all sat around the table. This was my whole world for the moment, and it was a pretty cosy and secure place to be.<br /> Although Dad and Mr. Adams were conducting business, you would never have known it from their conversation. They treated each other with respect, more like old buddies who were happy to have the opportunity to get together. Too soon, Mr. Adams had to leave; he wanted to load the herring and get back home before dark because of the drifting snow.<br /> When the herring season came to an end, it made me sad to see his old bottle-green GMC truck rattling away around the harbour on its last trip of the year, but I was comforted with the thought that next season he would return; he always did, as long as I could remember.<br /> Some years after I left home, Dad built his own small smokehouse for the family, but became known for the quality of his product and eventually established a clientele of his own along the Bay.   Submitted By: Hayward Prince