Of all the children I went to school with in Camden, four of them stood out to me, especially. Among the rest of us little tear-ups they seemed to have a special grace and dignity that seemed almost out of place, perhaps because it was so in place. We all went our separate ways, of course, and I don't think I even saw three of them again. But one day the schooner I was working on put into the little island of Matinicus;· and, while going up to the village for something, I recognized one of them, whose name was Judy, and for some reason she recognized me. She was lovely, a thin little thing, almost delicate, with a brand new baby on her hip; she had married one of the young fishermen on the island. We talked for close to an hour, and I left the island very happy for her; that she had found a place she loved and that she was happy. It seemed to make one corner of the world very right. A few years later, on the mainland, I heard that she had died of cancer. It wasn't neglect or anything, just incurable, and for years I could never bear to see the face of that island darken the horizon. But then in 1980 or so, I fell into a conversation with a slightly drunk fisherman in a local inn. He was fishing out of New Bedford, and we were talking about that. At one point he mentioned that he was originally from Matinicus, and I thought to ask him if he had known Judy; he sobered up like I had hit him in the face. He said: "When that girl died, every soul on the island mourned her, and they never did that for anyone." And then he said: "Look: if you loved her like we did,there's something you ought to know. You know she had two daughters?" I said I knew she had one. He said: "Well, she had two, and one of them is exactly like her. She's got that same kind of awkward grace that reminds you of a deer. And she's got that same way of smiling that can light up the whole field she's standing in. And, for us, it's almost like Judy never went away." For years, I had been playing with a tune, a sort of vague lament for Judy that had never wanted to come together. I went home, then, and dug it out and took it apart, and from every sad part I built a happy part, and put it back together. And it is true that from the same ingredients that give us grief we are given our happiness. (GB)