The old man was baffled, but he went up the hill once more, expecting to hear his wife’s unhappy voice screeching at him. Instead, he went up the hill and found her tending her garden, hanging up the wash on the line outside their old, familiar, rough old shack. When she heard him coming, his wife turned and smiled at him happily.

“Did you catch anything today?” she asked him cheerfully.

“Um, no…” he said carefully, wondering what had happened.

“No? Oh, well, I guess we will have vegetable broth for dinner then,” she said, and gave him a kiss. And they had their broth and went to bed, and lived humbly by the Sea for the rest of their days. Sometimes the old man would look at the leaky roof on the shack and shake his head and sigh, but he just kept patching the leaks as they came up.