Coopers worked at that. They each had two or three big knives. They rolled fat off skin. A man came with a barrow to take the fat and render it to oil. William had skinned seals before to make extra money. There was no extra money now.

They put seal oil in barrels. He would not want to see that. Good tight barrels. The kind he knew how to make better than anyone. The kind that gave him a living wage.

A seal skinner got paid by the skin. William could skin 300 seals in nine hours. That gave him half a cooper's wage if he could get the work. But the skinners' union was not broken like the coopers' union. Half of them were butchers from Adelaide Street. You had a hard time taking work from them.

He looked up the South Side Hill. His house looked secure. He knew it was not. Above it were berry grounds and ponds. Far up was the secret place, where tall stones stood. A place where he went to be alone, to figure things out. Not many knew that place. Even South Siders did not know it. Only those who spent a lot of time out of houses. Like young Roddy Dawe, who had no house.

One morning he had seen Roddy Dawe's feet sticking out from under an old boat on the South Side. The feet had slippers on them. Orange and brown hounds-tooth slippers with a frayed hole in one toe. Roddy Dawe had no mother, and his father was always in a shebeen up on Rocky Road.

William nudged Roddy's foot to make sure he had not frozen to death. He was asleep. He woke up and talked to William. William never forgot what he said.