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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2186-h.zip b/2186-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..facfd5e --- /dev/null +++ b/2186-h.zip diff --git a/2186-h/2186-h.htm b/2186-h/2186-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a5b32b --- /dev/null +++ b/2186-h/2186-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9391 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of "Captains Courageous", by Rudyard Kipling +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Captains Courageous", by Rudyard Kipling + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3"> +<tr> +<td> +THERE IS AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK <big><b><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2225/2225-h/2225-h.htm"> +[ #2225 ]</a></b></big> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: "Captains Courageous" + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Posting Date: October 30, 2009 [EBook #2186] +Release Date: May, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" *** + + + + +Produced by David Reed and Bill Stoddard. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Rudyard Kipling +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> + TO<BR> + JAMES CONLAND, M.D.,<BR> + Brattleboro, Vermont<BR> +<BR><BR> + I ploughed the land with horses,<BR> + But my heart was ill at ease,<BR> + For the old sea-faring men<BR> + Came to me now and then,<BR> + With their sagas of the seas.<BR> +<BR> + Longfellow.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="20%"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P> +The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the North +Atlantic fog, as the big liner rolled and lifted, whistling to warn the +fishing-fleet. +</P> + +<P> +"That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard," said a man in a frieze +overcoat, shutting the door with a bang. "He isn't wanted here. He's +too fresh." +</P> + +<P> +A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and grunted between +bites: "I know der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you you +should imbort ropes' ends free under your dariff." +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied than +anything," a man from New York drawled, as he lay at full length along +the cushions under the wet skylight. "They've dragged him around from +hotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was talking to his mother +this morning. She's a lovely lady, but she don't pretend to manage him. +He's going to Europe to finish his education." +</P> + +<P> +"Education isn't begun yet." This was a Philadelphian, curled up in a +corner. "That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money, he told me. He +isn't sixteen either." +</P> + +<P> +"Railroads, his father, aind't it?" said the German. +</P> + +<P> +"Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at San +Diego, the old man has; another at Los Angeles; owns half a dozen +railroads, half the lumber on the Pacific slope, and lets his wife +spend the money," the Philadelphian went on lazily. "The West don't +suit her, she says. She just tracks around with the boy and her nerves, +trying to find out what'll amuse him, I guess. Florida, Adirondacks, +Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York, and round again. He isn't much more +than a second-hand hotel clerk now. When he's finished in Europe he'll +be a holy terror." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter with the old man attending to him personally?" said +a voice from the frieze ulster. +</P> + +<P> +"Old man's piling up the rocks. 'Don't want to be disturbed, I guess. +He'll find out his error a few years from now. 'Pity, because there's a +heap of good in the boy if you could get at it." +</P> + +<P> +"Mit a rope's end; mit a rope's end!" growled the German. +</P> + +<P> +Once more the door banged, and a slight, slim-built boy perhaps fifteen +years old, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner of his +mouth, leaned in over the high footway. His pasty yellow complexion did +not show well on a person of his years, and his look was a mixture of +irresolution, bravado, and very cheap smartness. He was dressed in a +cherry-coloured blazer, knickerbockers, red stockings, and bicycle +shoes, with a red flannel cap at the back of the head. After whistling +between his teeth, as he eyed the company, he said in a loud, high +voice: "Say, it's thick outside. You can hear the fish-boats squawking +all around us. Say, wouldn't it be great if we ran down one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Shut the door, Harvey," said the New Yorker. "Shut the door and stay +outside. You're not wanted here." +</P> + +<P> +"Who'll stop me?" he answered, deliberately. "Did you pay for my +passage, Mister Martin? 'Guess I've as good right here as the next man." +</P> + +<P> +He picked up some dice from a checkerboard and began throwing, right +hand against left. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, gen'elmen, this is deader'n mud. Can't we make a game of poker +between us?" +</P> + +<P> +There was no answer, and he puffed his cigarette, swung his legs, and +drummed on the table with rather dirty fingers. Then he pulled out a +roll of bills as if to count them. +</P> + +<P> +"How's your mamma this afternoon?" a man said. "I didn't see her at +lunch." +</P> + +<P> +"In her state-room, I guess. She's 'most always sick on the ocean. I'm +going to give the stewardess fifteen dollars for looking after her. I +don't go down more 'n I can avoid. It makes me feel mysterious to pass +that butler's-pantry place. Say, this is the first time I've been on +the ocean." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't apologize, Harvey." +</P> + +<P> +"Who's apologizing? This is the first time I've crossed the ocean, +gen'elmen, and, except the first day, I haven't been sick one little +bit. No, sir!" He brought down his fist with a triumphant bang, wetted +his finger, and went on counting the bills. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you're a high-grade machine, with the writing in plain sight," the +Philadelphian yawned. "You'll blossom into a credit to your country if +you don't take care." +</P> + +<P> +"I know it. I'm an American—first, last, and all the time. I'll show +'em that when I strike Europe. Piff! My cig's out. I can't smoke the +truck the steward sells. Any gen'elman got a real Turkish cig on him?" +</P> + +<P> +The chief engineer entered for a moment, red, smiling, and wet. "Say, +Mac," cried Harvey cheerfully, "how are we hitting it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Vara much in the ordinary way," was the grave reply. "The young are as +polite as ever to their elders, an' their elders are e'en tryin' to +appreciate it." +</P> + +<P> +A low chuckle came from a corner. The German opened his cigar-case and +handed a skinny black cigar to Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"Dot is der broper apparatus to smoke, my young friendt," he said. "You +vill dry it? Yes? Den you vill be efer so happy." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey lit the unlovely thing with a flourish: he felt that he was +getting on in grownup society. +</P> + +<P> +"It would take more 'n this to keel me over," he said, ignorant that he +was lighting that terrible article, a Wheeling "stogie". +</P> + +<P> +"Dot we shall bresently see," said the German. "Where are we now, Mr. +Mactonal'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just there or thereabouts, Mr. Schaefer," said the engineer. "We'll be +on the Grand Bank to-night; but in a general way o' speakin', we're all +among the fishing-fleet now. We've shaved three dories an' near scalped +the boom off a Frenchman since noon, an' that's close sailing', ye may +say." +</P> + +<P> +"You like my cigar, eh?" the German asked, for Harvey's eyes were full +of tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Fine, full flavor," he answered through shut teeth. "Guess we've +slowed down a little, haven't we? I'll skip out and see what the log +says." +</P> + +<P> +"I might if I vhas you," said the German. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail. He was very +unhappy; but he saw the deck-steward lashing chairs together, and, +since he had boasted before the man that he was never seasick, his +pride made him go aft to the second-saloon deck at the stern, which was +finished in a turtle-back. The deck was deserted, and he crawled to the +extreme end of it, near the flag-pole. There he doubled up in limp +agony, for the Wheeling "stogie" joined with the surge and jar of the +screw to sieve out his soul. His head swelled; sparks of fire danced +before his eyes; his body seemed to lose weight, while his heels +wavered in the breeze. He was fainting from seasickness, and a roll of +the ship tilted him over the rail on to the smooth lip of the +turtle-back. Then a low, gray mother-wave swung out of the fog, tucked +Harvey under one arm, so to speak, and pulled him off and away to +leeward; the great green closed over him, and he went quietly to sleep. +</P> + +<P> +He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used to blow +at a summer-school he had once attended in the Adirondacks. Slowly he +remembered that he was Harvey Cheyne, drowned and dead in mid-ocean, +but was too weak to fit things together. A new smell filled his +nostrils; wet and clammy chills ran down his back, and he was +helplessly full of salt water. When he opened his eyes, he perceived +that he was still on the top of the sea, for it was running round him +in silver-coloured hills, and he was lying on a pile of half-dead fish, +looking at a broad human back clothed in a blue jersey. +</P> + +<P> +"It's no good," thought the boy. "I'm dead, sure enough, and this thing +is in charge." +</P> + +<P> +He groaned, and the figure turned its head, showing a pair of little +gold rings half hidden in curly black hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Aha! You feel some pretty well now?" it said. "Lie still so: we trim +better." +</P> + +<P> +With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a foamless +sea that lifted her twenty full feet, only to slide her into a glassy +pit beyond. But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt blue-jersey's +talk. "Fine good job, I say, that I catch you. Eh, wha-at? Better good +job, I say, your boat not catch me. How you come to fall out?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was sick," said Harvey; "sick, and couldn't help it." +</P> + +<P> +"Just in time I blow my horn, and your boat she yaw a little. Then I +see you come all down. Eh, wha-at? I think you are cut into baits by +the screw, but you dreeft—dreeft to me, and I make a big fish of you. +So you shall not die this time." +</P> + +<P> +"Where am I?" said Harvey, who could not see that life was particularly +safe where he lay. +</P> + +<P> +"You are with me in the dory—Manuel my name, and I come from schooner +<I>We're Here</I> of Gloucester. I live to Gloucester. By-and-by we get +supper. Eh, wha-at?" +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, not +content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand up +to it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, and send a +grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long this +entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay back +terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he heard a gun +and a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the dory, but quite as +lively, loomed alongside. Several voices talked at once; he was dropped +into a dark, heaving hole, where men in oilskins gave him a hot drink +and took off his clothes, and he fell asleep. +</P> + +<P> +When he waked he listened for the first breakfast-bell on the steamer, +wondering why his state-room had grown so small. Turning, he looked +into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung against a huge +square beam. A three-cornered table within arm's reach ran from the +angle of the bows to the foremast. At the after end, behind a well-used +Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a flat red face and a +pair of twinkling gray eyes. He was dressed in a blue jersey and high +rubber boots. Several pairs of the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, +and some worn-out woollen socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow +oilskins swayed to and fro beside the bunks. The place was packed as +full of smells as a bale is of cotton. The oilskins had a peculiarly +thick flavor of their own which made a sort of background to the smells +of fried fish, burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; but +these, again, were all hooped together by one encircling smell of ship +and salt water. Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets on +his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps +and nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not that of a steamer. +She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather wriggling herself about +in a silly, aimless way, like a colt at the end of a halter. +Water-noises ran by close to his ear, and beams creaked and whined +about him. All these things made him grunt despairingly and think of +his mother. +</P> + +<P> +"Feelin' better?" said the boy, with a grin. "Hev some coffee?" He +brought a tin cup full and sweetened it with molasses. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't there milk?" said Harvey, looking round the dark double tier of +bunks as if he expected to find a cow there. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, no," said the boy. "Ner there ain't likely to be till 'baout +mid-September. 'Tain't bad coffee. I made it." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of pieces +of crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously. +</P> + +<P> +"I've dried your clothes. Guess they've shrunk some," said the boy. +"They ain't our style much—none of 'em. Twist round an' see if you're +hurt any." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report any +injuries. +</P> + +<P> +"That's good," the boy said heartily. "Fix yerself an' go on deck. Dad +wants to see you. I'm his son,—Dan, they call me,—an' I'm cook's +helper an' everything else aboard that's too dirty for the men. There +ain't no boy here 'cep' me sence Otto went overboard—an' he was only a +Dutchy, an' twenty year old at that. How'd you come to fall off in a +dead flat ca'am?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Twasn't a calm," said Harvey, sulkily. "It was a gale, and I was +seasick. Guess I must have rolled over the rail." +</P> + +<P> +"There was a little common swell yes'day an' last night," said the boy. +"But ef thet's your notion of a gale——" He whistled. "You'll know +more 'fore you're through. Hurry! Dad's waitin'." +</P> + +<P> +Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his +life received a direct order—never, at least, without long, and +sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the +reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his +spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on the +edge of nervous prostration. He could not see why he should be expected +to hurry for any man's pleasure, and said so. "Your dad can come down +here if he's so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to New +York right away. It'll pay him." +</P> + +<P> +Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on him. +"Say, Dad!" he shouted up the foc'sle hatch, "he says you kin slip down +an' see him ef you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?" +</P> + +<P> +The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard from a +human chest: "Quit foolin', Dan, and send him to me." +</P> + +<P> +Dan sniggered, and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes. There was +something in the tones on the deck that made the boy dissemble his +extreme rage and console himself with the thought of gradually +unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth on the voyage +home. This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his friends for +life. He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular ladder, and +stumbled aft, over a score of obstructions, to where a small, +thick-set, clean-shaven man with gray eyebrows sat on a step that led +up to the quarter-deck. The swell had passed in the night, leaving a +long, oily sea, dotted round the horizon with the sails of a dozen +fishing-boats. Between them lay little black specks, showing where the +dories were out fishing. The schooner, with a triangular riding-sail on +the mainmast, played easily at anchor, and except for the man by the +cabin-roof—"house" they call it—she was deserted. +</P> + +<P> +"Mornin'—Good afternoon, I should say. You've nigh slep' the clock +round, young feller," was the greeting. +</P> + +<P> +"Mornin'," said Harvey. He did not like being called "young feller"; +and, as one rescued from drowning, expected sympathy. His mother +suffered agonies whenever he got his feet wet; but this mariner did not +seem excited. +</P> + +<P> +"Naow let's hear all abaout it. It's quite providential, first an' +last, fer all concerned. What might be your name? Where from (we +mistrust it's Noo York), an' where baound (we mistrust it's Europe)?" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey gave his name, the name of the steamer, and a short history of +the accident, winding up with a demand to be taken back immediately to +New York, where his father would pay anything any one chose to name. +</P> + +<P> +"H'm," said the shaven man, quite unmoved by the end of Harvey's +speech. "I can't say we think special of any man, or boy even, that +falls overboard from that kind o' packet in a flat ca'am. Least of all +when his excuse is that he's seasick." +</P> + +<P> +"Excuse!" cried Harvey. "D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into your +dirty little boat for fun?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not knowin' what your notions o' fun may be, I can't rightly say, +young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn't call the boat which, under +Providence, was the means o' savin' ye, names. In the first place, it's +blame irreligious. In the second, it's annoyin' to my feelin's—an' I'm +Disko Troop o' the <I>We're Here</I> o' Gloucester, which you don't seem +rightly to know." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know and I don't care," said Harvey. "I'm grateful enough for +being saved and all that, of course! but I want you to understand that +the sooner you take me back to New York the better it'll pay you." +</P> + +<P> +"Meanin'—haow?" Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a suspiciously +mild blue eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Dollars and cents," said Harvey, delighted to think that he was making +an impression. "Cold dollars and cents." He thrust a hand into a +pocket, and threw out his stomach a little, which was his way of being +grand. "You've done the best day's work you ever did in your life when +you pulled me in. I'm all the son Harvey Cheyne has." +</P> + +<P> +"He's bin favoured," said Disko, dryly. +</P> + +<P> +"And if you don't know who Harvey Cheyne is, you don't know +much—that's all. Now turn her around and let's hurry." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled with +people discussing and envying his father's dollars. +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't. Take a reef in your stummick, young +feller. It's full o' my vittles." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy by the +stump-foremast, and blood rushed to his face. "We'll pay for that too," +he said. "When do you suppose we shall get to New York?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't use Noo York any. Ner Boston. We may see Eastern Point about +September; an' your pa—I'm real sorry I hain't heerd tell of him—may +give me ten dollars efter all your talk. Then o' course he mayn't." +</P> + +<P> +"Ten dollars! Why, see here, I—" Harvey dived into his pocket for the +wad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes. +</P> + +<P> +"Not lawful currency; an' bad for the lungs. Heave 'em overboard, young +feller, and try agin." +</P> + +<P> +"It's been stolen!" cried Harvey, hotly. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll hev to wait till you see your pa to reward me, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"A hundred and thirty-four dollars—all stolen," said Harvey, hunting +wildly through his pockets. "Give them back." +</P> + +<P> +A curious change flitted across old Troop's hard face. "What might you +have been doin' at your time o' life with one hundred an' thirty-four +dollars, young feller?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was part of my pocket-money—for a month." This Harvey thought +would be a knock-down blow, and it was—indirectly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his +pocket-money—for one month only! You don't remember hittin' anything +when you fell over, do you? Crack agin a stanchion, le's say. Old man +Hasken o' the East Wind"—Troop seemed to be talking to himself—"he +tripped on a hatch an' butted the mainmast with his head—hardish. +'Baout three weeks afterwards, old man Hasken he would hev it that the +"East Wind" was a commerce-destroyin' man-o'-war, an' so he declared +war on Sable Island because it was Bridish, an' the shoals run aout too +far. They sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head an' feet appearin', fer +the rest o' the trip, an' now he's to home in Essex playin' with little +rag dolls." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey choked with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: "We're sorry +fer you. We're very sorry fer you—an' so young. We won't say no more +abaout the money, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +"'Course you won't. You stole it." +</P> + +<P> +"Suit yourself. We stole it ef it's any comfort to you. Naow, abaout +goin' back. Allowin' we could do it, which we can't, you ain't in no +fit state to go back to your home, an' we've jest come on to the Banks, +workin' fer our bread. We don't see the ha'af of a hundred dollars a +month, let alone pocket-money; an' with good luck we'll be ashore again +somewheres abaout the first weeks o' September." +</P> + +<P> +"But—but it's May now, and I can't stay here doin' nothing just +because you want to fish. I can't, I tell you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Right an' jest; jest an' right. No one asks you to do nothin'. There's +a heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I mistrust +he lost his grip in a gale we f'und there. Anyways, he never come back +to deny it. You've turned up, plain, plumb providential for all +concerned. I mistrust, though, there's ruther few things you kin do. +Ain't thet so?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore," said +Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about "piracy," at +which Troop almost—not quite—smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Excep' talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more'n you've a +mind to aboard the <I>We're Here</I>. Keep your eyes open, an' help Dan to +do ez he's bid, an' sechlike, an' I'll give you—you ain't wuth it, but +I'll give—ten an' a ha'af a month; say thirty-five at the end o' the +trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us all +abaout your dad an' your ma an' your money afterwards." +</P> + +<P> +"She's on the steamer," said Harvey, his eyes filling with tears. "Take +me to New York at once." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor woman—poor woman! When she has you back she'll forgit it all, +though. There's eight of us on the <I>We're Here</I>, an' ef we went back +naow—it's more'n a thousand mile—we'd lose the season. The men they +wouldn't hev it, allowin' I was agreeable." +</P> + +<P> +"But my father would make it all right." +</P> + +<P> +"He'd try. I don't doubt he'd try," said Troop; "but a whole season's +catch is eight men's bread; an' you'll be better in your health when +you see him in the fall. Go forward an' help Dan. It's ten an' a ha'af +a month, e I said, an' o' course, all f'und, same e the rest o' us." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean I'm to clean pots and pans and things?" said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"An' other things. You've no call to shout, young feller." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little +fish-kettle"—Harvey stamped on the deck—"ten times over, if you take +me to New York safe; and—and—you're in a hundred and thirty by me, +anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +"Haow?" said Troop, the iron face darkening. +</P> + +<P> +"How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want me to do +menial work"—Harvey was very proud of that adjective—"till the Fall. +I tell you I will not. You hear?" +</P> + +<P> +Troop regarded the top of the mainmast with deep interest for a while, +as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him. +</P> + +<P> +"Hsh!" he said at last. "I'm figurin' out my responsibilities in my own +mind. It's a matter o' jedgment." +</P> + +<P> +Dan stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. "Don't go to tamperin' +with Dad any more," he pleaded. "You've called him a thief two or three +times over, an' he don't take that from any livin' bein'." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't!" Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and still +Troop meditated. +</P> + +<P> +"Seems kinder unneighbourly," he said at last, his eye travelling down +to Harvey. "I—don't blame you, not a mite, young feeler, nor you won't +blame me when the bile's out o' your systim. Be sure you sense what I +say? Ten an' a ha'af fer second boy on the schooner—an' all found—fer +to teach you an' fer the sake o' your health. Yes or no?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" said Harvey. "Take me back to New York or I'll see you—" +</P> + +<P> +He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in the +scuppers, holding on to a nose that bled while Troop looked down on him +serenely. +</P> + +<P> +"Dan," he said to his son, "I was sot agin this young feeler when I +first saw him on account o' hasty jedgments. Never you be led astray by +hasty jedgments, Dan. Naow I'm sorry for him, because he's clear +distracted in his upper works. He ain't responsible fer the names he's +give me, nor fer his other statements—nor fer jumpin' overboard, which +I'm abaout ha'af convinced he did. You be gentle with him, Dan, 'r I'll +give you twice what I've give him. Them hemmeridges clears the head. +Let him sluice it off!" +</P> + +<P> +Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older men +bunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless heir to thirty millions. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P> +"I warned ye," said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark, +oiled planking. "Dad ain't noways hasty, but you fair earned it. Pshaw! +there's no sense takin' on so." Harvey's shoulders were rising and +falling in spasms of dry sobbing. "I know the feelin'. First time Dad +laid me out was the last—and that was my first trip. Makes ye feel +sickish an' lonesome. I know." +</P> + +<P> +"It does," moaned Harvey. "That man's either crazy or drunk, and—and I +can't do anything." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't say that to Dad," whispered Dan. "He's set agin all liquor, +an'—well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made you +call him a thief? He's my dad." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing wad +of bills. "I'm not crazy," he wound up. "Only—your father has never +seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy up +this boat once a week and never miss it." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't know what the <I>We're Here's</I> worth. Your dad must hev a pile +o' money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out a straight +yarn. Go ahead." +</P> + +<P> +"In gold mines and things, West." +</P> + +<P> +"I've read o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go around +with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call that the +Wild West, and I've heard that their spurs an' bridles was solid +silver." +</P> + +<P> +"You are a chump!" said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. "My father +hasn't any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his car." +</P> + +<P> +"Haow? Lobster-car?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. His own private car, of course. You've seen a private car some +time in your life?" +</P> + +<P> +"Slatin Beeman he hez one," said Dan, cautiously. "I saw her at the +Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin' her run." (Dan meant +cleaning the windows.) "But Slatin Beeman he owns 'baout every railroad +on Long Island, they say, an' they say he's bought 'baout ha'af Noo +Hampshire an' run a line fence around her, an' filled her up with lions +an' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an' crocodiles an' such all. Slatin +Beeman he's a millionaire. I've seen his car. Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has two +private cars. One's named for me, the 'Harvey', and one for my mother, +the 'Constance'." +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on," said Dan. "Dad don't ever let me swear, but I guess you can. +'Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if you're lyin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"The ain't 'niff. Say, 'Hope I may die if I ain't speaking' truth.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Hope I may die right here," said Harvey, "if every word I've spoken +isn't the cold truth." +</P> + +<P> +"Hundred an' thirty-four dollars an' all?" said Dan. "I heard ye +talkin' to Dad, an' I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up, same's Jonah." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young person +along his own lines, and ten minutes' questioning convinced him that +Harvey was not lying—much. Besides, he had bound himself by the most +terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he sat, alive, with a red-ended +nose, in the scuppers, recounting marvels upon marvels. +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh!" said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when Harvey +had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour. Then a grin +of mischievous delight overspread his broad face. "I believe you, +Harvey. Dad's made a mistake fer once in his life." +</P> + +<P> +"He has, sure," said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll be mad clear through. Dad jest hates to be mistook in his +jedgments." Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Harvey, don't you +spile the catch by lettin' on." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to be knocked down again. I'll get even with him, though." +</P> + +<P> +"Never heard any man ever got even with dad. But he'd knock ye down +again sure. The more he was mistook the more he'd do it. But gold-mines +and pistols—" +</P> + +<P> +"I never said a word about pistols," Harvey cut in, for he was on his +oath. +</P> + +<P> +"Thet's so; no more you did. Two private cars, then, one named fer you +an' one fer her; an' two hundred dollars a month pocket-money, all +knocked into the scuppers fer not workin' fer ten an' a ha'af a month! +It's the top haul o' the season." He exploded with noiseless chuckles. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I was right?" said Harvey, who thought he had found a sympathiser. +</P> + +<P> +"You was wrong; the wrongest kind o' wrong! You take right hold an' +pitch in 'longside o' me, or you'll catch it, an' I'll catch it fer +backin' you up. Dad always gives me double helps 'cause I'm his son, +an' he hates favourin' folk. 'Guess you're kinder mad at dad. I've been +that way time an' again. But dad's a mighty jest man; all the fleet +says so." +</P> + +<P> +"Looks like justice, this, don't it?" Harvey pointed to his outraged +nose. +</P> + +<P> +"Thet's nothin'. Lets the shore blood outer you. Dad did it for yer +health. Say, though, I can't have dealin's with a man that thinks me or +dad or any one on the <I>We're Here's</I> a thief. We ain't any common +wharf-end crowd by any manner o' means. We're fishermen, an' we've +shipped together for six years an' more. Don't you make any mistake on +that! I told ye dad don't let me swear. He calls 'em vain oaths, and +pounds me; but ef I could say what you said 'baout your pap an' his +fixin's, I'd say that 'baout your dollars. I dunno what was in your +pockets when I dried your kit, fer I didn't look to see; but I'd say, +using the very same words ez you used jest now, neither me nor dad—an' +we was the only two that teched you after you was brought aboard—knows +anythin' 'baout the money. Thet's my say. Naow?" +</P> + +<P> +The bloodletting had certainly cleared Harvey's brain, and maybe the +loneliness of the sea had something to do with it. "That's all right," +he said. Then he looked down confusedly. "'Seems to me that for a +fellow just saved from drowning I haven't been over and above grateful, +Dan." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you was shook up and silly," said Dan. "Anyway, there was only +dad an' me aboard to see it. The cook he don't count." +</P> + +<P> +"I might have thought about losing the bills that way," Harvey said, +half to himself, "instead of calling everybody in sight a thief. +Where's your father?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the cabin. What d' you want o' him again?" +</P> + +<P> +"You'll see," said Harvey, and he stepped, rather groggily, for his +head was still singing, to the cabin steps where the little ship's +clock hung in plain sight of the wheel. Troop, in the +chocolate-and-yellow painted cabin, was busy with a note-book and an +enormous black pencil which he sucked hard from time to time. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't acted quite right," said Harvey, surprised at his own +meekness. +</P> + +<P> +"What's wrong naow?" said the skipper. "Walked into Dan, hev ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; it's about you." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm here to listen." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I—I'm here to take things back," said Harvey very quickly. +"When a man's saved from drowning—" he gulped. +</P> + +<P> +"Ey? You'll make a man yet ef you go on this way." +</P> + +<P> +"He oughtn't begin by calling people names." +</P> + +<P> +"Jest an' right—right an' jest," said Troop, with the ghost of a dry +smile. +</P> + +<P> +"So I'm here to say I'm sorry." Another big gulp. +</P> + +<P> +Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and held +out an eleven-inch hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' good; +an' this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments." A smothered chuckle +on deck caught his ear. "I am very seldom mistook in my jedgments." The +eleven-inch hand closed on Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "We'll +put a little more gristle to that 'fore we've done with you, young +feller; an' I don't think any worse of ye fer anythin' the's gone by. +You wasn't fairly responsible. Go right abaout your business an' you +won't take no hurt." +</P> + +<P> +"You're white," said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to the +tips of his ears. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't feel it," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows he +don't think the worse of any man, Dad's give himself away. He hates to +be mistook in his jedgments too. Ho! ho! Onct Dad has a jedgment, he'd +sooner dip his colours to the British than change it. I'm glad it's +settled right eend up. Dad's right when he says he can't take you back. +It's all the livin' we make here—fishin'. The men'll be back like +sharks after a dead whale in ha'af an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"Supper, o' course. Don't your stummick tell you? You've a heap to +learn." +</P> + +<P> +"Guess I have," said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropes +and blocks overhead. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a daisy," said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. +"Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her salt +wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into the +darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts. +</P> + +<P> +"What's that for? It's all empty," said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"You an' me an' a few more hev got to fill it," said Dan. "That's where +the fish goes." +</P> + +<P> +"Alive?" said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, no. They're so's to be ruther dead—an' flat—an' salt. There's +a hundred hogshead o' salt in the bins, an' we hain't more'n covered +our dunnage to now." +</P> + +<P> +"Where are the fish, though?" +</P> + +<P> +"'In the sea they say, in the boats we pray,'" said Dan, quoting a +fisherman's proverb. "You come in last night with 'baout forty of 'em." +</P> + +<P> +He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarter-deck. +</P> + +<P> +"You an' me we'll sluice that out when they're through. 'Send we'll hev +full pens to-night! I've seen her down ha'af a foot with fish waitin' +to clean, an' we stood to the tables till we was splittin' ourselves +instid o' them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they're comm' in naow." Dan +looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards them +over the shining, silky sea. +</P> + +<P> +"I've never seen the sea from so low down," said Harvey. "It's fine." +</P> + +<P> +The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden lights +on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green mackerel shades +in the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to be pulling her dories +towards her by invisible strings, and the little black figures in the +tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys. +</P> + +<P> +"They've struck on good," said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. "Manuel +hain't room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, Aeneid +he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Which is Manuel? I don't see how you can tell 'em 'way off, as you do." +</P> + +<P> +"Last boat to the south'ard. He fund you last night," said Dan, +pointing. "Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can't mistake him. East o' +him—he's a heap better'n he rows—is Pennsylvania. Loaded with +saleratus, by the looks of him. East o' him—see how pretty they string +out all along—with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He's a Galway +man inhabitin' South Boston, where they all live mostly, an' mostly +them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away yonder—you'll hear him +tune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man-o'-war's man he was on the old +Ohio first of our navy, he says, to go araound the Horn. He never talks +of much else, 'cept when he sings, but he has fair fishin' luck. There! +What did I tell you?" +</P> + +<P> +A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. +Harvey heard something about somebody's hands and feet being cold, and +then: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Bring forth the chart, the doleful chart,<BR> + See where them mountings meet!<BR> + The clouds are thick around their heads,<BR> + The mists around their feet."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Full boat," said Dan, with a chuckle. "If he give us 'O Captain' it's +topping' too!" +</P> + +<P> +The bellow continued: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "And naow to thee, O Capting,<BR> + Most earnestly I pray,<BR> + That they shall never bury me<BR> + In church or cloister gray."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Double game for Tom Platt. He'll tell you all about the old Ohio +tomorrow. 'See that blue dory behind him? He's my uncle,—Dad's own +brother,—an' ef there's any bad luck loose on the Banks she'll fetch +up agin Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he's rowin'. I'll lay my +wage and share he's the only man stung up to-day—an' he's stung up +good." +</P> + +<P> +"What'll sting him?" said Harvey, getting interested. +</P> + +<P> +"Strawberries, mostly. Pumpkins, sometimes, an' sometimes lemons an' +cucumbers. Yes, he's stung up from his elbows down. That man's luck's +perfectly paralyzin'. Naow we'll take a-holt o' the tackles an' hist +'em in. Is it true what you told me jest now, that you never done a +hand's turn o' work in all your born life? Must feel kinder awful, +don't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to try to work, anyway," Harvey replied stoutly. "Only it's +all dead new." +</P> + +<P> +"Lay a-holt o' that tackle, then. Behind ye!" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the +stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran from +something he called a "topping-lift," as Manuel drew alongside in his +loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey +learned to know well later, and with a short-handled fork began to +throw fish into the pen on deck. "Two hundred and thirty-one," he +shouted. +</P> + +<P> +"Give him the hook," said Dan, and Harvey ran it into Manuel's hands. +He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory's bow, caught Dan's +tackle, hooked it to the stern-becket, and clambered into the schooner. +</P> + +<P> +"Pull!" shouted Dan, and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how easily +the dory rose. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on, she don't nest in the crosstrees!" Dan laughed; and Harvey +held on, for the boat lay in the air above his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Lower away," Dan shouted, and as Harvey lowered, Dan swayed the light +boat with one hand till it landed softly just behind the mainmast. +"They don't weigh nothin' empty. Thet was right smart fer a passenger. +There's more trick to it in a sea-way." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah ha!" said Manuel, holding out a brown hand. "You are some pretty +well now? This time last night the fish they fish for you. Now you fish +for fish. Eh, wha-at?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm—I'm ever so grateful," Harvey stammered, and his unfortunate hand +stole to his pocket once more, but he remembered that he had no money +to offer. When he knew Manuel better the mere thought of the mistake he +might have made would cover him with hot, uneasy blushes in his bunk. +</P> + +<P> +"There is no to be thankful for to me!" said Manuel. "How shall I leave +you dreeft, dreeft all around the Banks? Now you are a fisherman eh, +wha-at? Ouh! Auh!" He bent backward and forward stiffly from the hips +to get the kinks out of himself. +</P> + +<P> +"I have not cleaned boat to-day. Too busy. They struck on queek. Danny, +my son, clean for me." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey moved forward at once. Here was something he could do for the +man who had saved his life. +</P> + +<P> +Dan threw him a swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the slime +clumsily, but with great good-will. "Hike out the foot-boards; they +slide in them grooves," said Dan. "Swab 'em an' lay 'em down. Never let +a foot-board jam. Ye may want her bad some day. Here's Long Jack." +</P> + +<P> +A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside. +</P> + +<P> +"Manuel, you take the tackle. I'll fix the tables. Harvey, clear +Manuel's boat. Long Jack's nestin' on the top of her." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory just +above his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Jest like the Injian puzzle-boxes, ain't they?" said Dan, as the one +boat dropped into the other. +</P> + +<P> +"Takes to ut like a duck to water," said Long Jack, a grizzly-chinned, +long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro exactly as Manuel had done. +Disko in the cabin growled up the hatchway, and they could hear him +suck his pencil. +</P> + +<P> +"Wan hunder an' forty-nine an' a half-bad luck to ye, Discobolus!" said +Long Jack. "I'm murderin' meself to fill your pockuts. Slate ut for a +bad catch. The Portugee has bate me." +</P> + +<P> +Whack came another dory alongside, and more fish shot into the pen. +</P> + +<P> +"Two hundred and three. Let's look at the passenger!" The speaker was +even larger than the Galway man, and his face was made curious by a +purple cut running slant-ways from his left eye to the right corner of +his mouth. +</P> + +<P> +Not knowing what else to do, Harvey swabbed each dory as it came down, +pulled out the foot-boards, and laid them in the bottom of the boat. +</P> + +<P> +"He's caught on good," said the scarred man, who was Tom Platt, +watching him critically. "There are two ways o' doin' everything. One's +fisher-fashion—any end first an' a slippery hitch over all—an' the +other's—" +</P> + +<P> +"What we did on the old Ohio!" Dan interrupted, brushing into the knot +of men with a long board on legs. "Get out o' here, Tom Platt, an' +leave me fix the tables." +</P> + +<P> +He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, kicked +out the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging blow from the +man-o'-war's man. +</P> + +<P> +"An' they did that on the Ohio, too, Danny. See?" said Tom Platt, +laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess they was swivel-eyed, then, fer it didn't git home, and I know +who'll find his boots on the main-truck ef he don't leave us alone. +Haul ahead! I'm busy, can't ye see?" +</P> + +<P> +"Danny, ye lie on the cable an' sleep all day," said Long Jack. "You're +the hoight av impidence, an' I'm persuaded ye'll corrupt our supercargo +in a week." +</P> + +<P> +"His name's Harvey," said Dan, waving two strangely shaped knives, "an' +he'll be worth five of any Sou' Boston clam-digger 'fore long." He laid +the knives tastefully on the table, cocked his head on one side, and +admired the effect. +</P> + +<P> +"I think it's forty-two," said a small voice overside, and there was a +roar of laughter as another voice answered, "Then my luck's turned fer +onct, 'caze I'm forty-five, though I be stung outer all shape." +</P> + +<P> +"Forty-two or forty-five. I've lost count," the small voice said. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Penn an' Uncle Salters caountin' catch. This beats the circus any +day," said Dan. "Jest look at 'em!" +</P> + +<P> +"Come in—come in!" roared Long Jack. "It's wet out yondher, children." +</P> + +<P> +"Forty-two, ye said." This was Uncle Salters. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll count again, then," the voice replied meekly. The two dories +swung together and bunted into the schooner's side. +</P> + +<P> +"Patience o' Jerusalem!" snapped Uncle Salters, backing water with a +splash. "What possest a farmer like you to set foot in a boat beats me. +You've nigh stove me all up." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry, Mr. Salters. I came to sea on account of nervous +dyspepsia. You advised me, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"You an' your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole," roared +Uncle Salters, a fat and tubby little man. "You're comin' down on me +agin. Did ye say forty-two or forty-five?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've forgotten, Mr. Salters. Let's count." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't see as it could be forty-five. I'm forty-five," said Uncle +Salters. "You count keerful, Penn." +</P> + +<P> +Disko Troop came out of the cabin. "Salters, you pitch your fish in +naow at once," he said in the tone of authority. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't spile the catch, Dad," Dan murmured. "Them two are on'y jest +beginnin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Mother av delight! He's forkin' them wan by wan," howled Long Jack, as +Uncle Salters got to work laboriously; the little man in the other dory +counting a line of notches on the gunwale. +</P> + +<P> +"That was last week's catch," he said, looking up plaintively, his +forefinger where he had left off. +</P> + +<P> +Manuel nudged Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and, leaning far +overside, slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made her fast +forward. The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat in—man, fish, +and all. +</P> + +<P> +"One, two, four-nine," said Tom Platt, counting with a practised eye. +"Forty-seven. Penn, you're it!" Dan let the after-tackle run, and slid +him out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own fish. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on!" roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist. "Hold on, I'm a +bit mixed in my caount." +</P> + +<P> +He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like +"Pennsylvania." +</P> + +<P> +"Forty-one," said Tom Platt. "Beat by a farmer, Salters. An' you sech a +sailor, too!" +</P> + +<P> +"'Tweren't fair caount," said he, stumbling out of the pen; "an' I'm +stung up all to pieces." +</P> + +<P> +His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white. +</P> + +<P> +"Some folks will find strawberry-bottom," said Dan, addressing the +newly risen moon, "ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me." +</P> + +<P> +"An' others," said Uncle Salters, "eats the fat o' the land in sloth, +an' mocks their own blood-kin." +</P> + +<P> +"Seat ye! Seat ye!" a voice Harvey had not heard called from the +foc'sle. Disko Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went forward on +the word. Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea reel and the +tangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down full length on the deck, and Dan +dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him banging casks with a +hammer. +</P> + +<P> +"Salt," he said, returning. "Soon as we're through supper we git to +dressing-down. You'll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt an' Dad they stow +together, an' you'll hear 'em arguin'. We're second ha'af, you an' me +an' Manuel an' Penn—the youth an' beauty o' the boat." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the good of that?" said Harvey. "I'm hungry." +</P> + +<P> +"They'll be through in a minute. Suff! She smells good to-night. Dad +ships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It's a full catch +today, Aeneid it?" He pointed at the pens piled high with cod. "What +water did ye hev, Manuel?" +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty-fife father," said the Portuguese, sleepily. "They strike on +good an' queek. Some day I show you, Harvey." +</P> + +<P> +The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder men +came aft. The cook had no need to cry "second half." Dan and Manuel +were down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt, last and most +deliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with the back +of his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down before a tin pan of +cod's tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and fried potato, a +loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful coffee. Hungry as they +were, they waited while "Pennsylvania" solemnly asked a blessing. Then +they stoked in silence till Dan drew a breath over his tin cup and +demanded of Harvey how he felt. +</P> + +<P> +"'Most full, but there's just room for another piece." +</P> + +<P> +The cook was a huge, jet-black negro, and, unlike all the negroes +Harvey had met, did not talk, contenting himself with smiles and +dumb-show invitations to eat more. +</P> + +<P> +"See, Harvey," said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, "it's jest +as I said. The young an' handsome men—like me an' Pennsy an' you an' +Manuel—we're second ha'af, an' we eats when the first ha'af are +through. They're the old fish; an' they're mean an' humpy, an' their +stummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which they don't +deserve. Aeneid that so, doctor?" +</P> + +<P> +The cook nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't he talk?" said Harvey in a whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"'Nough to get along. Not much o' anything we know. His natural +tongue's kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, he +does, where the farmers speak homemade Scotch. Cape Breton's full o' +niggers whose folk run in there durin' aour war, an' they talk like +farmers—all huffy-chuffy." +</P> + +<P> +"That is not Scotch," said "Pennsylvania." "That is Gaelic. So I read +in a book." +</P> + +<P> +"Penn reads a heap. Most of what he says is so—'cep' when it comes to +a caount o' fish—eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Does your father just let them say how many they've caught without +checking them?" said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes. Where's the sense of a man lyin' fer a few old cod?" +</P> + +<P> +"Was a man once lied for his catch," Manuel put in. "Lied every day. +Fife, ten, twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was." +</P> + +<P> +"Where was that?" said Dan. "None o' aour folk." +</P> + +<P> +"Frenchman of Anguille." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! Them West Shore Frenchmen don't caount anyway. Stands to reason +they can't caount. Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks, Harvey, +you'll know why," said Dan, with an awful contempt. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Always more and never less,<BR> + Every time we come to dress,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the "second ha'af" scrambled up at +once. +</P> + +<P> +The shadow of the masts and rigging, with the never-furled riding-sail, +rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; and the pile of +fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. In the hold there +were tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt moved +among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the +inboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was drumming +impatiently with a knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at his feet. +</P> + +<P> +"You pitch to dad an' Tom Platt down the hatch, an' take keer Uncle +Salters don't cut yer eye out," said Dan, swinging himself into the +hold. "I'll pass salt below." +</P> + +<P> +Penn and Manuel stood knee deep among cod in the pen, flourishing drawn +knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and mittens on his hands, faced +Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and the +tub. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi!" shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up with a +finger under its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on the edge +of the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of tearing, and the +fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either side of the neck, +dropped at Long Jack's feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi!" said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod's +liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head and +offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, who +snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, the backbone flew +over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, gutted, and open, splashed +in the tub, sending the salt water into Harvey's astonished mouth. +After the first yell, the men were silent. The cod moved along as +though they were alive, and long ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the +miraculous dexterity of it all, his tub was full. +</P> + +<P> +"Pitch!" grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and Harvey +pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi! Pitch 'em bunchy," shouted Dan. "Don't scatter! Uncle Salters is +the best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!" +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting +magazine pages against time. Manuel's body, cramped over from the hips, +stayed like a statue; but his long arms grabbed the fish without +ceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was easy to see he was +weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him without breaking the +chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled because he had caught his +finger in a Frenchman's hook. These hooks are made of soft metal, to be +rebent after use; but the cod very often get away with them and are +hooked again elsewhere; and that is one of the many reasons why the +Gloucester boats despise the Frenchmen. +</P> + +<P> +Down below, the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough flesh +sounded like the whirring of a grindstone—steady undertune to the +"click-nick" of knives in the pen; the wrench and shloop of torn heads, +dropped liver, and flying offal; the "caraaah" of Uncle Salters's knife +scooping away backbones; and the flap of wet, open bodies falling into +the tub. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; for +fresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back ached with +the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his life that he +was one of the working gang of men, took pride in the thought, and held +on sullenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Knife oh!" shouted Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, gasping +among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and Long +Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a black +shadow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, and retreated. +</P> + +<P> +"Blood-ends for breakfast an' head-chowder," said Long Jack, smacking +his lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Knife oh!" repeated Uncle Salters, waving the flat, curved splitter's +weapon. +</P> + +<P> +"Look by your foot, Harve," cried Dan below. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch combing. +He dealt these around, taking over the dulled ones. +</P> + +<P> +"Water!" said Disko Troop. +</P> + +<P> +"Scuttle-butt's for'ard an' the dipper's alongside. Hurry, Harve," said +Dan. +</P> + +<P> +He was back in a minute with a big dipperful of stale brown water which +tasted like nectar, and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom Platt. +</P> + +<P> +"These are cod," said Disko. "They ain't Damarskus figs, Tom Platt, nor +yet silver bars. I've told you that ever single time since we've sailed +together." +</P> + +<P> +"A matter o' seven seasons," returned Tom Platt coolly. "Good stowin's +good stowin' all the same, an' there's a right an' a wrong way o' +stowin' ballast even. If you'd ever seen four hundred ton o' iron set +into the—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hi!" With a yell from Manuel the work began again, and never stopped +till the pen was empty. The instant the last fish was down, Disko Troop +rolled aft to the cabin with his brother; Manuel and Long Jack went +forward; Tom Platt only waited long enough to slide home the hatch ere +he too disappeared. In half a minute Harvey heard deep snores in the +cabin, and he was staring blankly at Dan and Penn. +</P> + +<P> +"I did a little better that time, Danny," said Penn, whose eyelids were +heavy with sleep. "But I think it is my duty to help clean." +</P> + +<P> +"'Wouldn't hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal," said Dan. "Turn +in, Penn. You've no call to do boy's work. Draw a bucket, Harvey. Oh, +Penn, dump these in the gurry-butt 'fore you sleep. Kin you keep awake +that long?" +</P> + +<P> +Penn took up the heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a cask +with a hinged top lashed by the foc'sle; then he too dropped out of +sight in the cabin. +</P> + +<P> +"Boys clean up after dressin' down an' first watch in ca'am weather is +boy's watch on the <I>We're Here</I>." Dan sluiced the pen energetically, +unshipped the table, set it up to dry in the moonlight, ran the red +knife-blades through a wad of oakum, and began to sharpen them on a +tiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offal and backbones overboard under +his direction. +</P> + +<P> +At the first splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from the +oily water and sighed a weird whistling sigh. Harvey started back with +a shout, but Dan only laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Grampus," said he. "Beggin' fer fish-heads. They up-eend the way when +they're hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, hain't he?" A +horrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of white +sank, and the water bubbled oilily. "Hain't ye never seen a grampus +up-eend before? You'll see 'em by hundreds 'fore ye're through. Say, +it's good to hev a boy aboard again. Otto was too old, an' a Dutchy at +that. Him an' me we fought consid'ble. 'Wouldn't ha' keered fer that ef +he'd hed a Christian tongue in his head. Sleepy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dead sleepy," said Harvey, nodding forward. +</P> + +<P> +"Mustn't sleep on watch. Rouse up an' see ef our anchor-light's bright +an' shinin'. You're on watch now, Harve." +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw! What's to hurt us? Bright's day. Sn-orrr!" +</P> + +<P> +"Jest when things happen, Dad says. Fine weather's good sleepin', an' +'fore you know, mebbe, you're cut in two by a liner, an' seventeen +brass-bound officers, all gen'elmen, lift their hand to it that your +lights was aout an' there was a thick fog. Harve, I've kinder took to +you, but ef you nod onct more I'll lay into you with a rope's end." +</P> + +<P> +The moon, who sees many strange things on the Banks, looked down on a +slim youth in knickerbockers and a red jersey, staggering around the +cluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner, while behind him, waving a +knotted rope, walked, after the manner of an executioner, a boy who +yawned and nodded between the blows he dealt. +</P> + +<P> +The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted a +little in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the +miserable procession continued. Harvey expostulated, threatened, +whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words clotting on +his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and slashed away with +the rope's end, punishing the dories as often as he hit Harvey. At last +the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke little +Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side +on the main hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to +their berths. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P> +It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, +and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of +juicy fragments of fish—the blood-ends the cook had collected +overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who +were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the +foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, and +investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It +was another perfect day—soft, mild, and clear; and Harvey breathed to +the very bottom of his lungs. +</P> + +<P> +More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas were +full of sails and dories. Far away on the horizon, the smoke of some +liner, her hull invisible, smudged the blue, and to eastward a big +ship's top-gallant sails, just lifting, made a square nick in it. Disko +Troop was smoking by the roof of the cabin—one eye on the craft +around, and the other on the little fly at the main-mast-head. +</P> + +<P> +"When Dad kerflummoxes that way," said Dan in a whisper, "he's doin' +some high-line thinkin' fer all hands. I'll lay my wage an' share we'll +make berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, an' the Fleet they know Dad +knows. 'See 'em comm' up one by one, lookin' fer nothin' in particular, +o' course, but scrowgin' on us all the time? There's the <I>Prince Leboo</I>; +she's a Chat-ham boat. She's crep' up sence last night. An' see that +big one with a patch in her foresail an' a new jib? She's the <I>Carrie +Pitman</I> from West Chat-ham. She won't keep her canvas long onless her +luck's changed since last season. She don't do much 'cep' drift. There +ain't an anchor made 'll hold her. . . . When the smoke puffs up in +little rings like that, Dad's studyin' the fish. Ef we speak to him +now, he'll git mad. Las' time I did, he jest took an' hove a boot at +me." +</P> + +<P> +Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes that +saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fish—pitting his +knowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod in his own +sea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive schooners on the +horizon as a compliment to his powers. But now that it was paid, he +wished to draw away and make his berth alone, till it was time to go up +to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that roaring town upon the +waters. So Disko Troop thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, +food-supplies, and other domestic arrangements, from the point of view +of a twenty-pound cod; was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself, and +looked remarkably like one. Then he removed the pipe from his teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"Dad," said Dan, "we've done our chores. Can't we go overside a piece? +It's good catchin' weather." +</P> + +<P> +"Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them ha'af baked brown shoes. Give +him suthin' fit to wear." +</P> + +<P> +"Dad's pleased—that settles it," said Dan, delightedly, dragging +Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. "Dad +keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, 'cause Ma sez I'm +keerless." He rummaged through a locker, and in less than three minutes +Harvey was adorned with fisherman's rubber boots that came half up his +thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the elbows, a pair of +nippers, and a sou'wester. +</P> + +<P> +"Naow ye look somethin' like," said Dan. "Hurry!" +</P> + +<P> +"Keep nigh an' handy," said Troop "an' don't go visitin' raound the +Fleet. If any one asks you what I'm cal'latin' to do, speak the +truth—fer ye don't know." +</P> + +<P> +A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay astern of the schooner. Dan +hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, +while Harvey tumbled clumsily after. +</P> + +<P> +"That's no way o' gettin' into a boat," said Dan. "Ef there was any sea +you'd go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet her." +</P> + +<P> +Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart and watched Harvey's +work. The boy had rowed, in a lady-like fashion, on the Adirondack +ponds; but there is a difference between squeaking pins and +well-balanced ruflocks—light sculls and stubby, eight-foot sea-oars. +They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted. +</P> + +<P> +"Short! Row short!" said Dan. "Ef you cramp your oar in any kind o' sea +you're liable to turn her over. Ain't she a daisy? Mine, too." +</P> + +<P> +The little dory was specklessly clean. In her bows lay a tiny anchor, +two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, brown dory-roding. +A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under Harvey's right hand, +beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and a shorter wooden stick. +A couple of lines, with very heavy leads and double cod-hooks, all +neatly coiled on square reels, were stuck in their place by the gunwale. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's the sail and mast?" said Harvey, for his hands were beginning +to blister. +</P> + +<P> +Dan chuckled. "Ye don't sail fishin'-dories much. Ye pull; but ye +needn't pull so hard. Don't you wish you owned her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked 'em," +Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family till +then. +</P> + +<P> +"That's so. I forgot your dad's a millionaire. You don't act millionary +any, naow. But a dory an' craft an' gear"—Dan spoke as though she were +a whaleboat—"costs a heap. Think your dad 'u'd give you one fer—fer a +pet like?" +</P> + +<P> +"Shouldn't wonder. It would be 'most the only thing I haven't stuck him +for yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Must be an expensive kinder kid to home. Don't slitheroo thet way, +Harve. Short's the trick, because no sea's ever dead still, an' the +swells 'll—" +</P> + +<P> +Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and knocked him +backwards. +</P> + +<P> +"That was what I was goin' to say. I hed to learn too, but I wasn't +more than eight years old when I got my schoolin'." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown. +</P> + +<P> +"No good gettin' mad at things, Dad says. It's our own fault ef we +can't handle 'em, he says. Le's try here. Manuel 'll give us the water." +</P> + +<P> +The "Portugee" was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan up-ended an +oar he waved his left arm three times. +</P> + +<P> +"Thirty fathom," said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. "Over +with the doughboys. Bait same's I do, Harvey, an' don't snarl your +reel." +</P> + +<P> +Dan's line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of +baiting and heaving out the leads. The dory drifted along easily. It +was not worth while to anchor till they were sure of good ground. +</P> + +<P> +"Here we come!" Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on Harvey's +shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. "Muckle, Harvey, +muckle! Under your hand! Quick!" +</P> + +<P> +Evidently "muckle" could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed over +the maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled it +inboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short wooden stick he +called a "gob-stick." Then Harvey felt a tug, and pulled up zealously. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, these are strawberries!" he shouted. "Look!" +</P> + +<P> +The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one side and +white on the other—perfect reproductions of the land fruit, except +that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and slimy. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't tech 'em. Slat 'em off. Don't—" +</P> + +<P> +The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the hook, and +was admiring them. +</P> + +<P> +"Ouch!" he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had grasped +many nettles. +</P> + +<P> +"Now ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothin' 'cep' fish should be +teched with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat 'em off agin the gunnel, +an' bait up, Harve. Lookin' won't help any. It's all in the wages." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, and +wondered what his mother would say if she could see him hanging over +the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered agonies whenever +he went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way, Harvey remembered +distinctly that he used to laugh at her anxieties. Suddenly the line +flashed through his hand, stinging even through the "nippers," the +woolen circlets supposed to protect it. +</P> + +<P> +"He's a logy. Give him room accordin' to his strength," cried Dan. +"I'll help ye." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you won't," Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. "It's my +first fish. Is—is it a whale?" +</P> + +<P> +"Halibut, mebbe." Dan peered down into the water alongside, and +flourished the big "muckle," ready for all chances. Something white and +oval flickered and fluttered through the green. "I'll lay my wage an' +share he's over a hundred. Are you so everlastin' anxious to land him +alone?" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey's knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been banged +against the gunwale; his face was purple-blue between excitement and +exertion; he dripped with sweat, and was half-blinded from staring at +the circling sunlit ripples about the swiftly moving line. The boys +were tired long ere the halibut, who took charge of them and the dory +for the next twenty minutes. But the big flat fish was gaffed and +hauled in at last. +</P> + +<P> +"Beginner's luck," said Dan, wiping his forehead. "He's all of a +hundred." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey looked at the huge gray-and-mottled creature with unspeakable +pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs ashore, but it +had never occurred to him to ask how they came inland. Now he knew; and +every inch of his body ached with fatigue. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef Dad was along," said Dan, hauling up, "he'd read the signs plain's +print. The fish are runnin' smaller an' smaller, an' you've took 'baout +as logy a halibut's we're apt to find this trip. Yesterday's catch—did +ye notice it?—was all big fish an' no halibut. Dad he'd read them +signs right off. Dad says everythin' on the Banks is signs, an' can be +read wrong er right. Dad's deeper'n the Whale-hole." +</P> + +<P> +Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the <I>We're Here</I>, and a +potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging. +</P> + +<P> +"What did I say, naow? That's the call fer the whole crowd. Dad's onter +something, er he'd never break fishin' this time o' day. Reel up, +Harve, an' we'll pull back." +</P> + +<P> +They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the dory +over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them to +Penn, who was careering around a fixed point for all the world like a +gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down again with +enormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his dory swung round +and snubbed herself on her rope. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll hev to help him, else he'll root an' seed here," said Dan. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" said Harvey. This was a new world, where he could +not lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions humbly. +And the sea was horribly big and unexcited. +</P> + +<P> +"Anchor's fouled. Penn's always losing 'em. Lost two this trip +a'ready—on sandy bottom too—an' Dad says next one he loses, sure's +fishin', he'll give him the kelleg. That 'u'd break Penn's heart." +</P> + +<P> +"What's a 'kelleg'?" said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be some +kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the storybooks. +</P> + +<P> +"Big stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridin' in the bows +fur's you can see a dory, an' all the fleet knows what it means. They'd +guy him dreadful. Penn couldn't stand that no more'n a dog with a +dipper to his tail. He's so everlastin' sensitive. Hello, Penn! Stuck +again? Don't try any more o' your patents. Come up on her, and keep +your rodin' straight up an' down." +</P> + +<P> +"It doesn't move," said the little man, panting. "It doesn't move at +all, and instead I tried everything." +</P> + +<P> +"What's all this hurrah's-nest for'ard?" said Dan, pointing to a wild +tangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by the hand +of inexperience. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that," said Penn proudly, "is a Spanish windlass. Mr. Salters +showed me how to make it; but even that doesn't move her." +</P> + +<P> +Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or twice +on the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once. +</P> + +<P> +"Haul up, Penn," he said laughing, "er she'll git stuck again." +</P> + +<P> +They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor with +big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, say, while I think of it, Harve," said Dan when they were out of +ear-shot, "Penn ain't quite all caulked. He ain't nowise dangerous, but +his mind's give out. See?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is that so, or is it one of your father's judgments?" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey asked as he bent to his oars. He felt he was learning to handle +them more easily. +</P> + +<P> +"Dad ain't mistook this time. Penn's a sure 'nuff loony." +</P> + +<P> +"No, he ain't thet exactly, so much ez a harmless ijut. It was this way +(you're rowin' quite so, Harve), an' I tell you 'cause it's right you +orter know. He was a Moravian preacher once. Jacob Boiler wuz his name, +Dad told me, an' he lived with his wife an' four children somewheres +out Pennsylvania way. Well, Penn he took his folks along to a Moravian +meetin'—camp-meetin' most like—an' they stayed over jest one night in +Johns-town. You've heered talk o' Johnstown?" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey considered. "Yes, I have. But I don't know why. It sticks in my +head same as Ashtabula." +</P> + +<P> +"Both was big accidents—thet's why, Harve. Well, that one single night +Penn and his folks was to the hotel Johnstown was wiped out. 'Dam bust +an' flooded her, an' the houses struck adrift an' bumped into each +other an' sunk. I've seen the pictures, an' they're dretful. Penn he +saw his folk drowned all'n a heap 'fore he rightly knew what was +comin'. His mind give out from that on. He mistrusted somethin' hed +happened up to Johnstown, but for the poor life of him he couldn't +remember what, an' he jest drifted araound smilin' an' wonderin'. He +didn't know what he was, nor yit what he hed bin, an' thet way he run +agin Uncle Salters, who was visitin' 'n Allegheny City. Ha'af my +mother's folks they live scattered inside o' Pennsylvania, an' Uncle +Salters he visits araound winters. Uncle Salters he kinder adopted +Penn, well knowin' what his trouble wuz; an' he brought him East, an' +he give him work on his farm." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when the boats +bumped. Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?" +</P> + +<P> +"Farmer!" shouted Dan. "There ain't water enough 'tween here an' +Hatt'rus to wash the furrer-mold off'n his boots. He's jest everlastin' +farmer. Why, Harve, I've seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long towards +sundown, an' set twiddlin' the spigot to the scuttle-butt same's ef +'twas a cow's bag. He's thet much farmer. Well, Penn an' he they ran +the farm—up Exeter way 'twur. Uncle Salters he sold it this spring to +a jay from Boston as wanted to build a summer-haouse, an' he got a heap +for it. Well, them two loonies scratched along till, one day, Penn's +church—he'd belonged to the Moravians—found out where he wuz drifted +an' layin', an' wrote to Uncle Salters. 'Never heerd what they said +exactly; but Uncle Salters was mad. He's a 'piscopolian mostly—but he +jest let 'em hev it both sides o' the bow, 's if he was a Baptist; an' +sez he warn't goin' to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection in +Pennsylvania or anywheres else. Then he come to Dad, towin' Penn,—thet +was two trips back,—an' sez he an' Penn must fish a trip fer their +health. 'Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn't hunt the Banks fer +Jacob Boiler. Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he'd been fishin' +off an' on fer thirty years, when he warn't inventin' patent manures, +an' he took quarter-share in the <I>We're Here</I>; an' the trip done Penn +so much good, Dad made a habit o' takin' him. Some day, Dad sez, he'll +remember his wife an' kids an' Johnstown, an' then, like as not, he'll +die, Dad sez. Don't ye talk abaout Johnstown ner such things to Penn, +'r Uncle Salters he'll heave ye overboard." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor Penn!" murmured Harvey. "I shouldn't ever have thought Uncle +Salters cared for him by the look of 'em together." +</P> + +<P> +"I like Penn, though; we all do," said Dan. "We ought to ha' give him a +tow, but I wanted to tell ye first." +</P> + +<P> +They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little behind +them. +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't heave in the dories till after dinner," said Troop from +the deck. "We'll dress daown right off. Fix table, boys!" +</P> + +<P> +"Deeper'n the Whale-deep," said Dan, with a wink, as he set the gear +for dressing down. "Look at them boats that hev edged up sence mornin'. +They're all waitin' on Dad. See 'em, Harve?" +</P> + +<P> +"They are all alike to me." And indeed to a landsman, the nodding +schooners around seemed run from the same mold. +</P> + +<P> +"They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit +steeved that way, she's the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her skipper, +the meanest man on the Banks. We'll tell him so when we strike the Main +Ledge. 'Way off yonder's the Day's Eye. The two Jeraulds own her. She's +from Harwich; fastish, too, an' hez good luck; but Dad he'd find fish +in a graveyard. Them other three, side along, they're the Margie Smith, +Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all from home. 'Guess we'll see the Abbie M. +Deering to-morrer, Dad, won't we? They're all slippin' over from the +shaol o' 'Oueereau." +</P> + +<P> +"You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny." When Troop called his son +Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. "Boys, we're too +crowded," he went on, addressing the crew as they clambered inboard. +"We'll leave 'em to bait big an' catch small." He looked at the catch +in the pen, and it was curious to see how little and level the fish +ran. Save for Harvey's halibut, there was nothing over fifteen pounds +on deck. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm waitin' on the weather," he added. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'll have to make it yourself, Disko, for there's no sign I can see," +said Long Jack, sweeping the clear horizon. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the Bank fog +dropped on them, "between fish and fish," as they say. It drove +steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourless +water. The men stopped dressing-down without a word. Long Jack and +Uncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets, and began +to heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet hempen cable +strained on the barrel. Manuel and Tom Platt gave a hand at the last. +The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail bellied as Troop +steadied her at the wheel. "Up jib and foresail," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Slip 'em in the smother," shouted Long Jack, making fast the +jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the +foresail; and the foreboom creaked as the <I>We're Here</I> looked up into +the wind and dived off into blank, whirling white. +</P> + +<P> +"There's wind behind this fog," said Troop. +</P> + +<P> +It was wonderful beyond words to Harvey; and the most wonderful part +was that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from Troop, +ending with, "That's good, my son!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never seen anchor weighed before?" said Tom Platt, to Harvey gaping at +the damp canvas of the foresail. +</P> + +<P> +"No. Where are we going?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fish and make berth, as you'll find out 'fore you've been a week +aboard. It's all new to you, but we never know what may come to us. +Now, take me—Tom Platt—I'd never ha' thought—" +</P> + +<P> +"It's better than fourteen dollars a month an' a bullet in your belly," +said Troop, from the wheel. "Ease your jumbo a grind." +</P> + +<P> +"Dollars an' cents better," returned the man-o'-war's man, doing +something to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. "But we didn't +think o' that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the Miss Jim Buck, +I outside Beau-fort Harbor, with Fort Macon heavin' hot shot at our +stern, an' a livin' gale atop of all. Where was you then, Disko?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jest here, or hereabouts," Disko replied, "earnin' my bread on the +deep waters, an' dodgin' Reb privateers. Sorry I can't accommodate you +with red-hot shot, Tom Platt; but I guess we'll come aout all right on +wind 'fore we see Eastern Point." +</P> + +<P> +There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the bows now, varied by +a solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered down on the +foc'sle. The rigging dripped clammy drops, and the men lounged along +the lee of the house—all save Uncle Salters, who sat stiffly on the +main-hatch nursing his stung hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess she'd carry stays'l," said Disko, rolling one eye at his brother. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess she wouldn't to any sorter profit. What's the sense o' wastin' +canvas?" the farmer-sailor replied. +</P> + +<P> +The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands. A few seconds +later a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the boat, smote +Uncle Salters between the shoulders, and drenched him from head to +foot. He rose sputtering, and went forward only to catch another. +</P> + +<P> +"See Dad chase him all around the deck," said Dan. "Uncle Salters he +thinks his quarter share's our canvas. Dad's put this duckin' act up on +him two trips runnin'. Hi! That found him where he feeds." Uncle +Salters had taken refuge by the foremast, but a wave slapped him over +the knees. Disko's face was as blank as the circle of the wheel. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess she'd lie easier under stays'l, Salters," said Disko, as though +he had seen nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Set your old kite, then," roared the victim through a cloud of spray; +"only don't lay it to me if anything happens. Penn, you go below right +off an' git your coffee. You ought to hev more sense than to bum +araound on deck this weather." +</P> + +<P> +"Now they'll swill coffee an' play checkers till the cows come home," +said Dan, as Uncle Salters hustled Penn into the fore-cabin. "'Looks to +me like's if we'd all be doin' so fer a spell. There's nothin' in +creation deader-limpsey-idler'n a Banker when she ain't on fish." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad ye spoke, Danny," cried Long Jack, who had been casting round +in search of amusement. "I'd clean forgot we'd a passenger under that +T-wharf hat. There's no idleness for thim that don't know their ropes. +Pass him along, Tom Platt, an' we'll larn him." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tain't my trick this time," grinned Dan. "You've got to go it alone. +Dad learned me with a rope's end." +</P> + +<P> +For an hour Long Jack walked his prey up and down, teaching, as he +said, "things at the sea that ivry man must know, blind, dhrunk, or +asleep." There is not much gear to a seventy-ton schooner with a +stump-foremast, but Long Jack had a gift of expression. When he wished +to draw Harvey's attention to the peak-halyards, he dug his knuckles +into the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze for half a minute. +He emphasized the difference between fore and aft generally by rubbing +Harvey's nose along a few feet of the boom, and the lead of each rope +was fixed in Harvey's mind by the end of the rope itself. +</P> + +<P> +The lesson would have been easier had the deck been at all free; but +there appeared to be a place on it for everything and anything except a +man. Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the chain and hemp +cables, all very unpleasant to trip over; the foc'sle stovepipe, and +the gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch to hold the fish-livers. Aft of +these the foreboom and booby of the main-hatch took all the space that +was not needed for the pumps and dressing-pens. Then came the nests of +dories lashed to ring-bolts by the quarter-deck; the house, with tubs +and oddments lashed all around it; and, last, the sixty-foot main-boom +in its crutch, splitting things length-wise, to duck and dodge under +every time. +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt, of course, could not keep his oar out of the business, but +ranged alongside with enormous and unnecessary descriptions of sails +and spars on the old Ohio. +</P> + +<P> +"Niver mind fwhat he says; attind to me, Innocince. Tom Platt, this +bally-hoo's not the Ohio, an' you're mixing the bhoy bad." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll be ruined for life, beginnin' on a fore-an'-after this way," Tom +Platt pleaded. "Give him a chance to know a few leadin' principles. +Sailin's an art, Harvey, as I'd show you if I had ye in the fore-top o' +the—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know ut. Ye'd talk him dead an' cowld. Silince, Tom Platt! Now, +after all I've said, how'd you reef the foresail, Harve? Take your time +answerin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Haul that in," said Harvey, pointing to leeward. +</P> + +<P> +"Fwhat? The North Atlantuc?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, the boom. Then run that rope you showed me back there—" +</P> + +<P> +"That's no way," Tom Platt burst in. +</P> + +<P> +"Quiet! He's larnin', an' has not the names good yet. Go on, Harve." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's the reef-pennant. I'd hook the tackle on to the reef-pennant, +and then let down—" +</P> + +<P> +"Lower the sail, child! Lower!" said Tom Platt, in a professional agony. +</P> + +<P> +"Lower the throat and peak halyards," Harvey went on. Those names stuck +in his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Lay your hand on thim," said Long Jack. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey obeyed. "Lower till that rope-loop—on the after-leach-kris—no, +it's cringle—till the cringle was down on the boom. Then I'd tie her +up the way you said, and then I'd hoist up the peak and throat halyards +again." +</P> + +<P> +"You've forgot to pass the tack-earing, but wid time and help ye'll +larn. There's good and just reason for ivry rope aboard, or else +'twould be overboard. D'ye follow me? 'Tis dollars an' cents I'm +puttin' into your pocket, ye skinny little supercargo, so that fwhin +ye've filled out ye can ship from Boston to Cuba an' tell thim Long +Jack larned you. Now I'll chase ye around a piece, callin' the ropes, +an' you'll lay your hand on thim as I call." +</P> + +<P> +He began, and Harvey, who was feeling rather tired, walked slowly to +the rope named. A rope's end licked round his ribs, and nearly knocked +the breath out of him. +</P> + +<P> +"When you own a boat," said Tom Platt, with severe eyes, "you can walk. +Till then, take all orders at the run. Once more—to make sure!" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey was in a glow with the exercise, and this last cut warmed him +thoroughly. Now he was a singularly smart boy, the son of a very clever +man and a very sensitive woman, with a fine resolute temper that +systematic spoiling had nearly turned to mulish obstinacy. He looked at +the other men, and saw that even Dan did not smile. It was evidently +all in the day's work, though it hurt abominably; so he swallowed the +hint with a gulp and a gasp and a grin. The same smartness that led him +to take such advantage of his mother made him very sure that no one on +the boat, except, maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One +learns a great deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over half a +dozen ropes, and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide, +one eye on Tom Platt. +</P> + +<P> +"Ver' good. Ver' good don," said Manuel. "After supper I show you a +little schooner I make, with all her ropes. So we shall learn." +</P> + +<P> +"Fust-class fer—a passenger," said Dan. "Dad he's jest allowed you'll +be wuth your salt maybe 'fore you're draownded. Thet's a heap fer Dad. +I'll learn you more our next watch together." +</P> + +<P> +"Taller!" grunted Disko, peering through the fog as it smoked over the +bows. There was nothing to be seen ten feet beyond the surging +jib-boom, while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn, pale +waves whispering and lipping one to the other. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I'll learn you something Long Jack can't," shouted Tom Platt, as +from a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea lead +hollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of mutton +tallow, and went forward. "I'll learn you how to fly the Blue Pigeon. +Shooo!" +</P> + +<P> +Disko did something to the wheel that checked the schooner's way, while +Manuel, with Harvey to help (and a proud boy was Harvey), let down the +jib in a lump on the boom. The lead sung a deep droning song as Tom +Platt whirled it round and round. +</P> + +<P> +"Go ahead, man," said Long Jack, impatiently. "We're not drawin' +twenty-five fut off Fire Island in a fog. There's no trick to ut." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be jealous, Galway." The released lead plopped into the sea far +ahead as the schooner surged slowly forward. +</P> + +<P> +"Soundin' is a trick, though," said Dan, "when your dipsey lead's all +the eye you're like to hev for a week. What d'you make it, Dad?" +</P> + +<P> +Disko's face relaxed. His skill and honour were involved in the march +he had stolen on the rest of the Fleet, and he had his reputation as a +master artist who knew the Banks blindfold. "Sixty, mebbe—ef I'm any +judge," he replied, with a glance at the tiny compass in the window of +the house. +</P> + +<P> +"Sixty," sung out Tom Platt, hauling in great wet coils. +</P> + +<P> +The schooner gathered way once more. "Heave!" said Disko, after a +quarter of an hour. +</P> + +<P> +"What d'you make it?" Dan whispered, and he looked at Harvey proudly. +But Harvey was too proud of his own performances to be impressed just +then. +</P> + +<P> +"Fifty," said the father. "I mistrust we're right over the nick o' +Green Bank on old Sixty-Fifty." +</P> + +<P> +"Fifty!" roared Tom Platt. They could scarcely see him through the fog. +"She's bust within a yard—like the shells at Fort Macon." +</P> + +<P> +"Bait up, Harve," said Dan, diving for a line on the reel. +</P> + +<P> +The schooner seemed to be straying promiscuously through the smother, +her headsail banging wildly. The men waited and looked at the boys who +began fishing. +</P> + +<P> +"Heugh!" Dan's lines twitched on the scored and scarred rail. "Now haow +in thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It's a big un. +Poke-hooked, too." They hauled together, and landed a goggle-eyed +twenty-pound cod. He had taken the bait right into his stomach. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, he's all covered with little crabs," cried Harvey, turning him +over. +</P> + +<P> +"By the great hook-block, they're lousy already," said Long Jack. +"Disko, ye kape your spare eyes under the keel." +</P> + +<P> +Splash went the anchor, and they all heaved over the lines, each man +taking his own place at the bulwarks. +</P> + +<P> +"Are they good to eat?" Harvey panted, as he lugged in another +crab-covered cod. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure. When they're lousy it's a sign they've all been herdin' together +by the thousand, and when they take the bait that way they're hungry. +Never mind how the bait sets. They'll bite on the bare hook." +</P> + +<P> +"Say, this is great!" Harvey cried, as the fish came in gasping and +splashing—nearly all poke-hooked, as Dan had said. "Why can't we +always fish from the boat instead of from the dories?" +</P> + +<P> +"Allus can, till we begin to dress daown. Efter thet, the heads and +offals 'u'd scare the fish to Fundy. Boatfishin' ain't reckoned +progressive, though, unless ye know as much as dad knows. Guess we'll +run aout aour trawl to-night. Harder on the back, this, than frum the +dory, ain't it?" +</P> + +<P> +It was rather back-breaking work, for in a dory the weight of a cod is +water-borne till the last minute, and you are, so to speak, abreast of +him; but the few feet of a schooner's freeboard make so much extra +dead-hauling, and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the stomach. But it +was wild and furious sport so long as it lasted; and a big pile lay +aboard when the fish ceased biting. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters?" Harvey asked, slapping the slime off +his oilskins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation of the +others. +</P> + +<P> +"Git 's coffee and see." +</P> + +<P> +Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post, the foc'sle table +down and opened, utterly unconscious of fish or weather, sat the two +men, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters snarling at Penn's +every move. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter naow?" said the former, as Harvey, one hand in the +leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the cook. +</P> + +<P> +"Big fish and lousy—heaps and heaps," Harvey replied, quoting Long +Jack. "How's the game?" +</P> + +<P> +Little Penn's jaw dropped. "'Tweren't none o' his fault," snapped Uncle +Salters. "Penn's deef." +</P> + +<P> +"Checkers, weren't it?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with the +steaming coffee in a tin pail. "That lets us out o' cleanin' up +to-night. Dad's a jest man. They'll have to do it." +</P> + +<P> +"An' two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o' trawl, while +they're cleanin'," said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste. +</P> + +<P> +"Um! Guess I'd ruther clean up, Dad." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress daown! Dress daown! Penn'll +pitch while you two bait up." +</P> + +<P> +"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?" said +Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. "This knife's +gum-blunt, Dan." +</P> + +<P> +"Ef stickin' out cable don't wake ye, guess you'd better hire a boy o' +your own," said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs full of +trawl-line lashed to windward of the house. "Oh, Harve, don't ye want +to slip down an' git 's bait?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bait ez we are," said Disko. "I mistrust shag-fishin' will pay better, +ez things go." +</P> + +<P> +That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as the +fish were cleaned—an improvement on paddling bare-handed in the little +bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line carrying a +big hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of every single +hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it should run clear +when shot from the dory, was a scientific business. Dan managed it in +the dark, without looking, while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs +and bewailed his fate. But the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like +tatting on an old maid's lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore I +could well walk," he said. "But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh, +Dad!" This shouted towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt were +salting. "How many skates you reckon we'll need?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Baout three. Hurry!" +</P> + +<P> +"There's three hundred fathom to each tub," Dan explained; "more'n +enough to lay out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I did." He stuck +his finger in his mouth. "I tell you, Harve, there ain't money in +Gloucester 'u'd hire me to ship on a reg'lar trawler. It may be +progressive, but, barrin' that, it's the putterin'est, slimjammest +business top of earth." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what this is, if 'tisn't regular trawling," said Harvey +sulkily. "My fingers are all cut to frazzles." +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw! This is just one o' Dad's blame experiments. He don't trawl +'less there's mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet's why he's +baitin' ez he is. We'll hev her saggin' full when we take her up er we +won't see a fin." +</P> + +<P> +Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the boys +profited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom Platt and +Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory with a lantern, +snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some small, painted +trawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what Harvey regarded as +an exceedingly rough sea. "They'll be drowned. Why, the dory's loaded +like a freight-car," he cried. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll be back," said Long Jack, "an' in case you'll not be lookin' for +us, we'll lay into you both if the trawl's snarled." +</P> + +<P> +The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemed +impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's side, +slid over the ridge, and was swallowed up in the damp dusk. +</P> + +<P> +"Take ahold here, an' keep ringin' steady," said Dan, passing Harvey +the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But Disko +in the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a murderer, +and when he went to supper he even smiled dryly at the anxious Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"This ain't no weather," said Dan. "Why, you an' me could set thet +trawl! They've only gone out jest far 'nough so's not to foul our +cable. They don't need no bell reelly." +</P> + +<P> +"Clang! clang! clang!" Harvey kept it up, varied with occasional +rub-a-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bump +alongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory-tackle; Long +Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together, it seemed, one half the +North Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them in the air, +landing with a clatter. +</P> + +<P> +"Nary snarl," said Tom Platt as he dripped. "Danny, you'll do yet." +</P> + +<P> +"The pleasure av your comp'ny to the banquit," said Long Jack, +squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant and +stuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey's face. "We do be condescending to +honour the second half wid our presence." And off they all four rolled +to supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to the brim on fish-chowder and +fried pies, and fell fast asleep just as Manuel produced from a locker +a lovely two-foot model of the Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and was +going to show Harvey the ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingers +as Penn pushed him into his bunk. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be a sad thing—a very sad thing," said Penn, watching the +boy's face, "for his mother and his father, who think he is dead. To +lose a child—to lose a man-child!" +</P> + +<P> +"Git out o' this, Penn," said Dan. "Go aft and finish your game with +Uncle Salters. Tell Dad I'll stand Harve's watch ef he don't keer. He's +played aout." +</P> + +<P> +"Ver' good boy," said Manuel, slipping out of his boots and +disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. "Expec' he make +good man, Danny. I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he says. Eh, +wha-at?" +</P> + +<P> +Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore. +</P> + +<P> +It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder men +stretched their watches. The hour struck clear in the cabin; the nosing +bows slapped and scuffed with the seas; the foc'sle stove-pipe hissed +and sputtered as the spray caught it; and the boys slept on, while +Disko, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, each in turn, stumped +aft to look at the wheel, forward to see that the anchor held, or to +veer out a little more cable against chafing, with a glance at the dim +anchor-light between each round. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P> +Harvey waked to find the "first half" at breakfast, the foc'sle door +drawn to a crack, and every square inch of the schooner singing its own +tune. The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny galley over +the glare of the stove, and the pots and pans in the pierced wooden +board before it jarred and racketed to each plunge. Up and up the +foc'sle climbed, yearning and surging and quivering, and then, with a +clear, sickle-like swoop, came down into the seas. He could hear the +flaring bows cut and squelch, and there was a pause ere the divided +waters came down on the deck above, like a volley of buckshot. Followed +the woolly sound of the cable in the hawse-hole; and a grunt and squeal +of the windlass; a yaw, a punt, and a kick, and the <I>We're Here</I> +gathered herself together to repeat the motions. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, ashore," he heard Long Jack saying, "ye've chores, an' ye must do +thim in any weather. Here we're well clear of the fleet, an' we've no +chores—an' that's a blessin'. Good night, all." He passed like a big +snake from the table to his bunk, and began to smoke. Tom Platt +followed his example; Uncle Salters, with Penn, fought his way up the +ladder to stand his watch, and the cook set for the "second half." +</P> + +<P> +It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs, with a shake +and a yawn. It ate till it could eat no more; and then Manuel filled +his pipe with some terrible tobacco, crotched himself between the +pawl-post and a forward bunk, cocked his feet up on the table, and +smiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke. Dan lay at length in +his bunk, wrestling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped accordion, whose tunes +went up and down with the pitching of the <I>We're Here</I>. The cook, his +shoulders against the locker where he kept the fried pies (Dan was fond +of fried pies), peeled potatoes, with one eye on the stove in event of +too much water finding its way down the pipe; and the general smell and +smother were past all description. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey considered affairs, wondered that he was not deathly sick, and +crawled into his bunk again, as the softest and safest place, while Dan +struck up, "I don't want to play in your yard," as accurately as the +wild jerks allowed. +</P> + +<P> +"How long is this for?" Harvey asked of Manuel. +</P> + +<P> +"Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl. Perhaps +to-night. Perhaps two days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn't seem to upset +me now—much." +</P> + +<P> +"That is because we make you fisherman, these days. If I was you, when +I come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for my good +luck." +</P> + +<P> +"Give who?" +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure—the Virgin of our Church on the Hill. She is very good to +fishermen all the time. That is why so few of us Portugee men ever are +drowned." +</P> + +<P> +"You're a Roman Catholic, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist, +then? Eh, wha-at? I always give candles—two, three more when I come to +Gloucester. The good Virgin she never forgets me, Manuel." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't sense it that way," Tom Platt put in from his bunk, his +scarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe. +"It stands to reason the sea's the sea; and you'll get jest about +what's goin', candles or kerosene, fer that matter." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis a mighty good thing," said Long Jack, "to have a frind at coort, +though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years back I was crew +to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid a +northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. The ould man was +dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iver I +stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show the saints fwhat manner +o' craft they saved me out av.' Now, I'm here, as ye can well see, an' +the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, that took me a month to make, I +gave ut to the priest, an' he hung ut up forninst the altar. There's +more sense in givin' a model that's by way o' bein' a work av art than +any candle. Ye can buy candles at store, but a model shows the good +saints ye've tuk trouble an' are grateful." +</P> + +<P> +"D'you believe that, Irish?" said Tom Platt, turning on his elbow. +</P> + +<P> +"Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o' the old Ohio, and she's to +Calem museum now. Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess Enoch he never +done it fer no sacrifice; an' the way I take it is—" +</P> + +<P> +There were the makings of an hour-long discussion of the kind that +fishermen love, where the talk runs in shouting circles and no one +proves anything at the end, had not Dan struck up this cheerful rhyme: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Up jumped the mackerel with his stripe'd back.<BR> + Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack;<BR> + <I>For</I> it's windy weather—"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Here Long Jack joined in: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "<I>And</I> it's blowy weather;<BR> + <I>When</I> the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom Platt, holding the accordion +low in the bunk: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head,<BR> + Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead;<BR> + <I>For</I> it's windy weather," etc.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt seemed to be hunting for something. Dan crouched lower, but +sang louder: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Up jumped the flounder that swims to the ground.<BR> + Chuckle-head! Chuckle-head! Mind where ye sound!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt's huge rubber boot whirled across the foc'sle and caught +Dan's uplifted arm. There was war between the man and the boy ever +since Dan had discovered that the mere whistling of that tune would +make him angry as he heaved the lead. +</P> + +<P> +"Thought I'd fetch yer," said Dan, returning the gift with precision. +"Ef you don't like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain't goin' to lie +here all day an' listen to you an' Long Jack arguin' 'baout candles. +Fiddle, Tom Platt; or I'll learn Harve here the tune!" +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt leaned down to a locker and brought up an old white fiddle. +Manuel's eye glistened, and from somewhere behind the pawl-post he drew +out a tiny, guitar-like thing with wire strings, which he called a +machette. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis a concert," said Long Jack, beaming through the smoke. "A reg'lar +Boston concert." +</P> + +<P> +There was a burst of spray as the hatch opened, and Disko, in yellow +oilskins, descended. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye're just in time, Disko. Fwhat's she doin' outside?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jest this!" He dropped on to the lockers with the push and heave of +the <I>We're Here</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"We're singin' to kape our breakfasts down. Ye'll lead, av course, +Disko," said Long Jack. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess there ain't more'n 'baout two old songs I know, an' ye've heerd +them both." +</P> + +<P> +His excuses were cut short by Tom Platt launching into a most dolorous +tune, like unto the moaning of winds and the creaking of masts. With +his eyes fixed on the beams above, Disko began this ancient, ancient +ditty, Tom Platt flourishing all round him to make the tune and words +fit a little: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "There is a crack packet—crack packet o' fame,<BR> + She hails from Noo York, an' the <I>Dreadnought's</I> her name.<BR> + You may talk o' your fliers—Swallowtail and Black Ball—<BR> + But the <I>Dreadnought's</I> the packet that can beat them all.<BR> + "Now the <I>Dreadnought</I> she lies in the River Mersey,<BR> + Because of the tug-boat to take her to sea;<BR> + But when she's off soundings you shortly will know<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +(Chorus.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + She's the Liverpool packet—O Lord, let her go!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Now the <I>Dreadnought</I> she's howlin' crost the Banks o' Newfoundland,<BR> + Where the water's all shallow and the bottom's all sand.<BR> + Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro:<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +(Chorus.) +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'She's the Liverpool packet—O Lord, let her go!'",<BR> +</P> + +<P> +There were scores of verses, for he worked the <I>Dreadnought</I> every mile +of the way between Liverpool and New York as conscientiously as though +he were on her deck, and the accordion pumped and the fiddle squeaked +beside him. Tom Platt followed with something about "the rough and +tough McGinn, who would pilot the vessel in." Then they called on +Harvey, who felt very flattered, to contribute to the entertainment; +but all that he could remember were some pieces of "Skipper Ireson's +Ride" that he had been taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. It +seemed that they might be appropriate to the time and place, but he had +no more than mentioned the title when Disko brought down one foot with +a bang, and cried, "Don't go on, young feller. That's a mistaken +jedgment—one o' the worst kind, too, becaze it's catchin' to the ear." +</P> + +<P> +"I orter ha' warned you," said Dan. "Thet allus fetches Dad." +</P> + +<P> +"What's wrong?" said Harvey, surprised and a little angry. +</P> + +<P> +"All you're goin' to say," said Disko. "All dead wrong from start to +finish, an' Whittier he's to blame. I have no special call to right any +Marblehead man, but 'tweren't no fault o' Ireson's. My father he told +me the tale time an' again, an' this is the way 'twuz." +</P> + +<P> +"For the wan hundredth time," put in Long Jack under his breath +</P> + +<P> +"Ben Ireson he was skipper o' the Betty, young feller, comin' home frum +the Banks—that was before the war of 1812, but jestice is jestice at +all times. They fund the Active o' Portland, an' Gibbons o' that town +he was her skipper; they fund her leakin' off Cape Cod Light. There was +a terr'ble gale on, an' they was gettin' the Betty home 's fast as they +could craowd her. Well, Ireson he said there warn't any sense to +reskin' a boat in that sea; the men they wouldn't hev it; and he laid +it before them to stay by the Active till the sea run daown a piece. +They wouldn't hev that either, hangin' araound the Cape in any sech +weather, leak or no leak. They jest up stays'l an' quit, nat'rally +takin' Ireson with 'em. Folks to Marblehead was mad at him not runnin' +the risk, and becaze nex' day, when the sea was ca'am (they never +stopped to think o' that), some of the Active's folks was took off by a +Truro man. They come into Marblehead with their own tale to tell, +sayin' how Ireson had shamed his town, an' so forth an' so on, an' +Ireson's men they was scared, seein' public feelin' agin' 'em, an' they +went back on Ireson, an' swore he was respons'ble for the hull act. +'Tweren't the women neither that tarred and feathered him—Marblehead +women don't act that way—'twas a passel o' men an' boys, an' they +carted him araound town in an old dory till the bottom fell aout, and +Ireson he told 'em they'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the facts +come aout later, same's they usually do, too late to be any ways useful +to an honest man; an' Whittier he come along an' picked up the slack +eend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over onct +more after he was dead. 'Twas the only tune Whittier ever slipped up, +an' 'tweren't fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought that piece back +from school. You don't know no better, o' course; but I've give you the +facts, hereafter an' evermore to be remembered. Ben Ireson weren't no +sech kind o' man as Whittier makes aout; my father he knew him well, +before an' after that business, an' you beware o' hasty jedgments, +young feller. Next!" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey had never heard Disko talk so long, and collapsed with burning +cheeks; but, as Dan said promptly, a boy could only learn what he was +taught at school, and life was too short to keep track of every lie +along the coast. +</P> + +<P> +Then Manuel touched the jangling, jarring little machette to a queer +tune, and sang something in Portuguese about "Nina, innocente!" ending +with a full-handed sweep that brought the song up with a jerk. Then +Disko obliged with his second song, to an old-fashioned creaky tune, +and all joined in the chorus. This is one stanza: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Now Aprile is over and melted the snow,<BR> + And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow;<BR> + Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear,<BR> + We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Here the fiddle went very softly for a while by itself, and then: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin,<BR> + Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea;<BR> + Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin,<BR> + When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +That made Harvey almost weep, though he could not tell why. But it was +much worse when the cook dropped the potatoes and held out his hands +for the fiddle. Still leaning against the locker door, he struck into a +tune that was like something very bad but sure to happen whatever you +did. After a little he sang, in an unknown tongue, his big chin down on +the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs glaring in the lamplight. Harvey +swung out of his bunk to hear better; and amid the straining of the +timbers and the wash of the waters the tune crooned and moaned on, like +lee surf in a blind fog, till it ended with a wail. +</P> + +<P> +"Jimmy Christmas! Thet gives me the blue creevles," said Dan. "What in +thunder is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The song of Fin McCoul," said the cook, "when he wass going to +Norway." His English was not thick, but all clear-cut, as though it +came from a phonograph. +</P> + +<P> +"Faith, I've been to Norway, but I didn't make that unwholesim noise. +'Tis like some of the old songs, though," said Long Jack, sighing. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't let's hev another 'thout somethin' between," said Dan; and the +accordion struck up a rattling, catchy tune that ended: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "It's six an' twenty Sundays sence las' we saw the land,<BR> + With fifteen hunder quintal,<BR> + An' fifteen hunder quintal,<BR> + 'Teen hunder toppin' quintal,<BR> + 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on!" roared Tom Platt. "D'ye want to nail the trip, Dan? That's +Jonah sure, 'less you sing it after all our salt's wet." +</P> + +<P> +"No, 'tain't, is it, Dad? Not unless you sing the very las' verse. You +can't learn me anything on Jonahs!" +</P> + +<P> +"What's that?" said Harvey. "What's a Jonah?" +</P> + +<P> +"A Jonah's anything that spoils the luck. Sometimes it's a +man—sometimes it's a boy—or a bucket. I've known a splittin'-knife +Jonah two trips till we was on to her," said Tom Platt. "There's all +sorts o' Jonahs. Jim Bourke was one till he was drowned on Georges. I'd +never ship with Jim Bourke, not if I was starvin'. There wuz a green +dory on the Ezra Flood. Thet was a Jonah, too, the worst sort o' Jonah. +Drowned four men, she did, an' used to shine fiery O, nights in the +nest." +</P> + +<P> +"And you believe that?" said Harvey, remembering what Tom Platt had +said about candles and models. "Haven't we all got to take what's +served?" +</P> + +<P> +A mutter of dissent ran round the bunks. "Outboard, yes; inboard, +things can happen," said Disko. "Don't you go makin' a mock of Jonahs, +young feller." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Harve ain't no Jonah. Day after we catched him," Dan cut in, "we +had a toppin' good catch." +</P> + +<P> +The cook threw up his head and laughed suddenly—a queer, thin laugh. +He was a most disconcerting nigger. +</P> + +<P> +"Murder!" said Long Jack. "Don't do that again, doctor. We ain't used +to ut." +</P> + +<P> +"What's wrong?" said Dan. "Ain't he our mascot, and didn't they strike +on good after we'd struck him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! yess," said the cook. "I know that, but the catch iss not finish +yet." +</P> + +<P> +"He ain't goin' to do us any harm," said Dan, hotly. "Where are ye +hintin' an' edgin' to? He's all right." +</P> + +<P> +"No harm. No. But one day he will be your master, Danny." +</P> + +<P> +"That all?" said Dan, placidly. "He wun't—not by a jugful." +</P> + +<P> +"Master!" said the cook, pointing to Harvey. "Man!" and he pointed to +Dan. +</P> + +<P> +"That's news. Haow soon?" said Dan, with a laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"In some years, and I shall see it. Master and man—man and master." +</P> + +<P> +"How in thunder d'ye work that out?" said Tom Platt. +</P> + +<P> +"In my head, where I can see." +</P> + +<P> +"Haow?" This from all the others at once. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not know, but so it will be." He dropped his head, and went on +peeling the potatoes, and not another word could they get out of him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Dan, "a heap o' things'll hev to come abaout 'fore Harve's +any master o' mine; but I'm glad the doctor ain't choosen to mark him +for a Jonah. Now, I mistrust Uncle Salters fer the Jonerest Jonah in +the Fleet regardin' his own special luck. Dunno ef it's spreadin' +same's smallpox. He ought to be on the <I>Carrie Pitman</I>. That boat's her +own Jonah, sure—crews an' gear made no differ to her driftin'. Jiminy +Christmas! She'll etch loose in a flat ca'am." +</P> + +<P> +"We're well clear o' the Fleet, anyway," said Disko. "<I>Carrie Pitman</I> an' +all." There was a rapping on the deck. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Salters has catched his luck," said Dan as his father departed. +</P> + +<P> +"It's blown clear," Disko cried, and all the foc'sle tumbled up for a +bit of fresh air. The fog had gone, but a sullen sea ran in great +rollers behind it. The <I>We're Here</I> slid, as it were, into long, sunk +avenues and ditches which felt quite sheltered and homelike if they +would only stay still; but they changed without rest or mercy, and +flung up the schooner to crown one peak of a thousand gray hills, while +the wind hooted through her rigging as she zigzagged down the slopes. +Far away a sea would burst into a sheet of foam, and the others would +follow suit as at a signal, till Harvey's eyes swam with the vision of +interlacing whites and grays. Four or five Mother Carey's chickens +stormed round in circles, shrieking as they swept past the bows. A +rain-squall or two strayed aimlessly over the hopeless waste, ran down +'wind and back again, and melted away. +</P> + +<P> +"Seems to me I saw somethin' flicker jest naow over yonder," said Uncle +Salters, pointing to the northeast. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't be any of the fleet," said Disko, peering under his eyebrows, a +hand on the foc'sle gangway as the solid bows hatcheted into the +troughs. "Sea's oilin' over dretful fast. Danny, don't you want to skip +up a piece an' see how aour trawl-buoy lays?" +</P> + +<P> +Danny, in his big boots, trotted rather than climbed up the main +rigging (this consumed Harvey with envy), hitched himself around the +reeling cross-trees, and let his eye rove till it caught the tiny black +buoy-flag on the shoulder of a mile-away swell. +</P> + +<P> +"She's all right," he hailed. "Sail O! Dead to the no'th'ard, comin' +down like smoke! Schooner she be, too." +</P> + +<P> +They waited yet another half-hour, the sky clearing in patches, with a +flicker of sickly sun from time to time that made patches of +olive-green water. Then a stump-foremast lifted, ducked, and +disappeared, to be followed on the next wave by a high stern with +old-fashioned wooden snail's-horn davits. The snails were red-tanned. +</P> + +<P> +"Frenchmen!" shouted Dan. "No, 'tain't, neither. Da-ad!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's no French," said Disko. "Salters, your blame luck holds +tighter'n a screw in a keg-head." +</P> + +<P> +"I've eyes. It's Uncle Abishai." +</P> + +<P> +"You can't nowise tell fer sure." +</P> + +<P> +"The head-king of all Jonahs," groaned Tom Platt. "Oh, Salters, +Salters, why wasn't you abed an' asleep?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could I tell?" said poor Salters, as the schooner swung up. +</P> + +<P> +She might have been the very Flying Dutchman, so foul, draggled, and +unkempt was every rope and stick aboard. Her old-style quarterdeck was +some or five feet high, and her rigging flew knotted and tangled like +weed at a wharf-end. She was running before the wind—yawing +frightfully—her staysail let down to act as a sort of extra +foresail,—"scandalized," they call it,—and her foreboom guyed out +over the side. Her bowsprit cocked up like an old-fashioned frigate's; +her jib-boom had been fished and spliced and nailed and clamped beyond +further repair; and as she hove herself forward, and sat down on her +broad tail, she looked for all the world like a blouzy, frouzy, bad old +woman sneering at a decent girl. +</P> + +<P> +"That's Abishai," said Salters. "Full o' gin an' Judique men, an' the +judgments o' Providence layin' fer him an' never takin' good holt He's +run in to bait, Miquelon way." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll run her under," said Long Jack. "That's no rig fer this weather." +</P> + +<P> +"Not he, 'r he'd'a done it long ago," Disko replied. "Looks 's if he +cal'lated to run us under. Ain't she daown by the head more 'n natural, +Tom Platt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ef it's his style o' loadin' her she ain't safe," said the sailor +slowly. "Ef she's spewed her oakum he'd better git to his pumps mighty +quick." +</P> + +<P> +The creature threshed up, wore round with a clatter and raffle, and lay +head to wind within ear-shot. +</P> + +<P> +A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, and a thick voice yelled +something Harvey could not understand. But Disko's face darkened. "He'd +resk every stick he hez to carry bad news. Says we're in fer a shift o' +wind. He's in fer worse. Abishai! Abi-shai!" He waved his arm up and +down with the gesture of a man at the pumps, and pointed forward. The +crew mocked him and laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Jounce ye, an' strip ye an' trip ye!" yelled Uncle Abishai. "A livin' +gale—a livin' gale. Yab! Cast up fer your last trip, all you +Gloucester haddocks. You won't see Gloucester no more, no more!" +</P> + +<P> +"Crazy full—as usual," said Tom Platt. "Wish he hadn't spied us, +though." +</P> + +<P> +She drifted out of hearing while the gray-head yelled something about a +dance at the Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc'sle. Harvey +shuddered. He had seen the sloven tilled decks and the savage-eyed crew. +</P> + +<P> +"An' that's a fine little floatin' hell fer her draught," said Long +Jack. "I wondher what mischief he's been at ashore." +</P> + +<P> +"He's a trawler," Dan explained to Harvey, "an' he runs in fer bait all +along the coast. Oh, no, not home, he don't go. He deals along the +south an' east shore up yonder." He nodded in the direction of the +pitiless Newfoundland beaches. "Dad won't never take me ashore there. +They're a mighty tough crowd—an' Abishai's the toughest. You saw his +boat? Well, she's nigh seventy year old, they say; the last o' the old +Marblehead heel-tappers. They don't make them quarterdecks any more. +Abishai don't use Marblehead, though. He ain't wanted there. He jes' +drif's araound, in debt, trawlin' an' cussin' like you've heard. Bin a +Jonah fer years an' years, he hez. 'Gits liquor frum the Feecamp boats +fer makin' spells an' selling winds an' such truck. Crazy, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +"'Twon't be any use underrunnin' the trawl to-night," said Tom Platt, +with quiet despair. "He come alongside special to cuss us. I'd give my +wage an' share to see him at the gangway o' the old Ohio 'fore we quit +floggin'. Jest abaout six dozen, an' Sam Mocatta layin' 'em on +criss-cross!" +</P> + +<P> +The disheveled "heel-tapper" danced drunkenly down wind, and all eyes +followed her. Suddenly the cook cried in his phonograph voice: "It wass +his own death made him speak so! He iss fey—fey, I tell you! Look!" +She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine three or four miles distant. +The patch dulled and faded out, and even as the light passed so did the +schooner. She dropped into a hollow and—was not. +</P> + +<P> +"Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!" shouted Disko, jumping aft. +"Drunk or sober, we've got to help 'em. Heave short and break her out! +Smart!" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey was thrown on the deck by the shock that followed the setting of +the jib and foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and to save +time, jerked the anchor bodily from the bottom, heaving in as they +moved away. This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted to except in +matters of life and death, and the little <I>We're Here</I> complained like +a human. They ran down to where Abishai's craft had vanished; found two +or three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a stove-in dory, but nothing +more. "Let 'em go," said Disko, though no one had hinted at picking +them up. "I wouldn't hev a match that belonged to Abishai aboard. Guess +she run clear under. Must ha' been spewin' her oakum fer a week, an' +they never thought to pump her. That's one more boat gone along o' +leavin' port all hands drunk." +</P> + +<P> +"Glory be!" said Long Jack. "We'd ha' been obliged to help 'em if they +was top o' water." +</P> + +<P> +"'Thinkin' o' that myself," said Tom Platt. +</P> + +<P> +"Fey! Fey!" said the cook, rolling his eyes. "He haas taken his own +luck with him." +</P> + +<P> +"Ver' good thing, I think, to tell the Fleet when we see. Eh, wha-at?" +said Manuel. "If you runna that way before the 'wind, and she work open +her seams—" He threw out his hands with an indescribable gesture, +while Penn sat down on the house and sobbed at the sheer horror and +pity of it all. Harvey could not realize that he had seen death on the +open waters, but he felt very sick. Then Dan went up the cross-trees, +and Disko steered them back to within sight of their own trawl-buoys +just before the fog blanketed the sea once again. +</P> + +<P> +"We go mighty quick hereabouts when we do go," was all he said to +Harvey. "You think on that fer a spell, young feller. That was liquor." +</P> + +<P> +"After dinner it was calm enough to fish from the decks,—Penn and +Uncle Salters were very zealous this time,—and the catch was large and +large fish. +</P> + +<P> +"Abishai has shorely took his luck with him," said Salters. "The wind +hain't backed ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl? I despise +superstition, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt insisted that they had much better haul the thing and make a +new berth. But the cook said: "The luck iss in two pieces. You will +find it so when you look. I know." This so tickled Long Jack that he +overbore Tom Platt and the two went out together. +</P> + +<P> +Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in on one side of the dory, +picking off the fish, rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to the +sea again—something like pinning and unpinning linen on a wash-line. +It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the long, sagging +line may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when they heard, "And naow +to thee, O Capting," booming out of the fog, the crew of the <I>We're +Here</I> took heart. The dory swirled alongside well loaded, Tom Platt +yelling for Manuel to act as relief-boat. +</P> + +<P> +"The luck's cut square in two pieces," said Long Jack, forking in the +fish, while Harvey stood open-mouthed at the skill with which the +plunging dory was saved from destruction. "One half was jest punkins. +Tom Platt wanted to haul her an' ha' done wid ut; but I said, "I'll +back the doctor that has the second sight, an' the other half come up +sagging full o' big uns. Hurry, Man'nle, an' bring's a tub o' bait. +There's luck afloat to-night." +</P> + +<P> +The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from which their brethren had +just been taken, and Tom Platt and Long Jack moved methodically up and +down the length of the trawl, the boat's nose surging under the wet +line of hooks, stripping the sea-cucumbers that they called pumpkins, +slatting off the fresh-caught cod against the gunwale, rebaiting, and +loading Manuel's dory till dusk. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take no risks," said Disko then—"not with him floatin' around so +near. Abishai won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories an' we'll +dress daown after supper." +</P> + +<P> +That was a mighty dressing-down, attended by three or four blowing +grampuses. It lasted till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice heard to +chuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish into the hold. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, you're haulin' ahead dretful fast," said Dan, when they ground +the knives after the men had turned in. "There's somethin' of a sea +to-night, an' I hain't heard you make no remarks on it." +</P> + +<P> +"Too busy," Harvey replied, testing a blade's edge. "Come to think of +it, she is a high-kicker." +</P> + +<P> +The little schooner was gambolling all around her anchor among the +silver-tipped waves. Backing with a start of affected surprise at the +sight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, while the +spray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with the report of a +gun. Shaking her head, she would say: "Well, I'm sorry I can't stay any +longer with you. I'm going North," and would sidle off, halting +suddenly with a dramatic rattle of her rigging. "As I was just going to +observe," she would begin, as gravely as a drunken man addressing a +lamp-post. The rest of the sentence (she acted her words in dumb-show, +of course) was lost in a fit of the fidgets, when she behaved like a +puppy chewing a string, a clumsy woman in a side-saddle, a hen with her +head cut off, or a cow stung by a hornet, exactly as the whims of the +sea took her. +</P> + +<P> +"See her sayin' her piece. She's Patrick Henry naow," said Dan. +</P> + +<P> +She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her jib-boom from +port to starboard. +</P> + +<P> +"But-ez-fer me, give me liberty-er give me-death!" +</P> + +<P> +Wop! She sat down in the moon-path on the water, courtesying with a +flourish of pride impressive enough had not the wheel-gear sniggered +mockingly in its box. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey laughed aloud. "Why, it's just as if she was alive," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin'," said Dan +enthusiastically, as he was slung across the deck in a batter of spray. +"Fends 'em off an' fends 'em off, an' 'Don't ye come anigh me,' she +sez. Look at her—jest look at her! Sakes! You should see one o' them +toothpicks histin' up her anchor on her spike outer fifteen-fathom +water." +</P> + +<P> +"What's a toothpick, Dan?" +</P> + +<P> +"Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats. Fine's a yacht forward, with +yacht sterns to 'em, an' spike bowsprits, an' a haouse that 'u'd take +our hold. I've heard that Burgess himself he made the models fer three +or four of 'em. Dad's sot agin 'em on account o' their pitchin' an' +joltin', but there's heaps o' money in 'em. Dad can find fish, but he +ain't no ways progressive—he don't go with the march o' the times. +They're chock-full o' labour-savin' jigs an' sech all. 'Ever seed the +Elector o' Gloucester? She's a daisy, ef she is a toothpick." +</P> + +<P> +"What do they cost, Dan?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hills o' dollars. Fifteen thousand, p'haps; more, mebbe. There's +gold-leaf an' everything you kin think of." Then to himself, half under +his breath, "Guess I'd call her Hattie S., too." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P> +That was the first of many talks with Dan, who told Harvey why he would +transfer his dory's name to the imaginary Burgess-modelled haddocker. +Harvey heard a good deal about the real Hattie at Gloucester; saw a +lock of her hair—which Dan, finding fair words of no avail, had +"hooked" as she sat in front of him at school that winter—and a +photograph. Hattie was about fourteen years old, with an awful contempt +for boys, and had been trampling on Dan's heart through the winter. All +this was revealed under oath of solemn secrecy on moonlit decks, in the +dead dark, or in choking fog; the whining wheel behind them, the +climbing deck before, and without, the unresting, clamorous sea. Once, +of course, as the boys came to know each other, there was a fight, +which raged from bow to stern till Penn came up and separated them, but +promised not to tell Disko, who thought fighting on watch rather worse +than sleeping. Harvey was no match for Dan physically, but it says a +great deal for his new training that he took his defeat and did not try +to get even with his conqueror by underhand methods. +</P> + +<P> +That was after he had been cured of a string of boils between his +elbows and wrists, where the wet jersey and oilskins cut into the +flesh. The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they were ripe +Dan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that now he was +a "blooded Banker"; the affliction of gurry-sores being the mark of the +caste that claimed him. +</P> + +<P> +Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head with too +much thinking. He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, and often +longed to see her and above all to tell her of this wonderful new life, +and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it. Otherwise he +preferred not to wonder too much how she was bearing the shock of his +supposed death. But one day, as he stood on the foc'sle ladder, guying +the cook, who had accused him and Dan of hooking fried pies, it +occurred to him that this was a vast improvement on being snubbed by +strangers in the smoking-room of a hired liner. +</P> + +<P> +He was a recognized part of the scheme of things on the We're Here; had +his place at the table and among the bunks; and could hold his own in +the long talks on stormy days, when the others were always ready to +listen to what they called his "fairy-tales" of his life ashore. It did +not take him more than two days and a quarter to feel that if he spoke +of his own life—it seemed very far away—no one except Dan (and even +Dan's belief was sorely tried) credited him. So he invented a friend, a +boy he had heard of, who drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, +Ohio, and ordered five suits of clothes at a time and led things called +"germans" at parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen, but +all the presents were solid silver. Salters protested that this kind of +yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, but +he listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the end +gave Harvey entirely new notions on "germans," clothes, cigarettes with +gold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, champagne, +card-playing, and hotel accommodation. Little by little he changed his +tone when speaking of his "friend," whom Long Jack had christened "the +Crazy Kid," "the Gilt-edged Baby," "the Suckin' Vanderpoop," and other +pet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would +even invent histories about silk pajamas and specially imported +neckwear, to the "friend's" discredit. Harvey was a very adaptable +person, with a keen eye and ear for every face and tone about him. +</P> + +<P> +Before long he knew where Disko kept the old greencrusted quadrant that +they called the "hog-yoke"—under the bed-bag in his bunk. When he took +the sun, and with the help of "The Old Farmer's" almanac found the +latitude, Harvey would jump down into the cabin and scratch the +reckoning and date with a nail on the rust of the stove-pipe. Now, the +chief engineer of the liner could have done no more, and no engineer of +thirty years' service could have assumed one half of the +ancient-mariner air with which Harvey, first careful to spit over the +side, made public the schooner's position for that day, and then and +not till then relieved Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette in +all these things. +</P> + +<P> +The said "hog-yoke," an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac, Blunt's +"Coast Pilot," and Bowditch's "Navigator" were all the weapons Disko +needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that was his spare eye. +Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platt taught him first how to +"fly the blue pigeon"; and, though his strength was not equal to +continuous sounding in any sort of a sea, for calm weather with a +seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko used him freely. As Dan said: +</P> + +<P> +"'Tain't soundin's dad wants. It's samples. Grease her up good, Harve." +Harvey would tallow the cup at the end, and carefully bring the sand, +shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to Disko, who fingered and +smelt it and gave judgment As has been said, when Disko thought of cod +he thought as a cod; and by some long-tested mixture of instinct and +experience, moved the We're Here from berth to berth, always with the +fish, as a blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseen board. +</P> + +<P> +But Disko's board was the Grand Bank—a triangle two hundred and fifty +miles on each side—a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank fog, +vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of +the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet. +</P> + +<P> +For days they worked in fog—Harvey at the bell—till, grown familiar +with the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, his heart rather in +his mouth. But the fog would not lift, and the fish were biting, and no +one can stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. Harvey devoted +himself to his lines and the gaff or gob-stick as Tom Platt called for +them; and they rowed back to the schooner guided by the bell and Tom's +instinct; Manuel's conch sounding thin and faint beside them. But it +was an unearthly experience, and, for the first time in a month, Harvey +dreamed of the shifting, smoking floors of water round the dory, the +lines that strayed away into nothing, and the air above that melted on +the sea below ten feet from his straining eyes. A few days later he was +out with Manuel on what should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the +whole length of the roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing, +and Harvey grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth was +lost. "Whale-hole," said Manuel, hauling in. "That is good joke on +Disko. Come!" and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and the +others jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them to the +edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand Bank. They +made another berth through the fog, and that time the hair of Harvey's +head stood up when he went out in Manuel's dory. A whiteness moved in +the whiteness of the fog with a breath like the breath of the grave, +and there was a roaring, a plunging, and spouting. It was his first +introduction to the dread summer berg of the Banks, and he cowered in +the bottom of the boat while Manuel laughed. There were days, though, +clear and soft and warm, when it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf +over the hand-lines and spank the drifting "sun-scalds" with an oar; +and there were days of light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steer +the schooner from one berth to another. +</P> + +<P> +It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his band +on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythed +back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, in spite of +Disko saying that it would break a snake's back to follow his wake. +But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were sailing on the wind +with the staysail—an old one, luckily—set, and Harvey jammed her +right into it to show Dan how completely he had mastered the art. The +foresail went over with a bang, and the foregaff stabbed and ripped +through the staysail, which was, of course, prevented from going over +by the mainstay. They lowered the wreck in awful silence, and Harvey +spent his leisure hours for the next few days under Tom Platt's lee, +learning to use a needle and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he +said, he had made the very same blunder himself in his early days. +</P> + +<P> +Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had combined +Disko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's swinging overhand when +the lines were hauled, Manuel's round-shouldered but effective stroke +in a dory, and Tom Platt's generous Ohio stride along the deck. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut," said Long Jack, when Harvey +was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. "I'll lay my wage an' +share 'tis more'n half play-actin' to him, an' he consates himself he's +a bowld mariner. Watch his little bit av a back now!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's the way we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they make +believe all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, an' +so till they die—pretendin' an' pretendin'. I done it on the old Ohio, +I know. Stood my first watch—harbor-watch—feelin' finer'n Farragut. +Dan's full o' the same kind o' notions. See 'em now, actin' to be +genewine moss-backs—very hair a rope-yarn an' blood Stockholm tar." He +spoke down the cabin stairs. "Guess you're mistook in your judgments +fer once, Disko. What in Rome made ye tell us all here the kid was +crazy?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wuz," Disko replied. "Crazy ez a loon when he come aboard; but I'll +say he's sobered up consid'ble sence. I cured him." +</P> + +<P> +"He yarns good," said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaout a kid +of his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up an' +down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppers to a crowd o' +sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. He +knows scores of 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"Guess he strikes 'em outen his own head," Disko called from the cabin, +where he was busy with the logbook. "Stands to reason that sort is all +made up. It don't take in no one but Dan, an' he laughs at it. I've +heard him, behind my back." +</P> + +<P> +"Yever hear what Sim'on Peter Ca'houn said when they whacked up a match +'twix' his sister Hitty an' Lorin' Jerauld, an' the boys put up that +joke on him daown to Georges?" drawled Uncle Salters, who was dripping +peaceably under the lee of the starboard dory-nest. +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a Cape Cod +man, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. Uncle Salters +went on with a rasping chuckie: +</P> + +<P> +"Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he said, an' he was jest right, abaout Lorin', +'Ha'af on the taown,' he said, 'an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' they +told me she's married a 'ich man.' Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he hedn't no +roof to his mouth, an' talked that way." +</P> + +<P> +"He didn't talk any Pennsylvania Dutch," Tom Platt replied. "You'd +better leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Ca'houns was gypsies +frum 'way back." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I don't profess to be any elocutionist," Salters said. "I'm +comin' to the moral o' things. That's jest abaout what aour Harve be! +Ha'af on the taown, an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' there's some'll +believe he's a rich man. Yah!" +</P> + +<P> +"Did ye ever think how sweet 'twould be to sail wid a full crew o' +Salterses?" said Long Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'af in the +muck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' makes out he's a fisherman!" +</P> + +<P> +A little laugh went round at Salters's expense. +</P> + +<P> +Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the log-book that he kept in a +hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that ran on, +page after soiled page: +</P> + +<P> +"July 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to northward. So +ends this day. +</P> + +<P> +"July 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish. +</P> + +<P> +"July 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N.E. and fine +weather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish. +</P> + +<P> +"July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So ends +this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478." +</P> + +<P> +They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed themselves if it +were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice he suggested +that, if it was not an impertinence, he thought he could preach a +little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his throat at the mere notion, +reminding him that he was not a preacher and mustn't think of such +things. "We'd hev him rememberin' Johns-town next," Salters explained, +"an' what would happen then?" so they compromised on his reading aloud +from a book called "Josephus." It was an old leather-bound volume, +smelling of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like the Bible, but +enlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it nearly +from cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a silent little body. He would +not utter a word for three days on end sometimes, though he played +checkers, listened to the songs, and laughed at the stories. When they +tried to stir him up, he would answer: "I don't wish to seem +unneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing to say. My head feels +quite empty. I've almost forgotten my name." He would turn to Uncle +Salters with an expectant smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Pennsylvania Pratt," Salters would shout "You'll fergit me next!" +</P> + +<P> +"No—never," Penn would say, shutting his lips firmly. "Pennsylvania +Pratt, of course," he would repeat over and over. Sometimes it was +Uncle Salters who forgot, and told him he was Haskins or Rich or +McVitty; but Penn was equally content—till next time. +</P> + +<P> +He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as a lost +child and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn liked the boy, +he relaxed, too. Salters was not an amiable person (He esteemed it his +business to keep the boys in order); and the first time Harvey, in fear +and trembling, on a still day, managed to shin up to the main-truck +(Dan was behind him ready to help), he esteemed it his duty to hang +Salters's big sea-boots up there—a sight of shame and derision to the +nearest schooner. With Disko, Harvey took no liberties; not even when +the old man dropped direct orders, and treated him, like the rest of +the crew, to "Don't you want to do so and so?" and "Guess you'd +better," and so forth. There was something about the clean-shaven lips +and the puckered corners of the eyes that was mightily sobering to +young blood. +</P> + +<P> +Disko showed him the meaning of the thumbed and pricked chart, which, +he said, laid over any government publication whatsoever; led him, +pencil in hand, from berth to berth over the whole string of banks—Le +Have, Western, Banquereau, St. Pierre, Green, and Grand—talking "cod" +meantime. Taught him, too, the principle on which the "hog-yoke" was +worked. +</P> + +<P> +In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head for figures, +and the notion of stealing information from one glimpse of the sullen +Bank sun appealed to all his keen wits. For other sea-matters his age +handicapped him. As Disko said, he should have begun when he was ten. +Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; and at +a pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry-score on his palm, could dress +down by sense of touch. He could steer in anything short of half a gale +from the feel of the wind on his face, humouring the <I>We're Here</I> just +when she needed it. These things he did as automatically as he skipped +about the rigging, or made his dory a part of his own will and body. +But he could not communicate his knowledge to Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +Still there was a good deal of general information flying about the +schooner on stormy days, when they lay up in the foc'sle or sat on the +cabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, leads, and rings rolled and +rattled in the pauses of the talk. Disko spoke of whaling voyages in +the Fifties; of great she-whales slain beside their young; of death +agonies on the black tossing seas, and blood that spurted forty feet in +the air; of boats smashed to splinters; of patent rockets that went off +wrong-end-first and bombarded the trembling crews; of cutting-in and +boiling-down, and that terrible "nip" of '71, when twelve hundred men +were made homeless on the ice in three days—wonderful tales, all true. +But more wonderful still were his stories of the cod, and how they +argued and reasoned on their private businesses deep down below the +keel. +</P> + +<P> +Long Jack's tastes ran more to the supernatural. He held them silent +with ghastly stories of the "Yo-hoes" on Monomoy Beach, that mock and +terrify lonely clam-diggers; of sand-walkers and dune-haunters who were +never properly buried; of hidden treasure on Fire Island guarded by the +spirits of Kidd's men; of ships that sailed in the fog straight over +Truro township; of that harbor in Maine where no one but a stranger +will lie at anchor twice in a certain place because of a dead crew who +row alongside at midnight with the anchor in the bow of their +old-fashioned boat, whistling—not calling, but whistling—for the soul +of the man who broke their rest. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey had a notion that the east coast of his native land, from Mount +Desert south, was populated chiefly by people who took their horses +there in the summer and entertained in country-houses with hardwood +floors and Vantine portires. He laughed at the ghost-tales,—not as +much as he would have done a month before,—but ended by sitting still +and shuddering. +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt dealt with his interminable trip round the Horn on the old +Ohio in flogging days, with a navy more extinct than the dodo—the navy +that passed away in the great war. He told them how red-hot shot are +dropped into a cannon, a wad of wet clay between them and the +cartridge; how they sizzle and reek when they strike wood, and how the +little ship-boys of the Miss Jim Buck hove water over them and shouted +to the fort to try again. And he told tales of blockade—long weeks of +swaying at anchor, varied only by the departure and return of steamers +that had used up their coal (there was no chance for the +sailing-ships); of gales and cold that kept two hundred men, night and +day, pounding and chopping at the ice on cable, blocks, and rigging, +when the galley was as red-hot as the fort's shot, and men drank cocoa +by the bucket. Tom Platt had no use for steam. His service closed when +that thing was comparatively new. He admitted that it was a specious +invention in time of peace, but looked hopefully for the day when sails +should come back again on ten-thousand-ton frigates with +hundred-and-ninety-foot booms. +</P> + +<P> +Manuel's talk was slow and gentle—all about pretty girls in Madeira +washing clothes in the dry beds of streams, by moonlight, under waving +bananas; legends of saints, and tales of queer dances or fights away in +the cold Newfoundland baiting-ports. Salters was mainly agricultural; +for, though he read "Josephus" and expounded it, his mission in life +was to prove the value of green manures, and specially of clover, +against every form of phosphate whatsoever. He grew libellous about +phosphates; he dragged greasy "Orange Judd" books from his bunk and +intoned them, wagging his finger at Harvey, to whom it was all Greek. +Little Penn was so genuinely pained when Harvey made fun of Salters's +lectures that the boy gave it up, and suffered in polite silence. That +was very good for Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +The cook naturally did not join in these conversations. As a rule, he +spoke only when it was absolutely necessary; but at times a queer gift +of speech descended on him, and he held forth, half in Gaelic, half in +broken English, an hour at a time. He was especially communicative with +the boys, and he never withdrew his prophecy that one day Harvey would +be Dan's master, and that he would see it. He told them of +mail-carrying in the winter up Cape Breton way, of the dog-train that +goes to Coudray, and of the ram-steamer <I>Arctic</I>, that breaks the ice +between the mainland and Prince Edward Island. Then he told them +stories that his mother had told him, of life far to the southward, +where water never froze; and he said that when he died his soul would +go to lie down on a warm white beach of sand with palm-trees waving +above. That seemed to the boys a very odd idea for a man who had never +seen a palm in his life. Then, too, regularly at each meal, he would +ask Harvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cooking was to his taste; and +this always made the "second half" laugh. Yet they had a great respect +for the cook's judgment, and in their hearts considered Harvey +something of a mascot by consequence. +</P> + +<P> +And while Harvey was taking in knowledge of new things at each pore and +hard health with every gulp of the good air, the We're Here went her +ways and did her business on the Bank, and the silvery-gray kenches of +well-pressed fish mounted higher and higher in the hold. No one day's +work was out of common, but the average days were many and close +together. +</P> + +<P> +Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was closely watched—"scrowged +upon," Dan called it—by his neighbours, but he had a very pretty knack +of giving them the slip through the curdling, glidy fog-banks. Disko +avoided company for two reasons. He wished to make his own +experiments, in the first place; and in the second, he objected to the +mixed gatherings of a fleet of all nations. The bulk of them were +mainly Gloucester boats, with a scattering from Provincetown, Harwich, +Chatham, and some of the Maine ports, but the crews drew from goodness +knows where. Risk breeds recklessness, and when greed is added there +are fine chances for every kind of accident in the crowded fleet, +which, like a mob of sheep, is huddled round some unrecognized leader. +"Let the two Jeraulds lead 'em," said Disko. "We're baound to lay among +'em for a spell on the Eastern Shoals; though ef luck holds, we won't +hev to lay long. Where we are naow, Harve, ain't considered noways good +graound." +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't it?" said Harvey, who was drawing water (he had learned just how +to wiggle the bucket), after an unusually long dressing-down. +"Shouldn't mind striking some poor ground for a change, then." +</P> + +<P> +"All the graound I want to see—don't want to strike her—is Eastern +Point," said Dan. "Say, Dad, it looks's if we wouldn't hev to lay +more'n two weeks on the Shoals. You'll meet all the comp'ny you want +then, Harve. That's the time we begin to work. No reg'lar meals fer no +one then. 'Mug-up when ye're hungry, an' sleep when ye can't keep +awake. Good job you wasn't picked up a month later than you was, or +we'd never ha' had you dressed in shape fer the Old Virgin." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey understood from the Eldridge chart that the Old Virgin and a +nest of curiously named shoals were the turning-point of the cruise, +and that with good luck they would wet the balance of their salt there. +But seeing the size of the Virgin (it was one tiny dot), he wondered +how even Disko with the hog-yoke and the lead could find her. He +learned later that Disko was entirely equal to that and any other +business and could even help others. A big four-by-five blackboard hung +in the cabin, and Harvey never understood the need of it till, after +some blinding thick days, they heard the unmelodious tooting of a +foot-power fog-horn—a machine whose note is as that of a consumptive +elephant. +</P> + +<P> +They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their foot to +save trouble. "Square-rigger bellowin' fer his latitude," said Long +Jack. The dripping red head-sails of a bark glided out of the fog, and +the <I>We're Here</I> rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand. +</P> + +<P> +The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings. +</P> + +<P> +"Frenchman," said Uncle Salters, scornfully. "Miquelon boat from St. +Malo." The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I'm 'most outer 'baccy, +too, Disko." +</P> + +<P> +"Same here," said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vous—backez vous! Standez +awayez, you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from—St. Malo, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet—St. Malo! St. Pierre et +Miquelon," cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps and laughing. +Then all together, "Bord! Bord!" +</P> + +<P> +"Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetch +anywheres, exceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six forty-nine's +good enough fer them; an' I guess it's abaout right, too." +</P> + +<P> +Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in the +main-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark. +</P> + +<P> +"Seems kinder uneighbourly to let 'em swedge off like this," Salters +suggested, feeling in his pockets. +</P> + +<P> +"Hev ye learned French then sence last trip?" said Disko. "I don't want +no more stone-ballast hove at us 'long o' your callin' Miquelon boats +'footy cochins,' same's you did off Le Have." +</P> + +<P> +"Harmon Rush he said that was the way to rise 'em. Plain United States +is good enough fer me. We're all dretful short on terbakker. Young +feller, don't you speak French?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," said Harvey valiantly; and he bawled: "Hi! Say! Arretez +vous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour tabac." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed again. +</P> + +<P> +"That hit 'em. Let's heave a dory over, anyway," said Tom Platt. "I +don't exactly hold no certificates on French, but I know another lingo +that goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, an' interpret." +</P> + +<P> +The raffle and confusion when he and Harvey were hauled up the bark's +black side was indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck round with +glaring coloured prints of the Virgin—the Virgin of Newfoundland, they +called her. Harvey found his French of no recognized Bank brand, and +his conversation was limited to nods and grins. But Tom Platt waved his +arms and got along swimmingly. The captain gave him a drink of +unspeakable gin, and the opera-comique crew, with their hairy throats, +red caps, and long knives, greeted him as a brother. Then the trade +began. They had tobacco, plenty of it—American, that had never paid +duty to France. They wanted chocolate and crackers. Harvey rowed back +to arrange with the cook and Disko, who owned the stores, and on his +return the cocoa-tins and cracker-bags were counted out by the +Frenchman's wheel. It looked like a piratical division of loot; but Tom +Platt came out of it roped with black pigtail and stuffed with cakes of +chewing and smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners swung off into +the mist, and the last Harvey heard was a gay chorus: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Par derriere chez ma tante,<BR> + Il'y a un bois joli,<BR> + Et le rossignol y chante<BR> + Et le jour et la nuit....<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Que donneriez vous, belle,<BR> + Qui l'amenerait ici?<BR> + Je donnerai Quebec,<BR> + Sorel et Saint Denis."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"How was it my French didn't go, and your sign-talk did?" Harvey +demanded when the barter had been distributed among the We're Heres. +</P> + +<P> +"Sign-talk!" Platt guffawed. "Well, yes, 'twas sign-talk, but a heap +older'n your French, Harve. Them French boats are chockfull o' +Freemasons, an' that's why." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you a Freemason, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Looks that way, don't it?" said the man-o'-war's man, stuffing his +pipe; and Harvey had another mystery of the deep sea to brood upon. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P> +The thing that struck him most was the exceedingly casual way in which +some craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fishing-boats, as Dan said, +were naturally dependent on the courtesy and wisdom of their +neighbours; but one expected better things of steamers. That was after +another interesting interview, when they had been chased for three +miles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, all boarded over on the upper +deck, that smelt like a thousand cattle-pens. A very excited officer +yelled at them through a speaking-trumpet, and she lay and lollopped +helplessly on the water while Disko ran the <I>We're Here</I> under her lee +and gave the skipper a piece of his mind. "Where might ye be—eh? Ye +don't deserve to be anywheres. You barn-yard tramps go hoggin' the road +on the high seas with no blame consideration fer your neighbours, an' +your eyes in your coffee-cups instid o' in your silly heads." +</P> + +<P> +At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something about +Disko's own eyes. "We haven't had an observation for three days. D'you +suppose we can run her blind?" he shouted. +</P> + +<P> +"Wa-al, I can," Disko retorted. "What's come to your lead? Et it? Can't +ye smell bottom, or are them cattle too rank?" +</P> + +<P> +"What d' ye feed 'em?" said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness, for +the smell of the pens woke all the farmer in him. "They say they fall +off dretful on a v'yage. Dunno as it's any o' my business, but I've a +kind o' notion that oil-cake broke small an' sprinkled—" +</P> + +<P> +"Thunder!" said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over the +side. "What asylum did they let His Whiskers out of?" +</P> + +<P> +"Young feller," Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging, "let me +tell yeou 'fore we go any further that I've—" +</P> + +<P> +The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense politeness. +"Excuse me," he said, "but I've asked for my reckoning. If the +agricultural person with the hair will kindly shut his head, the +sea-green barnacle with the wall-eye may per-haps condescend to +enlighten us." +</P> + +<P> +"Naow you've made a show o' me, Salters," said Disko, angrily. He could +not stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped out the +latitude and longitude without more lectures. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's a boat-load of lunatics, sure," said the skipper, as he +rang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into the +schooner. +</P> + +<P> +"Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him an' his crowd are +abaout the likeliest I've ever seen," said Disko as the <I>We're Here</I> +slid away. "I was jest givin' him my jedgment on lullsikin' round these +waters like a lost child, an' you must cut in with your fool farmin'. +Can't ye never keep things sep'rate?" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, winking one to the other and +full of joy; but Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till evening, +Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was practically a barn on blue +water, and Disko insisting that, even if this were the case, decency +and fisher-pride demanded that he should have kept "things sep'rate." +Long Jack stood it in silence for a time,—an angry skipper makes an +unhappy crew,—and then he spoke across the table after supper: +</P> + +<P> +"Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"They'll tell that tale agin us fer years—that's all," said Disko. +"Oil-cake sprinkled!" +</P> + +<P> +"With salt, o' course," said Salters, impenitent, reading the farming +reports from a week-old New York paper. +</P> + +<P> +"It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's," the skipper went on. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't see ut that way," said Long Jack, the peacemaker "Look at here, +Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather cud ha' +met a tramp an' over an' above givin' her her reckonin',—over an' +above that, I say,—cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent on the +management av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they will +not. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. Double +game an' twice runnin'—all to us." Dan kicked Harvey under the table, +and Harvey choked in his cup. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat +plastered, "I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' mine, 'fore I +spoke." +</P> + +<P> +"An' right there," said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline and +etiquette—"right there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked him to +stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to be +anyways—what it shouldn't." +</P> + +<P> +"Dunno but that's so," said Disko, who saw his way to an honourable +retreat from a fit of the dignities. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, o' course it was so," said Salters, "you bein' skipper here; an' +I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint—not from any leadin' or conviction, +but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two blame boys of +aours." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd done? +Always those blame boys. But I wouldn't have missed the show fer a +half-share in a halibutter," Dan whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate," said Disko, and the +light of new argument lit in Salters's eye as he crumbled cut plug into +his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a power av vartue in keepin' things sep'rate," said Long Jack, +intent on stilling the storm. "That's fwhat Steyning of Steyning and +Hare's f'und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on the <I>Marilla D. Kuhn</I>, +instid o' Cap. Newton that was took with inflam'try rheumatism an' +couldn't go. Counahan the Navigator we called him." +</P> + +<P> +"Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night 'thout a pond o' rum +somewheres in the manifest," said Tom Platt, playing up to the lead. +"He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston lookin' fer the +Lord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his merits. Sam Coy, up to +Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free fer a year or more on account +of his stories. +</P> + +<P> +"Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the <I>Caspar McVeagh</I> was built; but +he could niver keep things sep'rate. Steyning tuk him fer the reason +the thief tuk the hot stove—bekaze there was nothin' else that season. +The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he whacked up an iverlastin' +hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha' floated the <I>Marilla</I>, insurance an' +all, in fwhat they stowed aboard her. They lef' Boston Harbour for the +great Grand Bank wid a roarin' nor'wester behind 'em an' all hands full +to the bung. An' the hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did +they set, an' divil a rope did they lay hand to, till they'd seen the +bottom av a fifteen-gallon cask o' bug-juice. That was about wan week, +so far as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he told +ut!) All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an' the +<I>Marilla</I>—'twas summer, and they'd give her a foretopmast—struck her +gait and kept ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' thrembled over it +for a whoile, an' made out, betwix' that an' the chart an' the singin' +in his head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable Island, gettin' +along glorious, but speakin' nothin'. Then they broached another keg, +an' quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another spell. The <I>Marilla</I> she +lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her +lee-rail up to that time—hustlin' on one an' the same slant. But they +saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintly they obsarved +they'd bin out a matter o' fourteen days and they mis-trusted the Bank +has suspinded payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty fathom. 'That's +me,' sez Counahan. 'That's me iv'ry time! I've run her slat on the Bank +fer you, an' when we get thirty fathom we'll turn in like little men. +Counahan is the b'y,' sez he. 'Counahan the Navigator!' +</P> + +<P> +"Nex' cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan: 'Either the lead-line's tuk +to stretchin' or else the Bank's sunk.' +</P> + +<P> +"They hauled ut up, bein' just about in that state when ut seemed right +an' reasonable, and sat down on the deck countin' the knots, an' +gettin' her snarled up hijjus. The <I>Marilla</I> she'd struck her gait, an' +she hild ut, an' prisintly along came a tramp, an' Counahan spoke her. +</P> + +<P> +"'Hev ye seen any fishin'-boats now?' sez he, quite casual. +</P> + +<P> +"'There's lashin's av them off the Irish coast,' sez the tramp. +</P> + +<P> +"'Aah! go shake yerself,' sez Counahan. 'Fwhat have I to do wid the +Irish coast?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Then fwhat are ye doin' here?' sez the tramp. +</P> + +<P> +"'Sufferin' Christianity!' sez Counahan (he always said that whin his +pumps sucked an' he was not feelin' good)—'Sufferin' Christianity!' he +sez, 'where am I at?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Thirty-five mile west-sou'west o' Cape Clear,' sez the tramp, 'if +that's any consolation to you.' +</P> + +<P> +"Counahan fetched wan jump, four feet sivin inches, measured by the +cook. +</P> + +<P> +"'Consolation!' sez he, bould as brass. 'D'ye take me fer a dialect? +Thirty-five mile from Cape Clear, an' fourteen days from Boston Light. +Sufferin' Christianity, 'tis a record, an' by the same token I've a +mother to Skibbereen!' Think av ut! The gall av um! But ye see he could +niver keep things sep'rate. +</P> + +<P> +"The crew was mostly Cork an' Kerry men, barrin' one Marylander that +wanted to go back, but they called him a mutineer, an' they ran the +ould <I>Marilla</I> into Skibbereen, an' they had an illigant time visitin' +around with frinds on the ould sod fer a week. Thin they wint back, an' +it cost 'em two an' thirty days to beat to the Banks again. 'Twas +gettin' on towards fall, and grub was low, so Counahan ran her back to +Boston, wid no more bones to ut." +</P> + +<P> +"And what did the firm say?" Harvey demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"Fwhat could they? The fish was on the Banks, an' Counahan was at +T-wharf talkin' av his record trip east! They tuk their satisfaction +out av that, an' ut all came av not keepin' the crew and the rum +sep'rate in the first place; an' confusin' Skibbereen wid 'Queereau, in +the second. Counahan the Navigator, rest his sowl! He was an imprompju +citizen!" +</P> + +<P> +"Once I was in the Lucy Holmes," said Manuel, in his gentle voice. +"They not want any of her feesh in Gloucester. Eh, wha-at? Give us no +price. So we go across the water, and think to sell to some Fayal man. +Then it blow fresh, and we cannot see well. Eh, wha-at? Then it blow +some more fresh, and we go down below and drive very fast—no one know +where. By and by we see a land, and it get some hot. Then come two, +three nigger in a brick. Eh, wha-at? We ask where we are, and they +say—now, what you all think?" +</P> + +<P> +"Grand Canary," said Disko, after a moment. Manuel shook his head, +smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Blanco," said Tom Platt. +</P> + +<P> +"No. Worse than that. We was below Bezagos, and the brick she was from +Liberia! So we sell our feesh there! Not bad, so? Eh, wha-at?" +</P> + +<P> +"Can a schooner like this go right across to Africa?" said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"Go araound the Horn ef there's anythin' worth goin' fer, and the grub +holds aout," said Disko. "My father he run his packet, an' she was a +kind o' pinkey, abaout fifty ton, I guess,—the Rupert,—he run her +over to Greenland's icy mountains the year ha'af our fleet was tryin' +after cod there. An' what's more, he took my mother along with him,—to +show her haow the money was earned, I presoom,—an' they was all iced +up, an' I was born at Disko. Don't remember nothin' abaout it, o' +course. We come back when the ice eased in the spring, but they named +me fer the place. Kinder mean trick to put up on a baby, but we're all +baound to make mistakes in aour lives." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure! Sure!" said Salters, wagging his head. "All baound to make +mistakes, an' I tell you two boys here thet after you've made a +mistake—ye don't make fewer'n a hundred a day—the next best thing's +to own up to it like men." +</P> + +<P> +Long Jack winked one tremendous wink that embraced all hands except +Disko and Salters, and the incident was closed. +</P> + +<P> +Then they made berth after berth to the northward, the dories out +almost every day, running along the east edge of the Grand Bank in +thirty- to forty-fathom water, and fishing steadily. +</P> + +<P> +It was here Harvey first met the squid, who is one of the best +cod-baits, but uncertain in his moods. They were waked out of their +bunks one black night by yells of "Squid O!" from Salters, and for an +hour and a half every soul aboard hung over his squid-jig—a piece of +lead painted red and armed at the lower end with a circle of pins bent +backward like half-opened umbrella ribs. The squid—for some unknown +reason—likes, and wraps himself round, this thing, and is hauled up +ere he can escape from the pins. But as he leaves his home he squirts +first water and next ink into his captor's face; and it was curious to +see the men weaving their heads from side to side to dodge the shot. +They were as black as sweeps when the flurry ended; but a pile of fresh +squid lay on the deck, and the large cod thinks very well of a little +shiny piece of squid tentacle at the tip of a clam-baited hook. Next +day they caught many fish, and met the <I>Carrie Pitman</I>, to whom they +shouted their luck, and she wanted to trade—seven cod for one +fair-sized squid; but Disko would not agree at the price, and the +<I>Carrie</I> dropped sullenly to leeward and anchored half a mile away, in +the hope of striking on to some for herself. +</P> + +<P> +Disco said nothing till after supper, when he sent Dan and Manuel out +to buoy the <I>We're Here's</I> cable and announced his intention of turning +in with the broad-axe. Dan naturally repeated these remarks to the dory +from the <I>Carrie</I>, who wanted to know why they were buoying their cable, +since they were not on rocky bottom. +</P> + +<P> +"Dad sez he wouldn't trust a ferryboat within five mile o' you," Dan +howled cheerfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't he git out, then? Who's hinderin'?" said the other. +</P> + +<P> +"'Cause you've jest the same ez lee-bowed him, an' he don't take that +from any boat, not to speak o' sech a driftin' gurry-butt as you be." +</P> + +<P> +"She ain't driftin' any this trip," said the man angrily, for the +<I>Carrie Pitman</I> had an unsavory reputation for breaking her ground-tackle. +</P> + +<P> +"Then haow d'you make berths?" said Dan. "It's her best p'int o' +sailin'. An' ef she's quit driftin', what in thunder are you doin' with +a new jib-boom?" That shot went home. +</P> + +<P> +"Hey, you Portugoosy organ-grinder, take your monkey back to +Gloucester. Go back to school, Dan Troop," was the answer. +</P> + +<P> +"O-ver-alls! O-ver-alls!" yelled Dan, who knew that one of the <I>Carrie's</I> +crew had worked in an overall factory the winter before. +</P> + +<P> +"Shrimp! Gloucester shrimp! Git aout, you Novy!" +</P> + +<P> +To call a Gloucester man a Nova Scotian is not well received. Dan +answered in kind. +</P> + +<P> +"Novy yourself, ye Scrabble-towners! ye Chatham wreckers! Git aout with +your brick in your stockin'!" And the forces separated, but Chatham +had the worst of it. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew haow 'twould be," said Disko. "She's drawed the wind raound +already. Some one oughter put a deesist on thet packet. She'll snore +till midnight, an' jest when we're gettin' our sleep she'll strike +adrift. Good job we ain't crowded with craft hereaways. But I ain't +goin' to up anchor fer Chatham. She may hold." +</P> + +<P> +The wind, which had hauled round, rose at sundown and blew steadily. +There was not enough sea, though, to disturb even a dory's tackle, but +the <I>Carrie Pitman</I> was a law unto herself. At the end of the boys' watch +they heard the crack-crack-crack of a huge muzzle-loading revolver +aboard her. +</P> + +<P> +"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sung Dan. "Here she comes, Dad; butt-end +first, walkin' in her sleep same's she done on 'Queereau." +</P> + +<P> +Had she been any other boat Disko would have taken his chances, but now +he cut the cable as the <I>Carrie Pitman</I>, with all the North Atlantic to +play in, lurched down directly upon them. The <I>We're Here</I>, under jib +and riding-sail, gave her no more room than was absolutely +necessary,—Disko did not wish to spend a week hunting for his +cable,—but scuttled up into the wind as the <I>Carrie</I> passed within easy +hail, a silent and angry boat, at the mercy of a raking broadside of +Bank chaff. +</P> + +<P> +"Good evenin'," said Disko, raising his head-gear, "an' haow does your +garden grow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Go to Ohio an' hire a mule," said Uncle Salters. "We don't want no +farmers here." +</P> + +<P> +"Will I lend YOU my dory-anchor?" cried Long Jack. +</P> + +<P> +"Unship your rudder an' stick it in the mud," bawled Tom Platt. +</P> + +<P> +"Say!" Dan's voice rose shrill and high, as he stood on the wheel-box. +"Sa-ay! Is there a strike in the o-ver-all factory; or hev they hired +girls, ye Shackamaxons?" +</P> + +<P> +"Veer out the tiller-lines," cried Harvey, "and nail 'em to the +bottom!" That was a salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by Tom +Platt. Manuel leaned over the stern and yelled: "Johanna Morgan play +the organ! Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb with a gesture of +unspeakable contempt and derision, while little Penn covered himself +with glory by piping up: "Gee a little! Hssh! Come here. Haw!" +</P> + +<P> +They rode on their chain for the rest of the night, a short, snappy, +uneasy motion, as Harvey found, and wasted half the forenoon recovering +the cable. But the boys agreed the trouble was cheap at the price of +triumph and glory, and they thought with grief over all the beautiful +things that they might have said to the discomfited <I>Carrie</I>. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P> +Next day they fell in with more sails, all circling slowly from the +east northerly towards the west. But just when they expected to make +the shoals by the Virgin the fog shut down, and they anchored, +surrounded by the tinklings of invisible bells. There was not much +fishing, but occasionally dory met dory in the fog and exchanged news. +</P> + +<P> +That night, a little before dawn, Dan and Harvey, who had been sleeping +most of the day, tumbled out to "hook" fried pies. There was no reason +why they should not have taken them openly; but they tasted better so, +and it made the cook angry. The heat and smell below drove them on deck +with their plunder, and they found Disko at the bell, which he handed +over to Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep her goin'," said he. "I mistrust I hear somethin'. Ef it's +anything, I'm best where I am so's to get at things." +</P> + +<P> +It was a forlorn little jingle; the thick air seemed to pinch it off, +and in the pauses Harvey heard the muffled shriek of a liner's siren, +and he knew enough of the Banks to know what that meant. It came to +him, with horrible distinctness, how a boy in a cherry-coloured +jersey—he despised fancy blazers now with all a fisher-man's +contempt—how an ignorant, rowdy boy had once said it would be "great" +if a steamer ran down a fishing-boat. That boy had a stateroom with a +hot and cold bath, and spent ten minutes each morning picking over a +gilt-edged bill of fare. And that same boy—no, his very much older +brother—was up at four of the dim dawn in streaming, crackling +oilskins, hammering, literally for the dear life, on a bell smaller +than the steward's breakfast-bell, while somewhere close at hand a +thirty-foot steel stem was storming along at twenty miles an hour! The +bitterest thought of all was that there were folks asleep in dry, +upholstered cabins who would never learn that they had massacred a boat +before breakfast. So Harvey rang the bell. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, they slow daown one turn o' their blame propeller," said Dan, +applying himself to Manuel's conch, "fer to keep inside the law, an' +that's consolin' when we're all at the bottom. Hark to her! She's a +humper!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aooo-whoo-whupp!" went the siren. "Wingle-tingle-tink," went the bell. +"Graaa-ouch!" went the conch, while sea and sky were all mired up in +milky fog. Then Harvey felt that he was near a moving body, and found +himself looking up and up at the wet edge of a cliff-like bow, leaping, +it seemed, directly over the schooner. A jaunty little feather of water +curled in front of it, and as it lifted it showed a long ladder of +Roman numerals-XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., and so forth—on a +salmon-coloured gleaming side. It tilted forward and downward with a +heart-stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a line of +brass-rimmed port-holes flashed past; a jet of steam puffed in Harvey's +helplessly uplifted hands; a spout of hot water roared along the rail +of the <I>We're Here</I>, and the little schooner staggered and shook in a +rush of screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished in the fog. +Harvey got ready to faint or be sick, or both, when he heard a crack +like a trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in his ear, a +far-away telephone voice drawling: "Heave to! You've sunk us!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it us?" he gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're goin' to look," said Dan, running out +a dory. +</P> + +<P> +In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, and the cook were overside +and away. Presently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped clean across, +drifted past the bows. Then an empty green dory came by, knocking on +the <I>We're Here's</I> side, as though she wished to be taken in. Then +followed something, face down, in a blue jersey, but—it was not the +whole of a man. Penn changed colour and caught his breath with a click. +Harvey pounded despairingly at the bell, for he feared they might be +sunk at any minute, and he jumped at Dan's hail as the crew came back. +</P> + +<P> +"The Jennie Cushman," said Dan, hysterically, "cut clean in +half—graound up an' trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile away. +Dad's got the old man. There ain't any one else, and—there was his +son, too. Oh, Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I've seen—" He dropped +his head on his arms and sobbed while the others dragged a gray-headed +man aboard. +</P> + +<P> +"What did you pick me up for?" the stranger groaned. "Disko, what did +you pick me up for?" +</P> + +<P> +Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man's eyes were +wild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew. Then up and +spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or Rich or McVitty when +Uncle Salters forgot; and his face was changed on him from the face of +a fool to the countenance of an old, wise man, and he said in a strong +voice: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the +name of the Lord! I was—I am a minister of the Gospel. Leave him to +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then pray my son back to me! Pray +back a nine-thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of fish. If +you'd left me alone my widow could ha' gone on to the Provident an' +worked fer her board, an' never known—an' never known. Now I'll hev to +tell her." +</P> + +<P> +"There ain't nothin' to say," said Disko. "Better lie down a piece, +Jason Olley." +</P> + +<P> +When a man has lost his only son, his summer's work, and his means of +livelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give consolation. +</P> + +<P> +"All Gloucester men, wasn't they?" said Tom Platt, fiddling helplessly +with a dory-becket. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that don't make no odds," said Jason, wringing the wet from his +beard. "I'll be rowin' summer boarders araound East Gloucester this +fall." He rolled heavily to the rail, singing: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Happy birds that sing and fly<BR> + Round thine altars, O Most High!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Come with me. Come below!" said Penn, as though he had a right to give +orders. Their eyes met and fought for a quarter of a minute. +</P> + +<P> +"I dunno who you be, but I'll come," said Jason submissively. "Mebbe +I'll get back some o' the—some o' the-nine thousand dollars." Penn led +him into the cabin and slid the door behind. +</P> + +<P> +"That ain't Penn," cried Uncle Salters. "It's Jacob Boiler, an'—he's +remembered Johnstown! I never seed such eyes in any livin' man's head. +What's to do naow? What'll I do naow?" +</P> + +<P> +They could hear Penn's voice and Jason's together. Then Penn's went on +alone, and Salters slipped off his hat, for Penn was praying. Presently +the little man came up the steps, huge drops of sweat on his face, and +looked at the crew. Dan was still sobbing by the wheel. +</P> + +<P> +"He don't know us," Salters groaned. "It's all to do over again, +checkers and everything—an' what'll he say to me?" +</P> + +<P> +Penn spoke; they could hear that it was to strangers. "I have prayed," +said he. "Our people believe in prayer. I have prayed for the life of +this man's son. Mine were drowned before my eyes—she and my eldest +and—the others. Shall a man be more wise than his Maker? I prayed +never for their lives, but I have prayed for this man's son, and he +will surely be sent him." +</P> + +<P> +Salters looked pleadingly at Penn to see if he remembered. +</P> + +<P> +"How long have I been mad?" Penn asked suddenly. His mouth was +twitching. +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw, Penn! You weren't never mad," Salters began "Only a little +distracted like." +</P> + +<P> +"I saw the houses strike the bridge before the fires broke out. I do +not remember any more. How long ago is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" cried Dan, and Harvey whimpered +in sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +"Abaout five year," said Disko, in a shaking voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I have been a charge on some one for every day of that time. Who +was the man?" +</P> + +<P> +Disko pointed to Salters. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye hain't—ye hain't!" cried the sea-farmer, twisting his hands +together. "Ye've more'n earned your keep twice-told; an' there's money +owin' you, Penn, besides ha'af o' my quarter-share in the boat, which +is yours fer value received." +</P> + +<P> +"You are good men. I can see that in your faces. But—" +</P> + +<P> +"Mother av Mercy," whispered Long Jack, "an' he's been wid us all these +trips! He's clean bewitched." +</P> + +<P> +A schooner's bell struck up alongside, and a voice hailed through the +fog: "O Disko! 'Heard abaout the Jennie Cushman?" +</P> + +<P> +"They have found his son," cried Penn. "Stand you still and see the +salvation of the Lord!" +</P> + +<P> +"Got Jason aboard here," Disko answered, but his voice quavered. +"There—warn't any one else?" +</P> + +<P> +"We've fund one, though. 'Run acrost him snarled up in a mess o' lumber +thet might ha' bin a foc'sle. His head's cut some." +</P> + +<P> +"Who is he?" +</P> + +<P> +The <I>We're Here's</I> heart-beats answered one another. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess it's young Olley," the voice drawled. +</P> + +<P> +Penn raised his hands and said something in German. Harvey could have +sworn that a bright sun was shining upon his lifted face; but the drawl +went on: "Sa-ay! You fellers guyed us consid'rable t'other night." +</P> + +<P> +"We don't feel like guyin' any now," said Disko. +</P> + +<P> +"I know it; but to tell the honest truth we was kinder—kinder driftin' +when we run agin young Olley." +</P> + +<P> +It was the irrepressible <I>Carrie Pitman</I>, and a roar of unsteady laughter +went up from the deck of the <I>We're Here</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"Hedn't you 'baout's well send the old man aboard? We're runnin' in fer +more bait an' graound-tackle. Guess you won't want him, anyway, an' +this blame windlass work makes us short-handed. We'll take care of him. +He married my woman's aunt." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll give you anything in the boat," said Troop. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't want nothin', 'less, mebbe, an anchor that'll hold. Say! Young +Olley's gittin' kinder baulky an' excited. Send the old man along." +</P> + +<P> +Penn waked him from his stupor of despair, and Tom Platt rowed him +over. He went away without a word of thanks, not knowing what was to +come; and the fog closed over all. +</P> + +<P> +"And now," said Penn, drawing a deep breath as though about to preach. +"And now"—the erect body sank like a sword driven home into the +scabbard; the light faded from the overbright eyes; the voice returned +to its usual pitiful little titter—"and now," said Pennsylvania Pratt, +"do you think it's too early for a little game of checkers, Mr. +Salters?" +</P> + +<P> +"The very thing—the very thing I was goin' to say myself," cried +Salters promptly. "It beats all, Penn, how ye git on to what's in a +man's mind." +</P> + +<P> +The little fellow blushed and meekly followed Salters forward. +</P> + +<P> +"Up anchor! Hurry! Let's quit these crazy waters," shouted Disko, and +never was he more swiftly obeyed. +</P> + +<P> +"Now what in creation d'ye suppose is the meanin' o' that all?" said +Long Jack, when they were working through the fog once more, damp, +dripping, and bewildered. +</P> + +<P> +"The way I sense it," said Disko, at the wheel, "is this: The Jennie +Cushman business comin' on an empty stummick—" +</P> + +<P> +"H-he saw one of them go by," sobbed Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"An' that, o' course, kinder hove him outer water, julluk runnin' a +craft ashore; hove him right aout, I take it, to rememberin' Johnstown +an' Jacob Boiler an' such-like reminiscences. Well, consolin' Jason +there held him up a piece, same's shorin' up a boat. Then, bein' weak, +them props slipped an' slipped, an' he slided down the ways, an' naow +he's water-borne agin. That's haow I sense it." +</P> + +<P> +They decided that Disko was entirely correct. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twould ha' bruk Salters all up," said Long Jack, "if Penn had stayed +Jacob Boilerin'. Did ye see his face when Penn asked who he'd been +charged on all these years? How is ut, Salters?" +</P> + +<P> +"Asleep—dead asleep. Turned in like a child," Salters replied, +tiptoeing aft. "There won't be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did ye +ever see sech a gift in prayer? He everlastin'ly hiked young Olley +outer the ocean. Thet's my belief. Jason was tur'ble praoud of his boy, +an' I mistrusted all along 'twas a jedgment on worshippin' vain idols." +</P> + +<P> +"There's others jes as sot," said Disko. +</P> + +<P> +"That's difrunt," Salters retorted quickly. "Penn's not all caulked, +an' I ain't only but doin' my duty by him." +</P> + +<P> +They waited, those hungry men, three hours, till Penn reappeared with a +smooth face and a blank mind. He said he believed that he had been +dreaming. Then he wanted to know why they were so silent, and they +could not tell him. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the next three or four days; and +when they could not go out, turned them into the hold to stack the +ship's stores into smaller compass, to make more room for the fish. The +packed mass ran from the cabin partition to the sliding door behind the +foc'sle stove; and Disko showed how there is great art in stowing cargo +so as to bring a schooner to her best draft. The crew were thus kept +lively till they recovered their spirits; and Harvey was tickled with a +rope's end by Long Jack for being, as the Galway man said, "sorrowful +as a sick cat over fwhat couldn't be helped." He did a great deal of +thinking in those weary days, and told Dan what he thought, and Dan +agreed with him—even to the extent of asking for fried pies instead of +hooking them. +</P> + +<P> +But a week later the two nearly upset the Hattie S. in a wild attempt +to stab a shark with an old bayonet tied to a stick. The grim brute +rubbed alongside the dory begging for small fish, and between the three +of them it was a mercy they all got off alive. +</P> + +<P> +At last, after playing blindman's-buff in the fog, there came a morning +when Disko shouted down the foc'sle: "Hurry, boys! We're in taown!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<P> +To the end of his days, Harvey will never forget that sight. The sun +was just clear of the horizon they had not seen for nearly a week, and +his low red light struck into the riding-sails of three fleets of +anchored schooners—one to the north, one to the westward, and one to +the south. There must have been nearly a hundred of them, of every +possible make and build, with, far away, a square-rigged Frenchman, all +bowing and courtesying one to the other. From every boat dories were +dropping away like bees from a crowded hive, and the clamour of voices, +the rattling of ropes and blocks, and the splash of the oars carried +for miles across the heaving water. The sails turned all colours, +black, pearly-gray, and white, as the sun mounted; and more boats swung +up through the mists to the southward. +</P> + +<P> +The dories gathered in clusters, separated, reformed, and broke again, +all heading one way; while men hailed and whistled and cat-called and +sang, and the water was speckled with rubbish thrown overboard. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a town," said Harvey. "Disko was right. It IS a town!" +</P> + +<P> +"I've seen smaller," said Disko. "There's about a thousand men here; +an' yonder's the Virgin." He pointed to a vacant space of greenish sea, +where there were no dories. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>We're Here</I> skirted round the northern squadron, Disko waving his +hand to friend after friend, and anchored as nearly as a racing yacht +at the end of the season. The Bank fleet pass good seamanship in +silence; but a bungler is jeered all along the line. +</P> + +<P> +"Jest in time fer the caplin," cried the Mary Chilton. +</P> + +<P> +"'Salt 'most wet?" asked the King Philip. +</P> + +<P> +"Hey, Tom Platt! Come t' supper to-night?" said the Henry Clay; and so +questions and answers flew back and forth. Men had met one another +before, dory-fishing in the fog, and there is no place for gossip like +the Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about Harvey's rescue, and +asked if he were worth his salt yet. The young bloods jested with Dan, +who had a lively tongue of his own, and inquired after their health by +the town-nicknames they least liked. Manuel's countrymen jabbered at +him in their own language; and even the silent cook was seen riding the +jib-boom and shouting Gaelic to a friend as black as himself. After +they had buoyed the cable—all around the Virgin is rocky bottom, and +carelessness means chafed ground-tackle and danger from drifting—after +they had buoyed the cable, their dories went forth to join the mob of +boats anchored about a mile away. The schooners rocked and dipped at a +safe distance, like mother ducks watching their brood, while the dories +behaved like mannerless ducklings. +</P> + +<P> +As they drove into the confusion, boat banging boat, Harvey's ears +tingled at the comments on his rowing. Every dialect from Labrador to +Long Island, with Portuguese, Neapolitan, Lingua Franca, French, and +Gaelic, with songs and shoutings and new oaths, rattled round him, and +he seemed to be the butt of it all. For the first time in his life he +felt shy—perhaps that came from living so long with only the <I>We're +Heres</I>—among the scores of wild faces that rose and fell with the +reeling small craft. A gentle, breathing swell, three furlongs from +trough to barrel, would quietly shoulder up a string of variously +painted dories. They hung for an instant, a wonderful frieze against +the sky-line, and their men pointed and hailed. Next moment the open +mouths, waving arms, and bare chests disappeared, while on another +swell came up an entirely new line of characters like paper figures in +a toy theatre. So Harvey stared. "Watch out!" said Dan, flourishing a +dip-net "When I tell you dip, you dip. The caplin'll school any time +from naow on. Where'll we lay, Tom Platt?" +</P> + +<P> +Pushing, shoving, and hauling, greeting old friends here and warning +old enemies there, Commodore Tom Platt led his little fleet well to +leeward of the general crowd, and immediately three or four men began +to haul on their anchors with intent to lee-bow the <I>We're Heres</I>. But +a yell of laughter went up as a dory shot from her station with +exceeding speed, its occupant pulling madly on the roding. +</P> + +<P> +"Give her slack!" roared twenty voices. "Let him shake it out." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" said Harvey, as the boat flashed away to the +southward. "He's anchored, isn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Anchored, sure enough, but his graound-tackle's kinder shifty," said +Dan, laughing. "Whale's fouled it. . . . Dip Harve! Here they come!" +</P> + +<P> +The sea round them clouded and darkened, and then frizzed up in showers +of tiny silver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the cod +began to leap like trout in May; while behind the cod three or four +broad gray-backs broke the water into boils. +</P> + +<P> +Then everybody shouted and tried to haul up his anchor to get among the +school, and fouled his neighbour's line and said what was in his heart, +and dipped furiously with his dip-net, and shrieked cautions and advice +to his companions, while the deep fizzed like freshly opened +soda-water, and cod, men, and whales together flung in upon the +luckless bait. Harvey was nearly knocked overboard by the handle of +Dan's net. But in all the wild tumult he noticed, and never forgot, the +wicked, set little eye—something like a circus elephant's eye—of a +whale that drove along almost level with the water, and, so he said, +winked at him. Three boats found their rodings fouled by these reckless +mid-sea hunters, and were towed half a mile ere their horses shook the +line free. +</P> + +<P> +Then the caplin moved off, and five minutes later there was no sound +except the splash of the sinkers overside, the flapping of the cod, and +the whack of the muckles as the men stunned them. It was wonderful +fishing. Harvey could see the glimmering cod below, swimming slowly in +droves, biting as steadily as they swam. Bank law strictly forbids more +than one hook on one line when the dories are on the Virgin or the +Eastern Shoals; but so close lay the boats that even single hooks +snarled, and Harvey found himself in hot argument with a gentle, hairy +Newfoundlander on one side and a howling Portuguese on the other. +</P> + +<P> +Worse than any tangle of fishing-lines was the confusion of the +dory-rodings below water. Each man had anchored where it seemed good to +him, drifting and rowing round his fixed point. As the fish struck on +less quickly, each man wanted to haul up and get to better ground; but +every third man found himself intimately connected with some four or +five neighbours. To cut another's roding is crime unspeakable on the +Banks; yet it was done, and done without detection, three or four times +that day. Tom Platt caught a Maine man in the black act and knocked him +over the gunwale with an oar, and Manuel served a fellow-countryman in +the same way. But Harvey's anchor-line was cut, and so was Penn's, and +they were turned into relief-boats to carry fish to the <I>We're Here</I> as +the dories filled. The caplin schooled once more at twilight, when the +mad clamour was repeated; and at dusk they rowed back to dress down by +the light of kerosene-lamps on the edge of the pen. +</P> + +<P> +It was a huge pile, and they went to sleep while they were dressing. +Next day several boats fished right above the cap of the Virgin; and +Harvey, with them, looked down on the very weed of that lonely rock, +which rises to within twenty feet of the surface. The cod were there in +legions, marching solemnly over the leathery kelp. When they bit, they +bit all together; and so when they stopped. There was a slack time at +noon, and the dories began to search for amusement. It was Dan who +sighted the Hope Of Prague just coming up, and as her boats joined the +company they were greeted with the question: "Who's the meanest man in +the Fleet?" +</P> + +<P> +Three hundred voices answered cheerily: "Nick Bra-ady." It sounded like +an organ chant. +</P> + +<P> +"Who stole the lampwicks?" That was Dan's contribution. +</P> + +<P> +"Nick Bra-ady," sang the boats. +</P> + +<P> +"Who biled the salt bait fer soup?" This was an unknown backbiter a +quarter of a mile away. +</P> + +<P> +Again the joyful chorus. Now, Brady was not especially mean, but he had +that reputation, and the Fleet made the most of it. Then they +discovered a man from a Truro boat who, six years before, had been +convicted of using a tackle with five or six hooks—a "scrowger," they +call it—in the Shoals. Naturally, he had been christened "Scrowger +Jim"; and though he had hidden himself on the Georges ever since, he +found his honours waiting for him full blown. They took it up in a sort +of firecracker chorus: "Jim! O Jim! Jim! O Jim! Sssscrowger Jim!" That +pleased everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man—he had been making +it up all day, and talked about it for weeks—sang, "The <I>Carrie +Pitman's</I> anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that they +were indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how he was +off for beans, because even poets must not have things all their own +way. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. Was there a +careless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang about him and his +food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told at full length. +Had a man hooked tobacco from a mess-mate? He was named in meeting; the +name tossed from roller to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, Long +Jack's market-boat that he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh, +but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter's +views on manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey's +ladylike handling of the oar—all were laid before the public; and as +the fog fell around them in silvery sheets beneath the sun, the voices +sounded like a bench of invisible judges pronouncing sentence. +</P> + +<P> +The dories roved and fished and squabbled till a swell underran the +sea. Then they drew more apart to save their sides, and some one called +that if the swell continued the Virgin would break. A reckless Galway +man with his nephew denied this, hauled up anchor, and rowed over the +very rock itself. Many voices called them to come away, while others +dared them to hold on. As the smooth-backed rollers passed to the +southward, they hove the dory high and high into the mist, and dropped +her in ugly, sucking, dimpled water, where she spun round her anchor, +within a foot or two of the hidden rock. It was playing with death for +mere bravado; and the boats looked on in uneasy silence till Long Jack +rowed up behind his countrymen and quietly cut their roding. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't ye hear ut knockin'?" he cried. "Pull for you miserable lives! +Pull!" +</P> + +<P> +The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the next +swell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There was a +deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of +acres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal sea. +Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the Galway men held +their tongue. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't it elegant?" said Dan, bobbing like a young seal at home. +"She'll break about once every ha'af hour now, 'les the swell piles up +good. What's her reg'lar time when she's at work, Tom Platt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. Harve, you've seen the +greatest thing on the Banks; an' but for Long Jack you'd seen some dead +men too." +</P> + +<P> +There came a sound of merriment where the fog lay thicker and the +schooners were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously out of +the mist, and was received with shouts and cries of, "Come along, +darlin'," from the Irishry. +</P> + +<P> +"Another Frenchman?" said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"Hain't you eyes? She's a Baltimore boat; goin' in fear an' tremblin'," +said Dan. "We'll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess it's the fust +time her skipper ever met up with the Fleet this way." +</P> + +<P> +She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail was +looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind was +moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of the sea, +and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt figurehead, +looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross a +muddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. That was very much her +situation. She knew she was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the +Virgin, had caught the roar of it, and was, therefore, asking her way. +This is a small part of what she heard from the dancing dories: +</P> + +<P> +"The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin' of? 'This is Le Have on a Sunday +mornin'. Go home an' sober up." +</P> + +<P> +"Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an' tell 'em we're comin'." +</P> + +<P> +Half a dozen voices together, in a most tuneful chorus, as her stern +went down with a roll and a bubble into the troughs: +"Thay-aah-she-strikes!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You're on top of her now." +</P> + +<P> +"Daown! Hard daown! Let go everything!" +</P> + +<P> +"All hands to the pumps!" +</P> + +<P> +"Daown jib an' pole her!" +</P> + +<P> +Here the skipper lost his temper and said things. Instantly fishing was +suspended to answer him, and he heard many curious facts about his boat +and her next port of call. They asked him if he were insured; and +whence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it belonged to the +<I>Carrie Pitman</I>; they called his boat a mud-scow, and accused him of +dumping garbage to frighten the fish; they offered to tow him and +charge it to his wife; and one audacious youth slipped up almost under +the counter, smacked it with his open palm, and yelled: "Gid up, Buck!" +</P> + +<P> +The cook emptied a pan of ashes on him, and he replied with cod-heads. +The bark's crew fired small coal from the galley, and the dories +threatened to come aboard and "razee" her. They would have warned her +at once had she been in real peril; but, seeing her well clear of the +Virgin, they made the most of their chances. The fun was spoilt when +the rock spoke again, a half-mile to windward, and the tormented bark +set everything that would draw and went her ways; but the dories felt +that the honours lay with them. +</P> + +<P> +All that night the Virgin roared hoarsely; and next morning, over an +angry, white-headed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering masts +waiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove out till ten o'clock, when the +two Jeraulds of the Day's Eye, imagining a lull which did not exist, +set the example. In a minute half the boats were out and bobbing in the +cockly swells, but Troop kept the <I>We're Heres</I> at work dressing down. +He saw no sense in "dares"; and as the storm grew that evening they had +the pleasure of receiving wet strangers only too glad to make any +refuge in the gale. The boys stood by the dory-tackles with lanterns, +the men ready to haul, one eye cocked for the sweeping wave that would +make them drop everything and hold on for dear life. Out of the dark +would come a yell of "Dory, dory!" They would hook up and haul in a +drenched man and a half-sunk boat, till their decks were littered down +with nests of dories and the bunks were full. Five times in their watch +did Harvey, with Dan, jump at the foregaff where it lay lashed on the +boom, and cling with arms, legs, and teeth to rope and spar and sodden +canvas as a big wave filled the decks. One dory was smashed to pieces, +and the sea pitched the man head first on to the decks, cutting his +forehead open; and about dawn, when the racing seas glimmered white all +along their cold edges, another man, blue and ghastly, crawled in with +a broken hand, asking news of his brother. Seven extra mouths sat down +to breakfast: A Swede; a Chatham skipper; a boy from Hancock, Maine; +one Duxbury, and three Provincetown men. +</P> + +<P> +There was a general sorting out among the Fleet next day; and though no +one said anything, all ate with better appetites when boat after boat +reported full crews aboard. Only a couple of Portuguese and an old man +from Gloucester were drowned, but many were cut or bruised; and two +schooners had parted their tackle and been blown to the southward, +three days' sail. A man died on a Frenchman—it was the same bark that +had traded tobacco with the <I>We're Heres</I>. She slipped away quite +quietly one wet, white morning, moved to a patch of deep water, her +sails all hanging anyhow, and Harvey saw the funeral through Disko's +spy-glass. It was only an oblong bundle slid overside. They did not +seem to have any form of service, but in the night, at anchor, Harvey +heard them across the star-powdered black water, singing something that +sounded like a hymn. It went to a very slow tune. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "La brigantine<BR> + Qui va tourner,<BR> + Roule et s'incline<BR> + Pour m'entrainer.<BR> + Oh, Vierge Marie,<BR> + Pour moi priez Dieu!<BR> + Adieu, patrie;<BR> + Quebec, adieu!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Tom Platt visited her, because, he said, the dead man was his brother +as a Freemason. It came out that a wave had doubled the poor fellow +over the heel of the bowsprit and broken his back. The news spread like +a flash, for, contrary to general custom, the Frenchman held an auction +of the dead man's kit,—he had no friends at St Malo or Miquelon,—and +everything was spread out on the top of the house, from his red knitted +cap to the leather belt with the sheath-knife at the back. Dan and +Harvey were out on twenty-fathom water in the Hattie S., and naturally +rowed over to join the crowd. It was a long pull, and they stayed some +little time while Dan bought the knife, which had a curious brass +handle. When they dropped overside and pushed off into a drizzle of +rain and a lop of sea, it occurred to them that they might get into +trouble for neglecting the lines. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess 'twon't hurt us any to be warmed up," said Dan, shivering under +his oilskins, and they rowed on into the heart of a white fog, which, +as usual, dropped on them without warning. +</P> + +<P> +"There's too much blame tide hereabouts to trust to your instinks," he +said. "Heave over the anchor, Harve, and we'll fish a piece till the +thing lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. Three pound ain't any too much +in this water. See how she's tightened on her rodin' already." +</P> + +<P> +There was quite a little bubble at the bows, where some irresponsible +Bank current held the dory full stretch on her rope; but they could not +see a boat's length in any direction. Harvey turned up his collar and +bunched himself over his reel with the air of a wearied navigator. Fog +had no special terrors for him now. They fished a while in silence, and +found the cod struck on well. Then Dan drew the sheath-knife and tested +the edge of it on the gunwale. +</P> + +<P> +"That's a daisy," said Harvey. "How did you get it so cheap?" +</P> + +<P> +"On account o' their blame Cath'lic superstitions," said Dan, jabbing +with the bright blade. "They don't fancy takin' iron from off a dead +man, so to speak. 'See them Arichat Frenchmen step back when I bid?" +</P> + +<P> +"But an auction ain't taking anythink off a dead man. It's business." +</P> + +<P> +"We know it ain't, but there's no goin' in the teeth o' superstition. +That's one o' the advantages o' livin' in a progressive country." And +Dan began whistling: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Oh, Double Thatcher, how are you?<BR> + Now Eastern Point comes inter view.<BR> + The girls an' boys we soon shall see,<BR> + At anchor off Cape Ann!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't that Eastport man bid, then? He bought his boots. Ain't +Maine progressive?" +</P> + +<P> +"Maine? Pshaw! They don't know enough, or they hain't got money enough, +to paint their haouses in Maine. I've seen 'em. The Eastport man he +told me that the knife had been used—so the French captain told +him—used up on the French coast last year." +</P> + +<P> +"Cut a man? Heave 's the muckle." Harvey hauled in his fish, rebaited, +and threw over. +</P> + +<P> +"Killed him! Course, when I heard that I was keener'n ever to get it." +</P> + +<P> +"Christmas! I didn't know it," said Harvey, turning round. "I'll give +you a dollar for it when I—get my wages. Say, I'll give you two +dollars." +</P> + +<P> +"Honest? D'you like it as much as all that?" said Dan, flushing. "Well, +to tell the truth, I kinder got it for you—to give; but I didn't let +on till I saw how you'd take it. It's yours and welcome, Harve, because +we're dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an' so followin'. Catch +a-holt!" +</P> + +<P> +He held it out, belt and all. +</P> + +<P> +"But look at here. Dan, I don't see—" +</P> + +<P> +"Take it. 'Tain't no use to me. I wish you to hev it." The temptation +was irresistible. "Dan, you're a white man," said Harvey. "I'll keep it +as long as I live." +</P> + +<P> +"That's good hearin'," said Dan, with a pleasant laugh; and then, +anxious to change the subject: "'Look's if your line was fast to +somethin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Fouled, I guess," said Harve, tugging. Before he pulled up he fastened +the belt round him, and with deep delight heard the tip of the sheath +click on the thwart. "Concern the thing!" he cried. "She acts as though +she were on strawberry-bottom. It's all sand here, ain't it?" +</P> + +<P> +Dan reached over and gave a judgmatic tweak. "Hollbut'll act that way +'f he's sulky. Thet's no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once or twice. She +gives, sure. Guess we'd better haul up an' make certain." +</P> + +<P> +They pulled together, making fast at each turn on the cleats, and the +hidden weight rose sluggishly. +</P> + +<P> +"Prize, oh! Haul!" shouted Dan, but the shout ended in a shrill, double +shriek of horror, for out of the sea came the body of the dead +Frenchman buried two days before! The hook had caught him under the +right armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and shoulders +above water. His arms were tied to his side, and—he had no face. The +boys fell over each other in a heap at the bottom of the dory, and +there they lay while the thing bobbed alongside, held on the shortened +line. +</P> + +<P> +"The tide—the tide brought him!" said Harvey with quivering lips, as +he fumbled at the clasp of the belt. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Harve!" groaned Dan, "be quick. He's come for it. Let +him have it. Take it off." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want it! I don't want it!" cried Harvey. "I can't find the +bu-buckle." +</P> + +<P> +"Quick, Harve! He's on your line!" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing the head that had no face +under its streaming hair. "He's fast still," he whispered to Dan, who +slipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt far +overside. The body shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously rose to +his knees, whiter than the fog. +</P> + +<P> +"He come for it. He come for it. I've seen a stale one hauled up on a +trawl and I didn't much care, but he come to us special." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish—I wish I hadn't taken the knife. Then he'd have come on your +line." +</P> + +<P> +"Dunno as thet would ha' made any differ. We're both scared out o' ten +years' growth. Oh, Harve, did ye see his head?" +</P> + +<P> +"Did I? I'll never forget it. But look at here, Dan; it couldn't have +been meant. It was only the tide." +</P> + +<P> +"Tide! He come for it, Harve. Why, they sunk him six miles to south'ard +o' the Fleet, an' we're two miles from where she's lyin' now. They told +me he was weighted with a fathom an' a half o' chain-cable." +</P> + +<P> +"Wonder what he did with the knife—up on the French coast?" +</P> + +<P> +"Something bad. 'Guess he's bound to take it with him to the Judgment, +an' so— What are you doin' with the fish?" +</P> + +<P> +"Heaving 'em overboard," said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"What for? We sha'n't eat 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care. I had to look at his face while I was takin' the belt +off. You can keep your catch if you like. I've no use for mine." +</P> + +<P> +Dan said nothing, but threw his fish over again. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess it's best to be on the safe side," he murmured at last. "I'd +give a month's pay if this fog 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fog +that ye don't see in clear weather—yo-hoes an' hollerers and such +like. I'm sorter relieved he come the way he did instid o' walkin'. He +might ha' walked." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't, Dan! We're right on top of him now. 'Wish I was safe aboard, +hem' pounded by Uncle Salters." +</P> + +<P> +"They'll be lookin' fer us in a little. Gimme the tooter." Dan took the +tin dinner-horn, but paused before he blew. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," said Harvey. "I don't want to stay here all night" +</P> + +<P> +"Question is, haow he'd take it. There was a man frum down the coast +told me once he was in a schooner where they darsen't ever blow a horn +to the dories, becaze the skipper—not the man he was with, but a +captain that had run her five years before—he'd drowned a boy +alongside in a drunk fit; an' ever after, that boy he'd row along-side +too and shout, 'Dory! dory!' with the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"Dory! dory!" a muffled voice cried through the fog. They cowered +again, and the horn dropped from Dan's hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on!" cried Harvey; "it's the cook." +</P> + +<P> +"Dunno what made me think o' thet fool tale, either," said Dan. "It's +the doctor, sure enough." +</P> + +<P> +"Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!" +</P> + +<P> +"We're here," sung both boys together. They heard oars, but could see +nothing till the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into them. +</P> + +<P> +"What iss happened?" said he. "You will be beaten at home." +</P> + +<P> +"Thet's what we want. Thet's what we're sufferin' for" said Dan. +"Anything homey's good enough fer us. We've had kinder depressin' +company." As the cook passed them a line, Dan told him the tale. +</P> + +<P> +"Yess! He come for hiss knife," was all he said at the end. +</P> + +<P> +Never had the little rocking <I>We're Here</I> looked so deliciously +home-like as when the cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them back to +her. There was a warm glow of light from the cabin and a satisfying +smell of food forward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko and the +others, all quite alive and solid, leaning over the rail and promising +them a first-class pounding. But the cook was a black; master of +strategy. He did not get the dories aboard till he had given the more +striking points of the tale, explaining as he backed and bumped round +the counter how Harvey was the mascot to destroy any possible bad luck. +So the boys came override as rather uncanny heroes, and every one asked +them questions instead of pounding them for making trouble. Little Penn +delivered quite a speech on the folly of superstitions; but public +opinion was against him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the most +excruciating ghost-stories, till nearly midnight. Under that influence +no one except Salters and Penn said anything about "idolatry," when the +cook put a lighted candle, a cake of flour and water, and a pinch of +salt on a shingle, and floated them out astern to keep the Frenchman +quiet in case he was still restless. Dan lit the candle because he had +bought the belt, and the cook grunted and muttered charms as long as he +could see the ducking point of flame. +</P> + +<P> +Said Harvey to Dan, as they turned in after watch: +</P> + +<P> +"How about progress and Catholic superstitions?" +</P> + +<P> +"Huh! I guess I'm as enlightened and progressive as the next man, but +when it comes to a dead St. Malo deck-hand scarin' a couple o' pore +boys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent knife, why, then, the cook can +take hold fer all o' me. I mistrust furriners, livin' or dead." +</P> + +<P> +Next morning all, except the cook, were rather ashamed of the +ceremonies, and went to work double tides, speaking gruffly to one +another. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>We're Here</I> was racing neck and neck for her last few loads +against the Parry Norman; and so close was the struggle that the Fleet +took side and betted tobacco. All hands worked at the lines or +dressing-down till they fell asleep where they stood—beginning before +dawn and ending when it was too dark to see. They even used the cook as +pitcher, and turned Harvey into the hold to pass salt, while Dan helped +to dress down. Luckily a Parry Norman man sprained his ankle falling +down the foc'sle, and the <I>We're Heres</I> gained. Harvey could not see +how one more fish could be crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Platt +stowed and stowed, and planked the mass down with big stones from the +ballast, and there was always "jest another day's work." Disko did not +tell them when all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft +the cabin and began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten in +the morning. The riding-sail was down and the main- and topsail were up +by noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home, envying their +good fortune. At last she cleared decks, hoisted her flag,—as is the +right of the first boat off the Banks,—up-anchored, and began to move. +Disko pretended that he wished to accomodate folk who had not sent in +their mail, and so worked her gracefully in and out among the +schooners. In reality, that was his little triumphant procession, and +for the fifth year running it showed what kind of mariner he was. Dan's +accordion and Tom Platt's fiddle supplied the music of the magic verse +you must not sing till all the salt is wet: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound!<BR> + All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound!<BR> + Bend, oh, bend your mains'l, we're back to Yankeeland—<BR> + With fifteen hunder' quintal,<BR> + An' fifteen hunder' quintal,<BR> + 'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal,<BR> + 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and the +Gloucester men shouted messages to their wives and womenfolks and +owners, while the <I>We're Here</I> finished the musical ride through the +Fleet, her headsails quivering like a man's hand when he raises it to +say good-by. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey very soon discovered that the <I>We're Here</I>, with her +riding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the <I>We're Here</I> headed +west by south under home canvas, were two very different boats. There +was a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" weather; he could feel +the dead weight in the hold flung forward mightily across the surges, +and the streaming line of bubbles overside made his eyes dizzy. +</P> + +<P> +Disko kept them busy fiddling with the sails; and when those were +flattened like a racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big topsail, +which was put over by hand every time she went about. In spare moments +they pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine, which does not improve +a cargo. But since there was no fishing, Harvey had time to look at the +sea from another point of view. The low-sided schooner was naturally on +most intimate terms with her surroundings. They saw little of the +horizon save when she topped a swell; and usually she was elbowing, +fidgeting, and coasting her steadfast way through gray, gray-blue, or +black hollows laced across and across with streaks of shivering foam; +or rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of some bigger +water-hill. It was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? I'm +only the little <I>We're Here</I>." Then she would slide away chuckling +softly to herself till she was brought up by some fresh obstacle. The +dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing hour after hour through +long days without noticing it; and Harvey, being anything but dull, +began to comprehend and enjoy the dry chorus of wave-tops turning over +with a sound of incessant tearing; the hurry of the winds working +across open spaces and herding the purple-blue cloud-shadows; the +splendid upheaval of the red sunrise; the folding and packing away of +the morning mists, wall after wall withdrawn across the white floors; +the salty glare and blaze of noon; the kiss of rain falling over +thousands of dead, flat square miles; the chilly blackening of +everything at the day's end; and the million wrinkles of the sea under +the moonlight, when the jib-boom solemnly poked at the low stars, and +Harvey went down to get a doughnut from the cook. +</P> + +<P> +But the best fun was when the boys were put on the wheel together, Tom +Platt within hail, and she cuddled her lee-rail down to the crashing +blue, and kept a little home-made rainbow arching unbroken over her +windlass. Then the jaws of the booms whined against the masts, and the +sheets creaked, and the sails filled with roaring; and when she slid +into a hollow she trampled like a woman tripped in her own silk dress, +and came out, her jib wet half-way up, yearning and peering for the +tall twin-lights of Thatcher's Island. +</P> + +<P> +They left the cold gray of the Bank sea, saw the lumber-ships making +for Quebec by the Straits of St. Lawrence, with the Jersey salt-brigs +from Spain and Sicily; found a friendly northeaster off Artimon Bank +that drove them within view of the East light of Sable Island,—a sight +Disko did not linger over,—and stayed with them past Western and Le +Have, to the northern fringe of George's. From there they picked up the +deeper water, and let her go merrily. +</P> + +<P> +"Hattie's pulling on the string," Dan confided to Harvey. "Hattie an' +Ma. Next Sunday you'll be hirin' a boy to throw water on the windows to +make ye go to sleep. 'Guess you'll keep with us till your folks come. +Do you know the best of gettin' ashore again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hot bath?" said Harvey. His eyebrows were all white with dried spray. +</P> + +<P> +"That's good, but a night-shirt's better. I've been dreamin' o' +night-shirts ever since we bent our mainsail. Ye can wiggle your toes +then. Ma'll hev a new one fer me, all washed soft. It's home, Harve. +It's home! Ye can sense it in the air. We're runnin' into the aidge of +a hot wave naow, an' I can smell the bayberries. Wonder if we'll get in +fer supper. Port a trifle." +</P> + +<P> +The hesitating sails flapped and lurched in the close air as the deep +smoothed out, blue and oily, round them. When they whistled for a wind +only the rain came in spiky rods, bubbling and drumming, and behind the +rain the thunder and the lightning of mid-August. They lay on the deck +with bare feet and arms, telling one another what they would order at +their first meal ashore; for now the land was in plain sight. A +Gloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, a man in the little pulpit +on the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, his bare head plastered down +with the wet. "And all's well!" he sang cheerily, as though he were +watch on a big liner. "Wouverman's waiting fer you, Disko. What's the +news o' the Fleet?" +</P> + +<P> +Disko shouted it and passed on, while the wild summer storm pounded +overhead and the lightning flickered along the capes from four +different quarters at once. It gave the low circle of hills round +Gloucester Harbor, Ten Pound Island, the fish-sheds, with the broken +line of house-roofs, and each spar and buoy on the water, in blinding +photographs that came and went a dozen times to the minute as the +<I>We're Here</I> crawled in on half-flood, and the whistling-buoy moaned +and mourned behind her. Then the storm died out in long, separated, +vicious dags of blue-white flame, followed by a single roar like the +roar of a mortar-battery, and the shaken air tingled under the stars as +it got back to silence. +</P> + +<P> +"The flag, the flag!" said Disko, suddenly, pointing upward. +</P> + +<P> +"What is ut?" said Long Jack. +</P> + +<P> +"Otto! Ha'af mast. They can see us frum shore now." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd clean forgot. He's no folk to Gloucester, has he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Girl he was goin' to be married to this fall." +</P> + +<P> +"Mary pity her!" said Long Jack, and lowered the little flag half-mast +for the sake of Otto, swept overboard in a gale off Le Have three +months before. +</P> + +<P> +Disko wiped the wet from his eyes and led the <I>We're Here</I> to +Wouverman's wharf, giving his orders in whispers, while she swung round +moored tugs and night-watchmen hailed her from the ends of inky-black +piers. Over and above the darkness and the mystery of the procession, +Harvey could feel the land close round him once more, with all its +thousands of people asleep, and the smell of earth after rain, and the +familiar noise of a switching-engine coughing to herself in a +freight-yard; and all those things made his heart beat and his throat +dry up as he stood by the foresheet. They heard the anchor-watch +snoring on a lighthouse-tug, nosed into a pocket of darkness where a +lantern glimmered on either side; somebody waked with a grunt, threw +them a rope, and they made fast to a silent wharf flanked with great +iron-roofed sheds fall of warm emptiness, and lay there without a sound. +</P> + +<P> +Then Harvey sat down by the wheel, and sobbed and sobbed as though his +heart would break, and a tall woman who had been sitting on a +weigh-scale dropped down into the schooner and kissed Dan once on the +cheek; for she was his mother, and she had seen the <I>We're Here</I> by the +lightning flashes. She took no notice of Harvey till he had recovered +himself a little and Disko had told her his story. Then they went to +Disko's house together as the dawn was breaking; and until the +telegraph office was open and he could wire his folk, Harvey Cheyne was +perhaps the loneliest boy in all America. But the curious thing was +that Disko and Dan seemed to think none the worse of him for crying. +</P> + +<P> +Wouverman was not ready for Disko's prices till Disko, sure that the +<I>We're Here</I> was at least a week ahead of any other Gloucester boat, +had given him a few days to swallow them; so all hands played about the +streets, and Long Jack stopped the Rocky Neck trolley, on principle, as +he said, till the conductor let him ride free. But Dan went about with +his freckled nose in the air, bung-full of mystery and most haughty to +his family. +</P> + +<P> +"Dan, I'll hev to lay inter you ef you act this way," said Troop, +pensively. "Sence we've come ashore this time you've bin a heap too +fresh." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd lay into him naow ef he was mine," said Uncle Salters, sourly. He +and Penn boarded with the Troops. +</P> + +<P> +"Oho!" said Dan, shuffling with the accordion round the backyard, ready +to leap the fence if the enemy advanced. "Dad, you're welcome to your +own judgment, but remember I've warned ye. Your own flesh an' blood ha' +warned ye! 'Tain't any o' my fault ef you're mistook, but I'll be on +deck to watch ye. An' ez fer yeou, Uncle Salters, Pharaoh's chief +butler ain't in it 'longside o' you! You watch aout an' wait. You'll be +plowed under like your own blamed clover; but me—Dan Troop—I'll +flourish like a green bay-tree because I warn't stuck on my own +opinion." +</P> + +<P> +Disko was smoking in all his shore dignity and a pair of beautiful +carpet-slippers. "You're gettin' ez crazy as poor Harve. You two go +araound gigglin' an' squinchin' an' kickin' each other under the table +till there's no peace in the haouse," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"There's goin' to be a heap less—fer some folks," Dan replied. "You +wait an' see." +</P> + +<P> +He and Harvey went out on the trolley to East Gloucester, where they +tramped through the bayberry bushes to the lighthouse, and lay down on +the big red boulders and laughed themselves hungry. Harvey had shown +Dan a telegram, and the two swore to keep silence till the shell burst. +</P> + +<P> +"Harve's folk?" said Dan, with an unruffled face after supper. "Well, I +guess they don't amount to much of anything, or we'd ha' heard from 'em +by naow. His pop keeps a kind o' store out West. Maybe he'll give you +'s much as five dollars, Dad." +</P> + +<P> +"What did I tell ye?" said Salters. "Don't sputter over your vittles, +Dan." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<P> +Whatever his private sorrows may be, a multimillionaire, like any other +workingman, should keep abreast of his business. Harvey Cheyne, senior, +had gone East late in June to meet a woman broken down, half mad, who +dreamed day and night of her son drowning in the gray seas. He had +surrounded her with doctors, trained nurses, massage-women, and even +faith-cure companions, but they were useless. Mrs. Cheyne lay still and +moaned, or talked of her boy by the hour together to any one who would +listen. Hope she had none, and who could offer it? All she needed was +assurance that drowning did not hurt; and her husband watched to guard +lest she should make the experiment. Of his own sorrow he spoke +little—hardly realized the depth of it till he caught himself asking +the calendar on his writing-desk, "What's the use of going on?" +</P> + +<P> +There had always lain a pleasant notion at the back of his head that, +some day, when he had rounded off everything and the boy had left +college, he would take his son to his heart and lead him into his +possessions. Then that boy, he argued, as busy fathers do, would +instantly become his companion, partner, and ally, and there would +follow splendid years of great works carried out together—the old head +backing the young fire. Now his boy was dead—lost at sea, as it might +have been a Swede sailor from one of Cheyne's big teaships; the wife +dying, or worse; he himself was trodden down by platoons of women and +doctors and maids and attendants; worried almost beyond endurance by +the shift and change of her poor restless whims; hopeless, with no +heart to meet his many enemies. +</P> + +<P> +He had taken the wife to his raw new palace in San Diego, where she and +her people occupied a wing of great price, and Cheyne, in a +veranda-room, between a secretary and a typewriter, who was also a +telegraphist, toiled along wearily from day to day. There was a war of +rates among four Western railroads in which he was supposed to be +interested; a devastating strike had developed in his lumber camps in +Oregon, and the legislature of the State of California, which has no +love for its makers, was preparing open war against him. +</P> + +<P> +Ordinarily he would have accepted battle ere it was offered, and have +waged a pleasant and unscrupulous campaign. But now he sat limply, his +soft black hat pushed forward on to his nose, his big body shrunk +inside his loose clothes, staring at his boots or the Chinese junks in +the bay, and assenting absently to the secretary's questions as he +opened the Saturday mail. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne was wondering how much it would cost to drop everything and pull +out. He carried huge insurances, could buy himself royal annuities, and +between one of his places in Colorado and a little society (that would +do the wife good), say in Washington and the South Carolina islands, a +man might forget plans that had come to nothing. On the other hand— +</P> + +<P> +The click of the typewriter stopped; the girl was looking at the +secretary, who had turned white. +</P> + +<P> +He passed Cheyne a telegram repeated from San Francisco: +</P> + +<P> +Picked up by fishing schooner <I>We're Here</I> having fallen off boat great +times on Banks fishing all well waiting Gloucester Mass care Disko +Troop for money or orders wire what shall do and how is Mama Harvey N. +Cheyne. +</P> + +<P> +The father let it fall, laid his head down on the roller-top of the +shut desk, and breathed heavily. The secretary ran for Mrs. Cheyne's +doctor who found Cheyne pacing to and fro. +</P> + +<P> +"What—what d' you think of it? Is it possible? Is there any meaning to +it? I can't quite make it out," he cried. +</P> + +<P> +"I can," said the doctor. "I lose seven thousand a year—that's all." +He thought of the struggling New York practice he had dropped at +Cheyne's imperious bidding, and returned the telegram with a sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"You mean you'd tell her? 'May be a fraud?" +</P> + +<P> +"What's the motive?" said the doctor, coolly. "Detection's too certain. +It's the boy sure enough." +</P> + +<P> +Enter a French maid, impudently, as an indispensable one who is kept on +only by large wages. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Cheyne she say you must come at once. She think you are seek." +</P> + +<P> +The master of thirty millions bowed his head meekly and followed +Suzanne; and a thin, high voice on the upper landing of the great +white-wood square staircase cried: "What is it? What has happened?" +</P> + +<P> +No doors could keep out the shriek that rang through the echoing house +a moment later, when her husband blurted out the news. +</P> + +<P> +"And that's all right," said the doctor, serenely, to the typewriter. +"About the only medical statement in novels with any truth to it is +that joy don't kill, Miss Kinzey." +</P> + +<P> +"I know it; but we've a heap to do first." Miss Kinzey was from +Milwaukee, somewhat direct of speech; and as her fancy leaned towards +the secretary, she divined there was work in hand. He was looking +earnestly at the vast roller-map of America on the wall. +</P> + +<P> +"Milsom, we're going right across. Private car—straight +through—Boston. Fix the connections," shouted Cheyne down the +staircase. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought so." +</P> + +<P> +The secretary turned to the typewriter, and their eyes met (out of that +was born a story—nothing to do with this story). She looked +inquiringly, doubtful of his resources. He signed to her to move to the +Morse as a general brings brigades into action. Then he swept his hand +musician-wise through his hair, regarded the ceiling, and set to work, +while Miss Kinzey's white fingers called up the Continent of America. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>K. H. Wade, Los Angeles—</I> The 'Constance' is at Los Angeles, isn't she, +Miss Kinzey?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yep." Miss Kinzey nodded between clicks as the secretary looked at his +watch. +</P> + +<P> +"Ready? <I>Send 'Constance,' private car, here, and arrange for special to +leave here Sunday in time to connect with New York Limited at Sixteenth +Street, Chicago, Tuesday next</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Click-click-click! "Couldn't you better that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not on those grades. That gives 'em sixty hours from here to Chicago. +They won't gain anything by taking a special east of that. Ready? <I>Also +arrange with Lake Shore and Michigan Southern to take 'Constance' on +New York Central and Hudson River Buffalo to Albany, and B. and A. the +same Albany to Boston. Indispensable I should reach Boston Wednesday +evening. Be sure nothing prevents. Have also wired Canniff, Toucey, and +Barnes.</I>—Sign, Cheyne." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Kinzey nodded, and the secretary went on. +</P> + +<P> +"Now then. Canniff, Toucey, and Barnes, of course. Ready? <I>Canniff, +Chicago. Please take my private car 'Constance' from Santa Fe at +Sixteenth Street next Tuesday p. m. on N. Y. Limited through to Buffalo +and deliver N. Y. C. for Albany.</I>—Ever bin to N' York, Miss Kinzey? +We'll go some day.—Ready? <I>Take car Buffalo to Albany on Limited +Tuesday p. m.</I> That's for Toucey." +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't bin to Noo York, but I know that!" with a toss of the head. +</P> + +<P> +"Beg pardon. Now, Boston and Albany, Barnes, same instructions from +Albany through to Boston. Leave three-five P. M. (you needn't wire +that); arrive nine-five P. M. Wednesday. That covers everything Wade +will do, but it pays to shake up the managers." +</P> + +<P> +"It's great," said Miss Kinzey, with a look of admiration. This was the +kind of man she understood and appreciated. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tisn't bad," said Milsom, modestly. "Now, any one but me would have +lost thirty hours and spent a week working out the run, instead of +handing him over to the Santa Fe straight through to Chicago." +</P> + +<P> +"But see here, about that Noo York Limited. Chauncey Depew himself +couldn't hitch his car to her," Miss Kinzey suggested, recovering +herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but this isn't Chauncey. It's Cheyne—lightning. It goes." +</P> + +<P> +"Even so. Guess we'd better wire the boy. You've forgotten that, +anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll ask." +</P> + +<P> +When he returned with the father's message bidding Harvey meet them in +Boston at an appointed hour, he found Miss Kinzey laughing over the +keys. Then Milsom laughed too, for the frantic clicks from Los Angeles +ran: "We want to know why-why-why? General uneasiness developed and +spreading." +</P> + +<P> +Ten minutes later Chicago appealed to Miss Kinzey in these words: "If +crime of century is maturing please warn friends in time. We are all +getting to cover here." +</P> + +<P> +This was capped by a message from Topeka (and wherein Topeka was +concerned even Milsom could not guess): "Don't shoot, Colonel. We'll +come down." +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne smiled grimly at the consternation of his enemies when the +telegrams were laid before him. "They think we're on the warpath. Tell +'em we don't feel like fighting just now, Milsom. Tell 'em what we're +going for. I guess you and Miss Kinsey had better come along, though it +isn't likely I shall do any business on the road. Tell 'em the +truth—for once." +</P> + +<P> +So the truth was told. Miss Kinzey clicked in the sentiment while the +secretary added the memorable quotation, "Let us have peace," and in +board rooms two thousand miles away the representatives of sixty-three +million dollars' worth of variously manipulated railroad interests +breathed more freely. Cheyne was flying to meet the only son, so +miraculously restored to him. The bear was seeking his cub, not the +bulls. Hard men who had their knives drawn to fight for their financial +lives put away the weapons and wished him God-speed, while half a dozen +panic-smitten tin-pot toads perked up their heads and spoke of the +wonderful things they would have done had not Cheyne buried the hatchet. +</P> + +<P> +It was a busy week-end among the wires; for now that their anxiety was +removed, men and cities hastened to accommodate. Los Angeles called to +San Diego and Barstow that the Southern California engineers might know +and be ready in their lonely roundhouses; Barstow passed the word to +the Atlantic and Pacific; and Albuquerque flung it the whole length of +the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe management, even into Chicago. An +engine, combination-car with crew, and the great and gilded "Constance" +private car were to be "expedited" over those two thousand three +hundred and fifty miles. The train would take precedence of one hundred +and seventy-seven others meeting and passing; despatchers and crews of +every one of those said trains must be notified. Sixteen locomotives, +sixteen engineers, and sixteen firemen would be needed—each and every +one the best available. Two and one half minutes would be allowed for +changing engines, three for watering, and two for coaling. "Warn the +men, and arrange tanks and chutes accordingly; for Harvey Cheyne is in +a hurry, a hurry, a hurry," sang the wires. "Forty miles an hour will +be expected, and division superintendents will accompany this special +over their respective divisions. From San Diego to Sixteenth Street, +Chicago, let the magic carpet be laid down. Hurry! Oh, hurry!" +</P> + +<P> +"It will be hot," said Cheyne, as they rolled out of San Diego in the +dawn of Sunday. "We're going to hurry, Mama, just as fast as ever we +can; but I really don't think there's any good of your putting on your +bonnet and gloves yet. You'd much better lie down and take your +medicine. I'd play you a game of dominoes, but it's Sunday." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be good. Oh, I will be good. Only—taking off my bonnet makes me +feel as if we'd never get there." +</P> + +<P> +"Try to sleep a little, Mama, and we'll be in Chicago before you know." +</P> + +<P> +"But it's Boston, Father. Tell them to hurry." +</P> + +<P> +The six-foot drivers were hammering their way to San Bernardino and the +Mohave wastes, but this was no grade for speed. That would come later. +The heat of the desert followed the heat of the hills as they turned +east to the Needles and the Colorado River. The car cracked in the +utter drouth and glare, and they put crushed ice to Mrs. Cheyne's neck, +and toiled up the long, long grades, past Ash Fork, towards Flagstaff, +where the forests and quarries are, under the dry, remote skies. The +needle of the speed-indicator flicked and wagged to and fro; the +cinders rattled on the roof, and a whirl of dust sucked after the +whirling wheels. The crew of the combination sat on their bunks, +panting in their shirtsleeves, and Cheyne found himself among them +shouting old, old stories of the railroad that every trainman knows, +above the roar of the car. He told them about his son, and how the sea +had given up its dead, and they nodded and spat and rejoiced with him; +asked after "her, back there," and whether she could stand it if the +engineer "let her out a piece," and Cheyne thought she could. +Accordingly, the great fire-horse was "let 'ut" from Flagstaff to +Winslow, till a division superintendent protested. +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, where the French maid, +sallow-white with fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only moaned a +little and begged her husband to bid them "hurry." And so they dropped +the dry sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona behind them, and grilled +on till the crash of the couplings and the wheeze of the brake-hose +told them they were at Coolidge by the Continental Divide. +</P> + +<P> +Three bold and experienced men—cool, confident, and dry when they +began; white, quivering, and wet when they finished their trick at +those terrible wheels—swung her over the great lift from Albuquerque +to Glorietta and beyond Springer, up and up to the Raton Tunnel on the +State line, whence they dropped rocking into La Junta, had sight of the +Arkansaw, and tore down the long slope to Dodge City, where Cheyne took +comfort once again from setting his watch an hour ahead. +</P> + +<P> +There was very little talk in the car. The secretary and typewriter sat +together on the stamped Spanish-leather cushions by the plate-glass +observation-window at the rear end, watching the surge and ripple of +the ties crowded back behind them, and, it is believed, making notes of +the scenery. Cheyne moved nervously between his own extravagant +gorgeousness and the naked necessity of the combination, an unlit cigar +in his teeth, till the pitying crews forgot that he was their tribal +enemy, and did their best to entertain him. +</P> + +<P> +At night the bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of all +the luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through the +emptiness of abject desolation. +</P> + +<P> +Now they heard the swish of a water-tank, and the guttural voice of a +Chinaman, the click-clink of hammers that tested the Krupp steel +wheels, and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear-platform; now the +solid crash of coal shot into the tender; and now a beating back of +noises as they flew past a waiting train. Now they looked out into +great abysses, a trestle purring beneath their tread, or up to rocks +that barred out half the stars. Now scour and ravine changed and rolled +back to jagged mountains on the horizon's edge, and now broke into +hills lower and lower, till at last came the true plains. +</P> + +<P> +At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in a copy of a Kansas paper +containing some sort of an interview with Harvey, who had evidently +fallen in with an enterprising reporter, telegraphed on from Boston. +The joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond question their boy, +and it soothed Mrs. Cheyne for a while. Her one word "hurry" was +conveyed by the crews to the engineers at Nickerson, Topeka, and +Marceline, where the grades are easy, and they brushed the Continent +behind them. Towns and villages were close together now, and a man +could feel here that he moved among people. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. What are we doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"The very best we can, Mama. There's no sense in getting in before the +Limited. We'd only have to wait." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care. I want to feel we're moving. Sit down and tell me the +miles." +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her (there were some miles which +stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changed +its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of a +giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat, +the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-hands +would not move, and when, oh, when would they be in Chicago? +</P> + +<P> +It is not true that, as they changed engines at Fort Madison, Cheyne +passed over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers an +endowment sufficient to enable them to fight him and his fellows on +equal terms for evermore. He paid his obligations to engineers and +firemen as he believed they deserved, and only his bank knows what he +gave the crews who had sympathized with him. It is on record that the +last crew took entire charge of switching operations at Sixteenth +Street, because "she" was in a doze at last, and Heaven was to help any +one who bumped her. +</P> + +<P> +Now the highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore and Michigan +Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of an autocrat, +and he does not approve of being told how to back up to a car. None the +less he handled the "Constance" as if she might have been a load of +dynamite, and when the crew rebuked him, they did it in whispers and +dumb show. +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw!" said the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe men, discussing life +later, "we weren't runnin' for a record. Harvey Cheyne's wife, she were +sick back, an' we didn't want to jounce her. 'Come to think of it, our +runnin' time from San Diego to Chicago was 57.54. You can tell that to +them Eastern way-trains. When we're tryin' for a record, we'll let you +know." +</P> + +<P> +To the Western man (though this would not please either city) Chicago +and Boston are cheek by jowl, and some railroads encourage the +delusion. The Limited whirled the "Constance" into Buffalo and the arms +of the New York Central and Hudson River (illustrious magnates with +white whiskers and gold charms on their watch-chains boarded her here +to talk a little business to Cheyne), who slid her gracefully into +Albany, where the Boston and Albany completed the run from tide-water +to tide-water—total time, eighty-seven hours and thirty-five minutes, +or three days, fifteen hours and one half. Harvey was waiting for them. +</P> + +<P> +After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food. They +feasted the returned prodigal behind drawn curtains, cut off in their +great happiness, while the trains roared in and out around them. Harvey +ate, drank, and enlarged on his adventures all in one breath, and when +he had a hand free his mother fondled it. His voice was thickened with +living in the open, salt air; his palms were rough and hard, his wrists +dotted with marks of gurrysores; and a fine full flavour of codfish +hung round rubber boots and blue jersey. +</P> + +<P> +The father, well used to judging men, looked at him keenly. He did not +know what enduring harm the boy might have taken. Indeed, he caught +himself thinking that he knew very little whatever of his son; but he +distinctly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced youth who took +delight in "calling down the old man," and reducing his mother to +tears—such a person as adds to the gaiety of public rooms and hotel +piazzas, where the ingenuous young of the wealthy play with or revile +the bell-boys. But this well set-up fisher-youth did not wriggle, +looked at him with eyes steady, clear, and unflinching, and spoke in a +tone distinctly, even startlingly, respectful. There was that in his +voice, too, which seemed to promise that the change might be permanent, +and that the new Harvey had come to stay. +</P> + +<P> +"Some one's been coercing him," thought Cheyne. "Now Constance would +never have allowed that. Don't see as Europe could have done it any +better." +</P> + +<P> +"But why didn't you tell this man, Troop, who you were?" the mother +repeated, when Harvey had expanded his story at least twice. +</P> + +<P> +"Disko Troop, dear. The best man that ever walked a deck. I don't care +who the next is." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you tell him to put you ashore? You know Papa would have +made it up to him ten times over." +</P> + +<P> +"I know it; but he thought I was crazy. I'm afraid I called him a thief +because I couldn't find the bills in my pocket." +</P> + +<P> +"A sailor found them by the flagstaff that—that night," sobbed Mrs. +Cheyne. +</P> + +<P> +"That explains it, then. I don't blame Troop any. I just said I +wouldn't work—on a Banker, too—and of course he hit me on the nose, +and oh! I bled like a stuck hog." +</P> + +<P> +"My poor darling! They must have abused you horribly." +</P> + +<P> +"Dunno quite. Well, after that, I saw a light." +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne slapped his leg and chuckled. This was going to be a boy after +his own hungry heart. He had never seen precisely that twinkle in +Harvey's eye before. +</P> + +<P> +"And the old man gave me ten and a half a month; he's paid me half now; +and I took hold with Dan and pitched right in. I can't do a man's work +yet. But I can handle a dory 'most as well as Dan, and I don't get +rattled in a fog—much; and I can take my trick in light winds—that's +steering, dear—and I can 'most bait up a trawl, and I know my ropes, +of course; and I can pitch fish till the cows come home, and I'm great +on old Josephus, and I'll show you how I can clear coffee with a piece +of fish-skin, and—I think I'll have another cup, please. Say, you've +no notion what a heap of work there is in ten and a half a month!" +</P> + +<P> +"I began with eight and a half, my son," said Cheyne. +</P> + +<P> +"That so? You never told me, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"You never asked, Harve. I'll tell you about it some day, if you care +to listen. Try a stuffed olive." +</P> + +<P> +"Troop says the most interesting thing in the world is to find out how +the next man gets his vittles. It's great to have a trimmed-up meal +again. We were well fed, though. But mug on the Banks. Disko fed us +first-class. He's a great man. And Dan—that's his son—Dan's my +partner. And there's Uncle Salters and his manures, an' he reads +Josephus. He's sure I'm crazy yet. And there's poor little Penn, and he +is crazy. You mustn't talk to him about Johnstown, because— +</P> + +<P> +"And, oh, you must know Tom Platt and Long Jack and Manuel. Manuel +saved my life. I'm sorry he's a Portuguee. He can't talk much, but he's +an everlasting musician. He found me struck adrift and drifting, and +hauled me in." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder your nervous system isn't completely wrecked," said Mrs. +Cheyne. +</P> + +<P> +"What for, Mama? I worked like a horse and I ate like a hog and I slept +like a dead man." +</P> + +<P> +That was too much for Mrs. Cheyne, who began to think of her visions of +a corpse rocking on the salty seas. She went to her stateroom, and +Harvey curled up beside his father, explaining his indebtedness. +</P> + +<P> +"You can depend upon me to do everything I can for the crowd, Harve. +They seem to be good men on your showing." +</P> + +<P> +"Best in the Fleet, sir. Ask at Gloucester," said Harvey. "But Disko +believes still he's cured me of being crazy. Dan's the only one I've +let on to about you, and our private cars and all the rest of it, and +I'm not quite sure Dan believes. I want to paralyze 'em to-morrow. Say, +can't they run the 'Constance' over to Gloucester? Mama don't look fit +to be moved, anyway, and we're bound to finish cleaning out by +tomorrow. Wouverman takes our fish. You see, we're the first off the +Banks this season, and it's four twenty-five a quintal. We held out +till he paid it. They want it quick." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean you'll have to work to-morrow, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I told Troop I would. I'm on the scales. I've brought the tallies with +me." He looked at the greasy notebook with an air of importance that +made his father choke. "There isn't but three—no—two ninety-four or +five quintal more by my reckoning." +</P> + +<P> +"Hire a substitute," suggested Cheyne, to see what Harvey would say. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't, sir. I'm tally-man for the schooner. Troop says I've a better +head for figures than Dan. Troop's a mighty just man." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, suppose I don't move the 'Constance' to-night, how'll you fix +it?" +</P> + +<P> +Harvey looked at the clock, which marked twenty past eleven. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll sleep here till three and catch the four o'clock freight. +They let us men from the Fleet ride free as a rule." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a notion. But I think we can get the 'Constance' around about +as soon as your men's freight. Better go to bed now." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey spread himself on the sofa, kicked off his boots, and was asleep +before his father could shade the electrics. Cheyne sat watching the +young face under the shadow of the arm thrown over the forehead, and +among many things that occurred to him was the notion that he might +perhaps have been neglectful as a father. +</P> + +<P> +"One never knows when one's taking one's biggest risks," he said. "It +might have been worse than drowning; but I don't think it has—I don't +think it has. If it hasn't, I haven't enough to pay Troop, that's all; +and I don't think it has." +</P> + +<P> +Morning brought a fresh sea breeze through the windows, the "Constance" +was side-tracked among freight-cars at Gloucester, and Harvey had gone +to his business. +</P> + +<P> +"Then he'll fall overboard again and be drowned," the mother said +bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll go and look, ready to throw him a rope in case. You've never +seen him working for his bread," said the father. +</P> + +<P> +"What nonsense! As if any one expected—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, the man that hired him did. He's about right, too." +</P> + +<P> +They went down between the stores full of fishermen's oilskins to +Wouverman's wharf where the <I>We're Here</I> rode high, her Bank flag still +flying, all hands busy as beavers in the glorious morning light. Disko +stood by the main hatch superintending Manuel, Penn, and Uncle Salters +at the tackle. Dan was swinging the loaded baskets inboard as Long Jack +and Tom Platt filled them, and Harvey, with a notebook, represented the +skipper's interests before the clerk of the scales on the +salt-sprinkled wharf-edge. +</P> + +<P> +"Ready!" cried the voices below. "Haul!" cried Disko. "Hi!" said +Manuel. "Here!" said Dan, swinging the basket. Then they heard Harvey's +voice, clear and fresh, checking the weights. +</P> + +<P> +The last of the fish had been whipped out, and Harvey leaped from the +string-piece six feet to a ratline, as the shortest way to hand Disko +the tally, shouting, "Two ninety-seven, and an empty hold!" +</P> + +<P> +"What's the total, Harve?" said Disko. +</P> + +<P> +"Eight sixty-five. Three thousand six hundred and seventy-six dollars +and a quarter. 'Wish I'd share as well as wage." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I won't go so far as to say you hevn't deserved it, Harve. Don't +you want to slip up to Wouverman's office and take him our tallies?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who's that boy?" said Cheyne to Dan, well used to all manner of +questions from those idle imbeciles called summer boarders. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, he's kind o' supercargo," was the answer. "We picked him up +struck adrift on the Banks. Fell overboard from a liner, he sez. He was +a passenger. He's by way o' hem' a fisherman now." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he worth his keep?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ye-ep. Dad, this man wants to know ef Harve's worth his keep. Say, +would you like to go aboard? We'll fix up a ladder for her." +</P> + +<P> +"I should very much, indeed. 'Twon't hurt you, Mama, and you'll be able +to see for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +The woman who could not lift her head a week ago scrambled down the +ladder, and stood aghast amid the mess and tangle aft. +</P> + +<P> +"Be you anyways interested in Harve?" said Disko. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, ye-es." +</P> + +<P> +"He's a good boy, an' ketches right hold jest as he's bid. You've heard +haow we found him? He was sufferin' from nervous prostration, I guess, +'r else his head had hit somethin', when we hauled him aboard. He's all +over that naow. Yes, this is the cabin. 'Tain't in order, but you're +quite welcome to look araound. Those are his figures on the stove-pipe, +where we keep the reckonin' mostly." +</P> + +<P> +"Did he sleep here?" said Mrs. Cheyne, sitting on a yellow locker and +surveying the disorderly bunks. +</P> + +<P> +"No. He berthed forward, madam, an' only fer him an' my boy hookin' +fried pies an muggin' up when they ought to ha' been asleep, I dunno as +I've any special fault to find with him." +</P> + +<P> +"There weren't nothin' wrong with Harve," said Uncle Salters, +descending the steps. "He hung my boots on the main-truck, and he ain't +over an' above respectful to such as knows more'n he do, specially +about farmin'; but he were mostly misled by Dan." +</P> + +<P> +Dan in the meantime, profiting by dark hints from Harvey early that +morning, was executing a war-dance on deck. "Tom, Tom!" he whispered +down the hatch. "His folks has come, an' Dad hain't caught on yet, an' +they're pow-wowin' in the cabin. She's a daisy, an' he's all Harve +claimed he was, by the looks of him." +</P> + +<P> +"Howly Smoke!" said Long Jack, climbing out covered with salt and +fish-skin. "D'ye belave his tale av the kid an' the little four-horse +rig was thrue?" +</P> + +<P> +"I knew it all along," said Dan. "Come an' see Dad mistook in his +judgments." +</P> + +<P> +They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say: "I'm glad he +has a good character, because—he's my son." +</P> + +<P> +Disko's jaw fell,—Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click of +it,—and he stared alternately at the man and the woman. +</P> + +<P> +"I got his telegram in San Diego four days ago, and we came over." +</P> + +<P> +"In a private car?" said Dan. "He said ye might." +</P> + +<P> +"In a private car, of course." +</P> + +<P> +Dan looked at his father with a hurricane of irreverent winks. +</P> + +<P> +"There was a tale he told us av drivin' four little ponies in a rig av +his own," said Long Jack. "Was that thrue now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very likely," said Cheyne. "Was it, Mama?" +</P> + +<P> +"He had a little drag when we were in Toledo, I think," said the mother. +</P> + +<P> +Long Jack whistled. "Oh, Disko!" said he, and that was all. +</P> + +<P> +"I wuz—I am mistook in my jedgments—worse'n the men o' Marblehead," +said Disko, as though the words were being windlassed out of him. "I +don't mind ownin' to you, Mr. Cheyne, as I mistrusted the boy to be +crazy. He talked kinder odd about money." +</P> + +<P> +"So he told me." +</P> + +<P> +"Did he tell ye anything else? 'Cause I pounded him once." This with a +somewhat anxious glance at Mrs. Cheyne. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," Cheyne replied. "I should say it probably did him more good +than anything else in the world." +</P> + +<P> +"I jedged 'twuz necessary, er I wouldn't ha' done it. I don't want you +to think we abuse our boys any on this packet." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think you do, Mr. Troop." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Cheyne had been looking at the faces—Disko's ivory-yellow, +hairless, iron countenance; Uncle Salters's, with its rim of +agricultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; Manuel's quiet smile; +Long Jack's grin of delight, and Tom Platt's scar. Rough, by her +standards, they certainly were; but she had a mother's wits in her +eyes, and she rose with out-stretched hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, tell me, which is who?" said she, half sobbing. "I want to thank +you and bless you—all of you." +</P> + +<P> +"Faith, that pays me a hunder time," said Long Jack. +</P> + +<P> +Disko introduced them all in due form. The captain of an old-time +Chinaman could have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne babbled +incoherently. She nearly threw herself into Manuel's arms when she +understood that he had first found Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +"But how shall I leave him dreeft?" said poor Manuel. "What do you +yourself if you find him so? Eh, wha-at? We are in one good boy, and I +am ever so pleased he come to be your son." +</P> + +<P> +"And he told me Dan was his partner!" she cried. Dan was already +sufficiently pink, but he turned a rich crimson when Mrs. Cheyne kissed +him on both cheeks before the assembly. Then they led her forward to +show her the foc'sle, at which she wept again, and must needs go down +to see Harvey's identical bunk, and there she found the nigger cook +cleaning up the stove, and he nodded as though she were some one he had +expected to meet for years. They tried, two at a time, to explain the +boat's daily life to her, and she sat by the pawl-post, her gloved +hands on the greasy table, laughing with trembling lips and crying with +dancing eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"And who's ever to use the <I>We're Here</I> after this?" said Long Jack to +Tom Platt. "I feel as if she'd made a cathedral av ut all." +</P> + +<P> +"Cathedral!" sneered Tom Platt. "Oh, if it had bin even the Fish +C'mmission boat instid of this bally-hoo o' blazes. If we only hed some +decency an' order an' side-boys when she goes over! She'll have to +climb that ladder like a hen, an' we—we ought to be mannin' the yards!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then Harvey was not mad," said Penn, slowly, to Cheyne. +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed—thank God," the big millionaire replied, stooping down +tenderly. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be terrible to be mad. Except to lose your child, I do not +know anything more terrible. But your child has come back? Let us thank +God for that." +</P> + +<P> +"Hello!" cried Harvey, looking down upon them benignly from the wharf. +</P> + +<P> +"I wuz mistook, Harve. I wuz mistook," said Disko, swiftly, holding up +a hand. "I wuz mistook in my jedgments. Ye needn't rub in any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Guess I'll take care o' that," said Dan, under his breath. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be goin' off naow, won't ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, not without the balance of my wages, 'less you want to have the +<I>We're Here</I> attached." +</P> + +<P> +"Thet's so; I'd clean forgot"; and he counted out the remaining +dollars. "You done all you contracted to do, Harve; and you done it +'baout's well as if you'd been brought up—" Here Disko brought himself +up. He did not quite see where the sentence was going to end. +</P> + +<P> +"Outside of a private car?" suggested Dan, wickedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Come on, and I'll show her to you," said Harvey. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne stayed to talk with Disko, but the others made a procession to +the depot, with Mrs. Cheyne at the head. The French maid shrieked at +the invasion; and Harvey laid the glories of the "Constance" before +them without a word. They took them in in equal silence—stamped +leather, silver door-handles and rails, cut velvet, plate-glass, +nickel, bronze, hammered iron, and the rare woods of the continent +inlaid. +</P> + +<P> +"I told you," said Harvey; "I told you." This was his crowning revenge, +and a most ample one. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Cheyne decreed a meal, and that nothing might be lacking to the +tale Long Jack told afterwards in his boarding-house, she waited on +them herself. Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny tables in howling +gales have curiously neat and finished manners; but Mrs. Cheyne, who +did not know this, was surprised. She longed to have Manuel for a +butler; so silently and easily did he comport himself among the frail +glassware and dainty silver. Tom Platt remembered the great days on the +Ohio and the manners of foreign potentates who dined with the officers; +and Long Jack, being Irish, supplied the small talk till all were at +their ease. +</P> + +<P> +In the <I>We're Here's</I> cabin the fathers took stock of each other behind +their cigars. Cheyne knew well enough when he dealt with a man to whom +he could not offer money; equally well he knew that no money could pay +for what Disko had done. He kept his own counsel and waited for an +opening. +</P> + +<P> +"I hevn't done anything to your boy or fer your boy excep' make him +work a piece an' learn him how to handle the hog-yoke," said Disko. "He +has twice my boy's head for figgers." +</P> + +<P> +"By the way," Cheyne answered casually, "what d'you calculate to make +of your boy?" +</P> + +<P> +Disko removed his cigar and waved it comprehensively round the cabin. +"Dan's jest plain boy, an' he don't allow me to do any of his thinkin'. +He'll hev this able little packet when I'm laid by. He ain't noways +anxious to quit the business. I know that." +</P> + +<P> +"Mmm! 'Ever been West, Mr. Troop?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Bin's fer ez Noo York once in a boat. I've no use for railroads. No +more hez Dan. Salt water's good enough fer the Troops. I've been 'most +everywhere—in the nat'ral way, o' course." +</P> + +<P> +"I can give him all the salt water he's likely to need—till he's a +skipper." +</P> + +<P> +"Haow's that? I thought you wuz a kinder railroad king. Harve told me +so when—I was mistook in my jedgments." +</P> + +<P> +"We're all apt to be mistaken. I fancied perhaps you might know I own a +line of tea-clippers—San Francisco to Yokohama—six of +'em—iron-built, about seventeen hundred and eighty tons apiece. +</P> + +<P> +"Blame that boy! He never told. I'd ha' listened to that, instid o' his +truck abaout railroads an' pony-carriages." +</P> + +<P> +"He didn't know." +</P> + +<P> +"'Little thing like that slipped his mind, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I only capt—took hold of the 'Blue M.' freighters—Morgan and +McQuade's old line—this summer." Disko collapsed where he sat, beside +the stove. +</P> + +<P> +"Great Caesar Almighty! I mistrust I've been fooled from one end to the +other. Why, Phil Airheart he went from this very town six year +back—no, seven—an' he's mate on the San Jose—now—twenty-six days +was her time out. His sister she's livin' here yet, an' she reads his +letters to my woman. An' you own the 'Blue M.' freighters?" +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"If I'd known that I'd ha' jerked the <I>We're Here</I> back to port all +standin', on the word." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps that wouldn't have been so good for Harvey." +</P> + +<P> +"If I'd only known! If he'd only said about the cussed Line, I'd ha' +understood! I'll never stand on my own jedgments again—never. They're +well-found packets. Phil Airheart he says so." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad to have a recommend from that quarter. Airheart's skipper of +the San Jose now. What I was getting at is to know whether you'd lend +me Dan for a year or two, and we'll see if we can't make a mate of him. +Would you trust him to Airheart?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a resk taking a raw boy—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know a man who did more for me." +</P> + +<P> +"That's diff'runt. Look at here naow, I ain't recommendin' Dan special +because he's my own flesh an' blood. I know Bank ways ain't clipper +ways, but he hain't much to learn. Steer he can—no boy better, if I +say it—an' the rest's in our blood an' get; but I could wish he warn't +so cussed weak on navigation." +</P> + +<P> +"Airheart will attend to that. He'll ship as boy for a voyage or two, +and then we can put him in the way of doing better. Suppose you take +him in hand this winter, and I'll send for him early in the spring. I +know the Pacific's a long ways off—" +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw! We Troops, livin' an' dead, are all around the earth an' the +seas thereof." +</P> + +<P> +"But I want you to understand—and I mean this—any time you think +you'd like to see him, tell me, and I'll attend to the transportation. +'Twon't cost you a cent." +</P> + +<P> +"If you'll walk a piece with me, we'll go to my house an' talk this to +my woman. I've bin so crazy mistook in all my jedgments, it don't seem +to me this was like to be real." +</P> + +<P> +They went blue-trimmed of nasturtiums over to Troop's +eighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in the +front yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of oversea +plunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with the dim eyes +of those who look long to sea for the return of their beloved. Cheyne +addressed himself to her, and she gave consent wearily. +</P> + +<P> +"We lose one hundred a year from Gloucester only, Mr. Cheyne," she +said—"one hundred boys an' men; and I've come so's to hate the sea as +if 'twuz alive an' listenin'. God never made it fer humans to anchor +on. These packets o' yours they go straight out, I take it' and +straight home again?" +</P> + +<P> +"As straight as the winds let 'em, and I give a bonus for record +passages. Tea don't improve by being at sea." +</P> + +<P> +"When he wuz little he used to play at keeping store, an' I had hopes +he might follow that up. But soon's he could paddle a dory I knew that +were goin' to be denied me." +</P> + +<P> +"They're square-riggers, Mother; iron-built an' well found. Remember +what Phil's sister reads you when she gits his letters." +</P> + +<P> +"I've never known as Phil told lies, but he's too venturesome (like +most of 'em that use the sea). If Dan sees fit, Mr. Cheyne, he can +go—fer all o' me." +</P> + +<P> +"She jest despises the ocean," Disko explained, "an' I—I dunno haow to +act polite, I guess, er I'd thank you better." +</P> + +<P> +"My father—my own eldest brother—two nephews—an' my second sister's +man," she said, dropping her head on her hand. "Would you care fer any +one that took all those?" +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne was relieved when Dan turned up and accepted with more delight +than he was able to put into words. Indeed, the offer meant a plain and +sure road to all desirable things; but Dan thought most of commanding +watch on broad decks, and looking into far-away harbours. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Cheyne had spoken privately to the unaccountable Manuel in the +matter of Harvey's rescue. He seemed to have no desire for money. +Pressed hard, he said that he would take five dollars, because he +wanted to buy something for a girl. Otherwise—"How shall I take money +when I make so easy my eats and smokes? You will giva some if I like or +no? Eh, wha-at? Then you shall giva me money, but not that way. You +shall giva all you can think." He introduced her to a snuffy Portuguese +priest with a list of semi-destitute widows as long as his cassock. As +a strict Unitarian, Mrs. Cheyne could not sympathize with the creed, +but she ended by respecting the brown, voluble little man. +</P> + +<P> +Manuel, faithful son of the Church, appropriated all the blessings +showered on her for her charity. "That letta me out," said he. "I have +now ver' good absolutions for six months"; and he strolled forth to get +a handkerchief for the girl of the hour and to break the hearts of all +the others. +</P> + +<P> +Salters went West for a season with Penn, and left no address behind. +He had a dread that these millionary people, with wasteful private +cars, might take undue interest in his companion. It was better to +visit inland relatives till the coast was clear. "Never you be adopted +by rich folk, Penn," he said in the cars, "or I'll take 'n' break this +checker-board over your head. Ef you forgit your name agin—which is +Pratt—you remember you belong with Salters Troop, an' set down right +where you are till I come fer you. Don't go taggin' araound after them +whose eyes bung out with fatness, accordin' to Scripcher." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<P> +But it was otherwise with the <I>We're Here's</I> silent cook, for he came +up, his kit in a handkerchief, and boarded the "Constance." Pay was no +particular object, and he did not in the least care where he slept. His +business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to follow Harvey for the +rest of his days. They tried argument and, at last, persuasion; but +there is a difference between one Cape Breton and two Alabama negroes, +and the matter was referred to Cheyne by the cook and porter. The +millionaire only laughed. He presumed Harvey might need a body-servant +some day or other, and was sure that one volunteer was worth five +hirelings. Let the man stay, therefore; even though he called himself +MacDonald and swore in Gaelic. The car could go back to Boston, where, +if he were still of the same mind, they would take him West. +</P> + +<P> +With the "Constance," which in his heart of hearts he loathed, departed +the last remnant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave himself up to +an energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new town in a new land, +and he purposed to "take it in," as of old he had taken in all the +cities from Snohomish to San Diego of that world whence he hailed. They +made money along the crooked street which was half wharf and half +ship's store: as a leading professional he wished to learn how the +noble game was played. Men said that four out of every five fish-balls +served at New England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and +overwhelmed him with figures in proof—statistics of boats, gear, +wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories, +insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners of +the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, and +whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he conferred +with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and compared notes in +his vast head. He coiled himself away on chain-cables in marine +junk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, unslaked Western curiosity, +till all the water-front wanted to know "what in thunder that man was +after, anyhow." He prowled into the Mutual Insurance rooms, and +demanded explanations of the mysterious remarks chalked up on the +blackboard day by day; and that brought down upon him secretaries of +every Fisherman's Widow and Orphan Aid Society within the city limits. +They begged shamelessly, each man anxious to beat the other +institution's record, and Cheyne tugged at his beard and handed them +all over to Mrs. Cheyne. +</P> + +<P> +She was resting in a boarding-house near Eastern Point—a strange +establishment, managed, apparently, by the boarders, where the +table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered and the population, who +seemed to have known one another intimately for years, rose up at +midnight to make Welsh rarebits if it felt hungry. On the second +morning of her stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond solitaires before +she came down to breakfast. +</P> + +<P> +"They're most delightful people," she confided to her husband; "so +friendly and simple, too, though they are all Boston, nearly." +</P> + +<P> +"That isn't simpleness, Mama," he said, looking across the boulders +behind the apple-trees where the hammocks were slung. "It's the other +thing, that what I haven't got." +</P> + +<P> +"It can't be," said Mrs. Cheyne quietly. "There isn't a woman here owns +a dress that cost a hundred dollars. Why, we—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know it, dear. We have—of course we have. I guess it's only the +style they wear East. Are you having a good time?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see very much of Harvey; he's always with you; but I ain't +near as nervous as I was." +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't had such a good time since Willie died. I never rightly +understood that I had a son before this. Harve's got to be a great boy. +'Anything I can fetch you, dear? 'Cushion under your head? Well, we'll +go down to the wharf again and look around." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey was his father's shadow in those days, and the two strolled +along side by side, Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for laying his +hand on the boy's square shoulder. It was then that Harvey noticed and +admired what had never struck him before—his father's curious power of +getting at the heart of new matters as learned from men in the street. +</P> + +<P> +"How d'you make 'em tell you everything without opening your head?" +demanded the son, as they came out of a rigger's loft. +</P> + +<P> +"I've dealt with quite a few men in my time, Harve, and one sizes 'em +up somehow, I guess. I know something about myself, too." Then, after a +pause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: "Men can 'most always tell +when a man has handled things for himself, and then they treat him as +one of themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Same as they treat me down at Wouverman's wharf. I'm one of the crowd +now. Disko has told every one I've earned my pay." Harvey spread out +his hands and rubbed the palms together. "They're all soft again," he +said dolefully. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep 'em that way for the next few years, while you're getting your +education. You can harden 'em up after." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye-es, I suppose so," was the reply, in no delighted voice. +</P> + +<P> +"It rests with you, Harve. You can take cover behind your mama, of +course, and put her on to fussing about your nerves and your +high-strungness and all that kind of poppycock." +</P> + +<P> +"Have I ever done that?" said Harvey, uneasily. +</P> + +<P> +His father turned where he sat and thrust out a long hand. "You know as +well as I do that I can't make anything of you if you don't act +straight by me. I can handle you alone if you'll stay alone, but I +don't pretend to manage both you and Mama. Life's too short, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't make me out much of a fellow, does it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess it was my fault a good deal; but if you want the truth, you +haven't been much of anything up to date. Now, have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Umm! Disko thinks . . . Say, what d'you reckon it's cost you to raise +me from the start—first, last and all over?" +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne smiled. "I've never kept track, but I should estimate, in +dollars and cents, nearer fifty than forty thousand; maybe sixty. The +young generation comes high. It has to have things, and it tires of +'em, and—the old man foots the bill." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey whistled, but at heart he was rather pleased to think that his +upbringing had cost so much. "And all that's sunk capital, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Invested, Harve. Invested, I hope." +</P> + +<P> +"Making it only thirty thousand, the thirty I've earned is about ten +cents on the hundred. That's a mighty poor catch." Harvey wagged his +head solemnly. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne laughed till he nearly fell off the pile into the water. +</P> + +<P> +"Disko has got a heap more than that out of Dan since he was ten; and +Dan's at school half the year, too." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's what you're after, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. I'm not after anything. I'm not stuck on myself any just +now—that's all. . . . I ought to be kicked." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't do it, old man; or I would, I presume, if I'd been made that +way." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'd have remembered it to the last day I lived—and never +forgiven you," said Harvey, his chin on his doubled fists. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. That's about what I'd do. You see?" +</P> + +<P> +"I see. The fault's with me and no one else. All the same, something's +got to be done about it." +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne drew a cigar from his vest-pocket, bit off the end, and fell to +smoking. Father and son were very much alike; for the beard hid +Cheyne's mouth, and Harvey had his father's slightly aquiline nose, +close-set black eyes, and narrow, high cheek-bones. With a touch of +brown paint he would have made up very picturesquely as a Red Indian of +the story-books. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you can go on from here," said Cheyne, slowly, "costing me between +six or eight thousand a year till you're a voter. Well, we'll call you +a man then. You can go right on from that, living on me to the tune of +forty or fifty thousand, besides what your mother will give you, with a +valet and a yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can pretend to raise +trotting-stock and play cards with your own crowd." +</P> + +<P> +"Like Lorry Tuck?" Harvey put in. +</P> + +<P> +"Yep; or the two De Vitre boys or old man McQuade's son. California's +full of 'em, and here's an Eastern sample while we're talking." +</P> + +<P> +A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany deck-house, nickel-plated +binnacles, and pink-and-white-striped awnings puffed up the harbour, +flying the burgee of some New York club. Two young men in what they +conceived to be sea costumes were playing cards by the saloon skylight; +and a couple of women with red and blue parasols looked on and laughed +noisily. +</P> + +<P> +"Shouldn't care to be caught out in her in any sort of a breeze. No +beam," said Harvey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up her +mooring-buoy. +</P> + +<P> +"They're having what stands them for a good time. I can give you that, +and twice as much as that, Harve. How'd you like it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Caesar! That's no way to get a dinghy overside," said Harvey, still +intent on the yacht. "If I couldn't slip a tackle better than that I'd +stay ashore. . . . What if I don't?" +</P> + +<P> +"Stay ashore—or what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yacht and ranch and live on 'the old man,' and—get behind Mama where +there's trouble," said Harvey, with a twinkle in his eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, in that case, you come right in with me, my son." +</P> + +<P> +"Ten dollars a month?" Another twinkle. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a cent more until you're worth it, and you won't begin to touch +that for a few years." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd sooner begin sweeping out the office—isn't that how the big bugs +start?—and touch something now than—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know it; we all feel that way. But I guess we can hire any sweeping +we need. I made the same mistake myself of starting in too soon." +</P> + +<P> +"Thirty million dollars' worth o' mistake, wasn't it? I'd risk it for +that." +</P> + +<P> +"I lost some; and I gained some. I'll tell you." +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he looked over the still water, +and spoke away from Harvey, who presently began to be aware that his +father was telling the story of his life. He talked in a low, even +voice, without gesture and without expression; and it was a history for +which a dozen leading journals would cheerfully have paid many +dollars—the story of forty years that was at the same time the story +of the New West, whose story is yet to be written. +</P> + +<P> +It began with a kinless boy turned loose in Texas, and went on +fantastically through a hundred changes and chops of life, the scenes +shifting from State after Western State, from cities that sprang up in +a month and—in a season utterly withered away, to wild ventures in +wilder camps that are now laborious, paved municipalities. It covered +the building of three railroads and the deliberate wreck of a fourth. +It told of steamers, townships, forests, and mines, and the men of +every nation under heaven, manning, creating, hewing, and digging +these. It touched on chances of gigantic wealth flung before eyes that +could not see, or missed by the merest accident of time and travel; and +through the mad shift of things, sometimes on horseback, more often +afoot, now rich, now poor, in and out, and back and forth, deck-hand, +train-hand, contractor, boarding-house keeper, journalist, engineer, +drummer, real-estate agent, politician, dead-beat, rum-seller, +mine-owner, speculator, cattle-man, or tramp, moved Harvey Cheyne, +alert and quiet, seeking his own ends, and, so he said, the glory and +advancement of his country. +</P> + +<P> +He told of the faith that never deserted him even when he hung on the +ragged edge of despair—the faith that comes of knowing men and things. +He enlarged, as though he were talking to himself, on his very great +courage and resource at all times. The thing was so evident in the +man's mind that he never even changed his tone. He described how he had +bested his enemies, or forgiven them, exactly as they had bested or +forgiven him in those careless days; how he had entreated, cajoled, and +bullied towns, companies, and syndicates, all for their enduring good; +crawled round, through, or under mountains and ravines, dragging a +string and hoop-iron railroad after him, and in the end, how he had sat +still while promiscuous communities tore the last fragments of his +character to shreds. +</P> + +<P> +The tale held Harvey almost breathless, his head a little cocked to one +side, his eyes fixed on his father's face, as the twilight deepened and +the red cigar-end lit up the furrowed cheeks and heavy eyebrows. It +seemed to him like watching a locomotive storming across country in the +dark—a mile between each glare of the open fire-door: but this +locomotive could talk, and the words shook and stirred the boy to the +core of his soul. At last Cheyne pitched away the cigar-butt, and the +two sat in the dark over the lapping water. +</P> + +<P> +"I've never told that to any one before," said the father. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey gasped. "It's just the greatest thing that ever was!" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I got. Now I'm coming to what I didn't get. It won't sound +much of anything to you, but I don't wish you to be as old as I am +before you find out. I can handle men, of course, and I'm no fool along +my own lines, but—but—I can't compete with the man who has been +taught! I've picked up as I went along, and I guess it sticks out all +over me." +</P> + +<P> +"I've never seen it," said the son, indignantly. +</P> + +<P> +"You will, though, Harve. You will—just as soon as you're through +college. Don't I know it? Don't I know the look on men's faces when +they think me a—a 'mucker,' as they call it out here? I can break them +to little pieces—yes—but I can't get back at 'em to hurt 'em where +they live. I don't say they're 'way 'way up, but I feel I'm 'way, 'way, +'way off, somehow. Now you've got your chance. You've got to soak up +all the learning that's around, and you'll live with a crowd that are +doing the same thing. They'll be doing it for a few thousand dollars a +year at most; but remember you'll be doing it for millions. You'll +learn law enough to look after your own property when I'm out o' the +light, and you'll have to be solid with the best men in the market +(they are useful later); and above all, you'll have to stow away the +plain, common, sit-down-with-your chin-on your-elbows book-learning. +Nothing pays like that, Harve, and it's bound to pay more and more each +year in our country—in business and in politics. You'll see." +</P> + +<P> +"There's no sugar in my end of the deal," said Harvey. "Four years at +college! 'Wish I'd chosen the valet and the yacht!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind, my son," Cheyne insisted. "You're investing your capital +where it'll bring in the best returns; and I guess you won't find our +property shrunk any when you're ready to take hold. Think it over, and +let me know in the morning. Hurry! We'll be late for supper!" +</P> + +<P> +As this was a business talk, there was no need for Harvey to tell his +mother about it; and Cheyne naturally took the same point of view. But +Mrs. Cheyne saw and feared, and was a little jealous. Her boy, who rode +rough-shod over her, was gone, and in his stead reigned a keen-faced +youth, abnormally silent, who addressed most of his conversation to his +father. She understood it was business, and therefore a matter beyond +her premises. If she had any doubts, they were resolved when Cheyne +went to Boston and brought back a new diamond marquise ring. +</P> + +<P> +"What have you two been doing now?" she said, with a weak little smile, +as she turned it in the light. +</P> + +<P> +"Talking—just talking, Mama; there's nothing mean about Harvey." +</P> + +<P> +There was not. The boy had made a treaty on his own account. Railroads, +he explained gravely, interested him as little as lumber, real estate, +or mining. What his soul yearned after was control of his father's +newly purchased sailing-ship. If that could be promised him within what +he conceived to be a reasonable time, he, for his part, guaranteed +diligence and sobriety at college for four or five years. In vacation +he was to be allowed full access to all details connected with the +line—he had not asked more than two thousand questions about it,—from +his father's most private papers in the safe to the tug in San +Francisco harbour. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a deal," said Cheyne at the last. "You'll alter your mind twenty +times before you leave college, o' course; but if you take hold of it +in proper shape, and if you don't tie it up before you're twenty-three, +I'll make the thing over to you. How's that, Harve?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nope; never pays to split up a going concern. There's too much +competition in the world anyway, and Disko says 'blood-kin hev to stick +together.' His crowd never go back on him. That's one reason, he says, +why they make such big fares. Say, the <I>We're Here</I> goes off to the +Georges on Monday. They don't stay long ashore, do they?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we ought to be going, too, I guess. I've left my business hung +up at loose ends between two oceans, and it's time to connect again. I +just hate to do it, though; haven't had a holiday like this for twenty +years." +</P> + +<P> +"We can't go without seeing Disko off," said Harvey; "and Monday's +Memorial Day. Let's stay over that, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"What is this memorial business? They were talking about it at the +boarding-house," said Cheyne weakly. He, too, was not anxious to spoil +the golden days. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, as far as I can make out, this business is a sort of +song-and-dance act, whacked up for the summer boarders. Disko don't +think much of it, he says, because they take up a collection for the +widows and orphans. Disko's independent. Haven't you noticed that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well—yes. A little. In spots. Is it a town show, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"The summer convention is. They read out the names of the fellows +drowned or gone astray since last time, and they make speeches, and +recite, and all. Then, Disko says, the secretaries of the Aid Societies +go into the back yard and fight over the catch. The real show, he says, +is in the spring. The ministers all take a hand then, and there aren't +any summer boarders around." +</P> + +<P> +"I see," said Cheyne, with the brilliant and perfect comprehension of +one born into and bred up to city pride. "We'll stay over for Memorial +Day, and get off in the afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Guess I'll go down to Disko's and make him bring his crowd up before +they sail. I'll have to stand with them, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's it, is it," said Cheyne. "I'm only a poor summer boarder, +and you're—" +</P> + +<P> +"A Banker—full-blooded Banker," Harvey called back as he boarded a +trolley, and Cheyne went on with his blissful dreams for the future. +</P> + +<P> +Disko had no use for public functions where appeals were made for +charity, but Harvey pleaded that the glory of the day would be lost, so +far as he was concerned, if the <I>We're Heres</I> absented themselves. Then +Disko made conditions. He had heard—it was astonishing how all the +world knew all the world's business along the water-front—he had heard +that a "Philadelphia actress-woman" was going to take part in the +exercises; and he mistrusted that she would deliver "Skipper Ireson's +Ride." Personally, he had as little use for actresses as for summer +boarders; but justice was justice, and though he himself (here Dan +giggled) had once slipped up on a matter of judgment, this thing must +not be. So Harvey came back to East Gloucester, and spent half a day +explaining to an amused actress with a royal reputation on two +seaboards the inwardness of the mistake she contemplated; and she +admitted that it was justice, even as Disko had said. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyne knew by old experience what would happen; but anything of the +nature of a public palaver was meat and drink to the man's soul. He saw +the trolleys hurrying west, in the hot, hazy morning, full of women in +light summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted men fresh from +Boston desks; the stack of bicycles outside the post office; the +come-and-go of busy officials, greeting one another; the slow flick and +swash of bunting in the heavy air; and the important man with a hose +sluicing the brick sidewalk. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother," he said suddenly, "don't you remember—after Seattle was +burned out—and they got her going again?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Cheyne nodded, and looked critically down the crooked street. Like +her husband, she understood these gatherings, all the West over, and +compared them one against another. The fishermen began to mingle with +the crowd about the town-hall doors—blue-jowled Portuguese, their +women bare-headed or shawled for the most part; clear-eyed Nova +Scotians, and men of the Maritime Provinces; French, Italians, Swedes, +and Danes, with outside crews of coasting schooners; and everywhere +women in black, who saluted one another with gloomy pride, for this was +their day of great days. And there were ministers of many +creeds,—pastors of great, gilt-edged congregations, at the seaside for +a rest, with shepherds of the regular work,—from the priests of the +Church on the Hill to bush-bearded ex-sailor Lutherans, hail-fellow +with the men of a score of boats. There were owners of lines of +schooners, large contributors to the societies, and small men, their +few craft pawned to the mastheads, with bankers and marine-insurance +agents, captains of tugs and water-boats, riggers, fitters, lumpers, +salters, boat-builders, and coopers, and all the mixed population of +the water-front. +</P> + +<P> +They drifted along the line of seats made gay with the dresses of the +summer boarders, and one of the town officials patrolled and perspired +till he shone all over with pure civic pride. Cheyne had met him for +five minutes a few days before, and between the two there was entire +understanding. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Mr. Cheyne, and what d'you think of our city?—Yes, madam, you +can sit anywhere you please.—You have this kind of thing out West, I +presume?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but we aren't as old as you." +</P> + +<P> +"That's so, of course. You ought to have been at the exercises when we +celebrated our two hundred and fiftieth birthday. I tell you, Mr. +Cheyne, the old city did herself credit." +</P> + +<P> +"So I heard. It pays, too. What's the matter with the town that it +don't have a first-class hotel, though?" +</P> + +<P> +"—Right over there to the left, Pedro. Heaps o' room for you and your +crowd.—Why, that's what I tell 'em all the time, Mr. Cheyne. There's +big money in it, but I presume that don't affect you any. What we want +is—" +</P> + +<P> +A heavy hand fell on his broadcloth shoulder, and the flushed skipper +of a Portland coal-and-ice coaster spun him half round. "What in +thunder do you fellows mean by clappin' the law on the town when all +decent men are at sea this way? Heh? Town's dry as a bone, an' smells a +sight worse sence I quit. 'Might ha' left us one saloon for soft +drinks, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't seem to have hindered your nourishment this morning, Carsen. +I'll go into the politics of it later. Sit down by the door and think +over your arguments till I come back." +</P> + +<P> +"What good is arguments to me? In Miquelon champagne's eighteen dollars +a case and—" The skipper lurched into his seat as an organ-prelude +silenced him. +</P> + +<P> +"Our new organ," said the official proudly to Cheyne. "Cost us four +thousand dollars, too. We'll have to get back to high-license next year +to pay for it. I wasn't going to let the ministers have all the +religion at their convention. Those are some of our orphans standing up +to sing. My wife taught 'em. See you again later, Mr. Cheyne. I'm +wanted on the platform." +</P> + +<P> +High, clear, and true, children's voices bore down the last noise of +those settling into their places. +</P> + +<P> +"O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify +him for ever!" +</P> + +<P> +The women throughout the hall leaned forward to look as the reiterated +cadences filled the air. Mrs. Cheyne, with some others, began to +breathe short; she had hardly imagined there were so many widows in the +world; and instinctively searched for Harvey. He had found the <I>We're +Heres</I> at the back of the audience, and was standing, as by right, +between Dan and Disko. Uncle Salters, returned the night before with +Penn, from Pamlico Sound, received him suspiciously. +</P> + +<P> +"Hain't your folk gone yet?" he grunted. "What are you doin' here, +young feller?" +</P> + +<P> +"O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him +for ever!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hain't he good right?" said Dan. "He's bin there, same as the rest of +us." +</P> + +<P> +"Not in them clothes," Salters snarled. +</P> + +<P> +"Shut your head, Salters," said Disko. "Your bile's gone back on you. +Stay right where ye are, Harve." +</P> + +<P> +Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of the +municipality, bidding the world welcome to Gloucester, and incidentally +pointing out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of the world. Then he +turned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke of the price that must +be paid for the yearly harvest. They would hear later the names of +their lost dead one hundred and seventeen of them. (The widows stared a +little, and looked at one another here.) Gloucester could not boast any +overwhelming mills or factories. Her sons worked for such wage as the +sea gave; and they all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were +cow-pastures. The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to help +the widows and the orphans, and after a few general remarks he took +this opportunity of thanking, in the name of the city, those who had so +public-spiritedly consented to participate in the exercises of the +occasion. +</P> + +<P> +"I jest despise the beggin' pieces in it," growled Disko. "It don't +give folk a fair notion of us." +</P> + +<P> +"Ef folk won't be fore-handed an' put by when they've the chance," +returned Salters, "it stands in the nature o' things they hev to be +'shamed. You take warnin' by that, young feller. Riches endureth but +for a season, ef you scatter them araound on lugsuries—" +</P> + +<P> +"But to lose everything, everything," said Penn. "What can you do then? +Once I"—the watery blue eyes stared up and down as if looking for +something to steady them—"once I read—in a book, I think—of a boat +where every one was run down—except some one—and he said to me—" +</P> + +<P> +"Shucks!" said Salters, cutting in. "You read a little less an' take +more int'rust in your vittles, and you'll come nearer earnin' your +keep, Penn." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt a creepy, crawly, tingling +thrill that began in the back of his neck and ended at his boots. He +was cold, too, though it was a stifling day. +</P> + +<P> +"That the actress from Philadelphia?" said Disko Troop, scowling at the +platform. "You've fixed it about old man Ireson, hain't ye, Harve? Ye +know why naow." +</P> + +<P> +It was not "Ireson's Ride" that the woman delivered, but some sort of +poem about a fishing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlers +beating in against storm by night, while the women made a guiding fire +at the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands on. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "They took the grandma's blanket,<BR> + Who shivered and bade them go;<BR> + They took the baby's cradle,<BR> + Who could not say them no."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Whew!" said Dan, peering over Long Jack's shoulder. "That's great! +Must ha' bin expensive, though." +</P> + +<P> +"Ground-hog case," said the Galway man. "Badly lighted port, Danny." +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + * * * * * *<BR> + "And knew not all the while<BR> + If they were lighting a bonfire<BR> + Or only a funeral pile."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The wonderful voice took hold of people by their heartstrings; and when +she told how the drenched crews were flung ashore, living and dead, and +they carried the bodies to the glare of the fires, asking: "Child, is +this your father?" or "Wife, is this your man?" you could hear hard +breathing all over the benches. +</P> + +<BR> +<P CLASS="poem"> + "And when the boats of Brixham<BR> + Go out to face the gales,<BR> + Think of the love that travels<BR> + Like light upon their sails!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +There was very little applause when she finished. The women were +looking for their handkerchiefs, and many of the men stared at the +ceiling with shiny eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"H'm," said Salters; "that 'u'd cost ye a dollar to hear at any +theatre—maybe two. Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. 'Seems +downright waste to me. . . . Naow, how in Jerusalem did Cap. Bart +Edwardes strike adrift here?" +</P> + +<P> +"No keepin' him under," said an Eastport man behind. "He's a poet, an' +he's baound to say his piece. 'Comes from daown aour way, too." +</P> + +<P> +He did not say that Captain B. Edwardes had striven for five +consecutive years to be allowed to recite a piece of his own +composition on Gloucester Memorial Day. An amused and exhausted +committee had at last given him his desire. The simplicity and utter +happiness of the old man, as he stood up in his very best Sunday +clothes, won the audience ere he opened his mouth. They sat unmurmuring +through seven-and-thirty hatchet-made verses describing at fullest +length the loss of the schooner <I>Joan Hasken</I> off the Georges in the gale +of 1867, and when he came to an end they shouted with one kindly throat. +</P> + +<P> +A far-sighted Boston reporter slid away for a full copy of the epic and +an interview with the author; so that earth had nothing more to offer +Captain Bart Edwardes, ex-whaler, shipwright, master-fisherman, and +poet, in the seventy-third year of his age. +</P> + +<P> +"Naow, I call that sensible," said the Eastport man. "I've bin over +that graound with his writin', jest as he read it, in my two hands, and +I can testify that he's got it all in." +</P> + +<P> +"If Dan here couldn't do better'n that with one hand before breakfast, +he ought to be switched," said Salters, upholding the honor of +Massachusetts on general principles. "Not but what I'm free to own he's +considerable litt'ery—fer Maine. Still—" +</P> + +<P> +"Guess Uncle Salters's goin' to die this trip. Fust compliment he's +ever paid me," Dan sniggered. "What's wrong with you, Harve? You act +all quiet and you look greenish. Feelin' sick?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't know what's the matter with me," Harvey implied. "Seems if my +insides were too big for my outsides. I'm all crowded up and shivery." +</P> + +<P> +"Dispepsy? Pshaw—too bad. We'll wait for the readin', an' then we'll +quit, an' catch the tide." +</P> + +<P> +The widows—they were nearly all of that season's making—braced +themselves rigidly like people going to be shot in cold blood, for they +knew what was coming. The summer-boarder girls in pink and blue +shirt-waists stopped tittering over Captain Edwardes's wonderful poem, +and looked back to see why all was silent. The fishermen pressed +forward as that town official who had talked to Cheyne bobbed up on the +platform and began to read the year's list of losses, dividing them +into months. Last September's casualties were mostly single men and +strangers, but his voice rang very loud in the stillness of the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"September 9th. Schooner <I>Florrie Anderson</I> lost, with all aboard, off +the Georges. +</P> + +<P> +"Reuben Pitman, master, 50, single, Main Street, City. +</P> + +<P> +"Emil Olsen, 19, single, 329 Hammond Street, City. Denmark. +</P> + +<P> +"Oscar Standberg, single, 25. Sweden. +</P> + +<P> +"Carl Stanberg, single, 28, Main Street. City. +</P> + +<P> +"Pedro, supposed Madeira, single, Keene's boardinghouse. City. +</P> + +<P> +"Joseph Welsh, alias Joseph Wright, 30, St. John's, Newfoundland." +</P> + +<P> +"No—Augusty, Maine," a voice cried from the body of the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"He shipped from St. John's," said the reader, looking to see. +</P> + +<P> +"I know it. He belongs in Augusty. My nevvy." +</P> + +<P> +The reader made a pencilled correction on the margin of the list, and +resumed. +</P> + +<P> +"Same schooner, Charlie Ritchie, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 33, single. +</P> + +<P> +"Albert May, 267 Rogers Street, City, 27, single. +</P> + +<P> +"September 27th.—Orvin Dollard, 30, married, drowned in dory off +Eastern Point." +</P> + +<P> +That shot went home, for one of the widows flinched where she sat, +clasping and unclasping her hands. Mrs. Cheyne, who had been listening +with wide-opened eyes, threw up her head and choked. Dan's mother, a +few seats to the right, saw and heard and quickly moved to her side. +The reading went on. By the time they reached the January and February +wrecks the shots were falling thick and fast, and the widows drew +breath between their teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"February 14th.—Schooner <I>Harry Randolph</I> dismasted on the way home from +Newfoundland; Asa Musie, married, 32, Main Street, City, lost overboard. +</P> + +<P> +"February 23d.—Schooner <I>Gilbert Hope</I>; went astray in dory, Robert +Beavon, 29, married, native of Pubnico, Nova Scotia." +</P> + +<P> +But his wife was in the hall. They heard a low cry, as though a little +animal had been hit. It was stifled at once, and a girl staggered out +of the hall. She had been hoping against hope for months, because some +who have gone adrift in dories have been miraculously picked up by +deep-sea sailing-ships. Now she had her certainty, and Harvey could see +the policeman on the sidewalk hailing a hack for her. "It's fifty cents +to the depot"—the driver began, but the policeman held up his +hand—"but I'm goin' there anyway. Jump right in. Look at here, Al; you +don't pull me next time my lamps ain't lit. See?" +</P> + +<P> +The side-door closed on the patch of bright sunshine, and Harvey's eyes +turned again to the reader and his endless list. +</P> + +<P> +"April 19th.—Schooner <I>Mamie Douglas</I> lost on the Banks with all hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Edward Canton, 43, master, married, City. +</P> + +<P> +"D. Hawkins, alias Williams, 34, married, Shelbourne, Nova Scotia. +</P> + +<P> +"G. W. Clay, coloured, 28, married, City." +</P> + +<P> +And so on, and so on. Great lumps were rising in Harvey's throat, and +his stomach reminded him of the day when he fell from the liner. +</P> + +<P> +"May 10th.—Schooner <I>We're Here</I> [the blood tingled all over him] Otto +Svendson, 20, single, City, lost overboard." +</P> + +<P> +Once more a low, tearing cry from somewhere at the back of the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"She shouldn't ha' come. She shouldn't ha' come," said Long Jack, with +a cluck of pity. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't scrowge, Harve," grunted Dan. Harvey heard that much, but the +rest was all darkness spotted with fiery wheels. Disko leaned forward +and spoke to his wife, where she sat with one arm round Mrs. Cheyne, +and the other holding down the snatching, catching, ringed hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Lean your head daown—right daown!" he whispered. "It'll go off in a +minute." +</P> + +<P> +"I ca-an't! I do-don't! Oh, let me—" Mrs. Cheyne did not at all know +what she said. +</P> + +<P> +"You must," Mrs. Troop repeated. "Your boy's jest fainted dead away. +They do that some when they're gettin' their growth. 'Wish to tend to +him? We can git aout this side. Quite quiet. You come right along with +me. Psha', my dear, we're both women, I guess. We must tend to aour +men-folk. Come!" +</P> + +<P> +The <I>We're Heres</I> promptly went through the crowd as a body-guard, and +it was a very white and shaken Harvey that they propped up on a bench +in an anteroom. +</P> + +<P> +"Favours his ma," was Mrs. Troop's only comment, as the mother bent +over her boy. +</P> + +<P> +"How d'you suppose he could ever stand it?" she cried indignantly to +Cheyne, who had said nothing at all. "It was horrible—horrible! We +shouldn't have come. It's wrong and wicked! It—it isn't right! +Why—why couldn't they put these things in the papers, where they +belong? Are you better, darling?" +</P> + +<P> +That made Harvey very properly ashamed. "Oh, I'm all right, I guess," +he said, struggling to his feet, with a broken giggle. "Must ha' been +something I ate for breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +"Coffee, perhaps," said Cheyne, whose face was all in hard lines, as +though it had been cut out of bronze. "We won't go back again." +</P> + +<P> +"Guess 'twould be 'baout's well to git daown to the wharf," said Disko. +"It's close in along with them Dagoes, an' the fresh air will fresh +Mrs. Cheyne up." +</P> + +<P> +Harvey announced that he never felt better in his life; but it was not +till he saw the <I>We're Here</I>, fresh from the lumper's hands, at +Wouverman's wharf, that he lost his all-overish feelings in a queer +mixture of pride and sorrowfulness. Other people—summer boarders and +such-like—played about in cat-boats or looked at the sea from +pier-heads; but he understood things from the inside—more things than +he could begin to think about. None the less, he could have sat down +and howled because the little schooner was going off. Mrs. Cheyne +simply cried and cried every step of the way and said most +extraordinary things to Mrs. Troop, who "babied" her till Dan, who had +not been "babied" since he was six, whistled aloud. +</P> + +<P> +And so the old crowd—Harvey felt like the most ancient of mariners +dropped into the old schooner among the battered dories, while Harvey +slipped the stern-fast from the pier-head, and they slid her along the +wharf-side with their hands. Every one wanted to say so much that no +one said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan take care of Uncle +Salters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and Long Jack entreated +Harvey to remember his lessons in seamanship; but the jokes fell flat +in the presence of the two women, and it is hard to be funny with green +harbour-water widening between good friends. +</P> + +<P> +"Up jib and fores'l!" shouted Disko, getting to the wheel, as the wind +took her. "See you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near thinkin' a heap +o' you an' your folks." +</P> + +<P> +Then she glided beyond ear-shot, and they sat down to watch her up the +harbour, And still Mrs. Cheyne wept. +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw, my dear," said Mrs. Troop: "we're both women, I guess. Like's +not it'll ease your heart to hev your cry aout. God He knows it never +done me a mite o' good, but then He knows I've had something to cry +fer!" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Now it was a few years later, and upon the other edge of America, that +a young man came through the clammy sea fog up a windy street which is +flanked with most expensive houses built of wood to imitate stone. To +him, as he was standing by a hammered iron gate, entered on +horseback—and the horse would have been cheap at a thousand +dollars—another young man. And this is what they said: +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Dan!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Harve!" +</P> + +<P> +"What's the best with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm so's to be that kind o' animal called second mate this trip. +Ain't you most through with that triple invoiced college of yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"Getting that way. I tell you, the Leland Stanford Junior, isn't a +circumstance to the old <I>We're Here</I>; but I'm coming into the business +for keeps next fall." +</P> + +<P> +"Meanin' aour packets?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing else. You just wait till I get my knife into you, Dan. I'm +going to make the old line lie down and cry when I take hold." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll resk it," said Dan, with a brotherly grin, as Harvey dismounted +and asked whether he were coming in. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I took the cable fer; but, say, is the doctor anywheres +araound? I'll draown that crazy nigger some day, his one cussed joke +an' all." +</P> + +<P> +There was a low, triumphant chuckle, as the ex-cook of the <I>We're Here</I> +came out of the fog to take the horse's bridle. He allowed no one but +himself to attend to any of Harvey's wants. +</P> + +<P> +"Thick as the Banks, ain't it, doctor?" said Dan, propitiatingly. +</P> + +<P> +But the coal-black Celt with the second-sight did not see fit to reply +till he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth time +croaked the old, old prophecy in his ear. +</P> + +<P> +"Master—man. Man—master," said he. "You remember, Dan Troop, what I +said? On the <I>We're Here</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I won't go so far as to deny that it do look like it as things +stand at present," said Dan. "She was a noble packet, and one way an' +another I owe her a heap—her and Dad." +</P> + +<P> +"Me too," quoth Harvey Cheyne. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's "Captains Courageous", by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" *** + +***** This file should be named 2186-h.htm or 2186-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/8/2186/ + +Produced by David Reed and Bill Stoddard. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: "Captains Courageous" + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Posting Date: October 30, 2009 [EBook #2186] +Release Date: May, 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" *** + + + + +Produced by David Reed and Bill Stoddard. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" + +A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS + + +by + +Rudyard Kipling + + + + + TO + JAMES CONLAND, M.D., + Brattleboro, Vermont + + + I ploughed the land with horses, + But my heart was ill at ease, + For the old sea-faring men + Came to me now and then, + With their sagas of the seas. + + Longfellow. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the North +Atlantic fog, as the big liner rolled and lifted, whistling to warn the +fishing-fleet. + +"That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard," said a man in a frieze +overcoat, shutting the door with a bang. "He isn't wanted here. He's +too fresh." + +A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and grunted between +bites: "I know der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you you +should imbort ropes' ends free under your dariff." + +"Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied than +anything," a man from New York drawled, as he lay at full length along +the cushions under the wet skylight. "They've dragged him around from +hotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was talking to his mother +this morning. She's a lovely lady, but she don't pretend to manage him. +He's going to Europe to finish his education." + +"Education isn't begun yet." This was a Philadelphian, curled up in a +corner. "That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money, he told me. He +isn't sixteen either." + +"Railroads, his father, aind't it?" said the German. + +"Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at San +Diego, the old man has; another at Los Angeles; owns half a dozen +railroads, half the lumber on the Pacific slope, and lets his wife +spend the money," the Philadelphian went on lazily. "The West don't +suit her, she says. She just tracks around with the boy and her nerves, +trying to find out what'll amuse him, I guess. Florida, Adirondacks, +Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York, and round again. He isn't much more +than a second-hand hotel clerk now. When he's finished in Europe he'll +be a holy terror." + +"What's the matter with the old man attending to him personally?" said +a voice from the frieze ulster. + +"Old man's piling up the rocks. 'Don't want to be disturbed, I guess. +He'll find out his error a few years from now. 'Pity, because there's a +heap of good in the boy if you could get at it." + +"Mit a rope's end; mit a rope's end!" growled the German. + +Once more the door banged, and a slight, slim-built boy perhaps fifteen +years old, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner of his +mouth, leaned in over the high footway. His pasty yellow complexion did +not show well on a person of his years, and his look was a mixture of +irresolution, bravado, and very cheap smartness. He was dressed in a +cherry-coloured blazer, knickerbockers, red stockings, and bicycle +shoes, with a red flannel cap at the back of the head. After whistling +between his teeth, as he eyed the company, he said in a loud, high +voice: "Say, it's thick outside. You can hear the fish-boats squawking +all around us. Say, wouldn't it be great if we ran down one?" + +"Shut the door, Harvey," said the New Yorker. "Shut the door and stay +outside. You're not wanted here." + +"Who'll stop me?" he answered, deliberately. "Did you pay for my +passage, Mister Martin? 'Guess I've as good right here as the next man." + +He picked up some dice from a checkerboard and began throwing, right +hand against left. + +"Say, gen'elmen, this is deader'n mud. Can't we make a game of poker +between us?" + +There was no answer, and he puffed his cigarette, swung his legs, and +drummed on the table with rather dirty fingers. Then he pulled out a +roll of bills as if to count them. + +"How's your mamma this afternoon?" a man said. "I didn't see her at +lunch." + +"In her state-room, I guess. She's 'most always sick on the ocean. I'm +going to give the stewardess fifteen dollars for looking after her. I +don't go down more 'n I can avoid. It makes me feel mysterious to pass +that butler's-pantry place. Say, this is the first time I've been on +the ocean." + +"Oh, don't apologize, Harvey." + +"Who's apologizing? This is the first time I've crossed the ocean, +gen'elmen, and, except the first day, I haven't been sick one little +bit. No, sir!" He brought down his fist with a triumphant bang, wetted +his finger, and went on counting the bills. + +"Oh, you're a high-grade machine, with the writing in plain sight," the +Philadelphian yawned. "You'll blossom into a credit to your country if +you don't take care." + +"I know it. I'm an American--first, last, and all the time. I'll show +'em that when I strike Europe. Piff! My cig's out. I can't smoke the +truck the steward sells. Any gen'elman got a real Turkish cig on him?" + +The chief engineer entered for a moment, red, smiling, and wet. "Say, +Mac," cried Harvey cheerfully, "how are we hitting it?" + +"Vara much in the ordinary way," was the grave reply. "The young are as +polite as ever to their elders, an' their elders are e'en tryin' to +appreciate it." + +A low chuckle came from a corner. The German opened his cigar-case and +handed a skinny black cigar to Harvey. + +"Dot is der broper apparatus to smoke, my young friendt," he said. "You +vill dry it? Yes? Den you vill be efer so happy." + +Harvey lit the unlovely thing with a flourish: he felt that he was +getting on in grownup society. + +"It would take more 'n this to keel me over," he said, ignorant that he +was lighting that terrible article, a Wheeling "stogie". + +"Dot we shall bresently see," said the German. "Where are we now, Mr. +Mactonal'?" + +"Just there or thereabouts, Mr. Schaefer," said the engineer. "We'll be +on the Grand Bank to-night; but in a general way o' speakin', we're all +among the fishing-fleet now. We've shaved three dories an' near scalped +the boom off a Frenchman since noon, an' that's close sailing', ye may +say." + +"You like my cigar, eh?" the German asked, for Harvey's eyes were full +of tears. + +"Fine, full flavor," he answered through shut teeth. "Guess we've +slowed down a little, haven't we? I'll skip out and see what the log +says." + +"I might if I vhas you," said the German. + +Harvey staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail. He was very +unhappy; but he saw the deck-steward lashing chairs together, and, +since he had boasted before the man that he was never seasick, his +pride made him go aft to the second-saloon deck at the stern, which was +finished in a turtle-back. The deck was deserted, and he crawled to the +extreme end of it, near the flag-pole. There he doubled up in limp +agony, for the Wheeling "stogie" joined with the surge and jar of the +screw to sieve out his soul. His head swelled; sparks of fire danced +before his eyes; his body seemed to lose weight, while his heels +wavered in the breeze. He was fainting from seasickness, and a roll of +the ship tilted him over the rail on to the smooth lip of the +turtle-back. Then a low, gray mother-wave swung out of the fog, tucked +Harvey under one arm, so to speak, and pulled him off and away to +leeward; the great green closed over him, and he went quietly to sleep. + +He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used to blow +at a summer-school he had once attended in the Adirondacks. Slowly he +remembered that he was Harvey Cheyne, drowned and dead in mid-ocean, +but was too weak to fit things together. A new smell filled his +nostrils; wet and clammy chills ran down his back, and he was +helplessly full of salt water. When he opened his eyes, he perceived +that he was still on the top of the sea, for it was running round him +in silver-coloured hills, and he was lying on a pile of half-dead fish, +looking at a broad human back clothed in a blue jersey. + +"It's no good," thought the boy. "I'm dead, sure enough, and this thing +is in charge." + +He groaned, and the figure turned its head, showing a pair of little +gold rings half hidden in curly black hair. + +"Aha! You feel some pretty well now?" it said. "Lie still so: we trim +better." + +With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a foamless +sea that lifted her twenty full feet, only to slide her into a glassy +pit beyond. But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt blue-jersey's +talk. "Fine good job, I say, that I catch you. Eh, wha-at? Better good +job, I say, your boat not catch me. How you come to fall out?" + +"I was sick," said Harvey; "sick, and couldn't help it." + +"Just in time I blow my horn, and your boat she yaw a little. Then I +see you come all down. Eh, wha-at? I think you are cut into baits by +the screw, but you dreeft--dreeft to me, and I make a big fish of you. +So you shall not die this time." + +"Where am I?" said Harvey, who could not see that life was particularly +safe where he lay. + +"You are with me in the dory--Manuel my name, and I come from schooner +_We're Here_ of Gloucester. I live to Gloucester. By-and-by we get +supper. Eh, wha-at?" + +He seemed to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, not +content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand up +to it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, and send a +grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long this +entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay back +terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he heard a gun +and a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the dory, but quite as +lively, loomed alongside. Several voices talked at once; he was dropped +into a dark, heaving hole, where men in oilskins gave him a hot drink +and took off his clothes, and he fell asleep. + +When he waked he listened for the first breakfast-bell on the steamer, +wondering why his state-room had grown so small. Turning, he looked +into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung against a huge +square beam. A three-cornered table within arm's reach ran from the +angle of the bows to the foremast. At the after end, behind a well-used +Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a flat red face and a +pair of twinkling gray eyes. He was dressed in a blue jersey and high +rubber boots. Several pairs of the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, +and some worn-out woollen socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow +oilskins swayed to and fro beside the bunks. The place was packed as +full of smells as a bale is of cotton. The oilskins had a peculiarly +thick flavor of their own which made a sort of background to the smells +of fried fish, burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; but +these, again, were all hooped together by one encircling smell of ship +and salt water. Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets on +his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps +and nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not that of a steamer. +She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather wriggling herself about +in a silly, aimless way, like a colt at the end of a halter. +Water-noises ran by close to his ear, and beams creaked and whined +about him. All these things made him grunt despairingly and think of +his mother. + +"Feelin' better?" said the boy, with a grin. "Hev some coffee?" He +brought a tin cup full and sweetened it with molasses. + +"Isn't there milk?" said Harvey, looking round the dark double tier of +bunks as if he expected to find a cow there. + +"Well, no," said the boy. "Ner there ain't likely to be till 'baout +mid-September. 'Tain't bad coffee. I made it." + +Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of pieces +of crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously. + +"I've dried your clothes. Guess they've shrunk some," said the boy. +"They ain't our style much--none of 'em. Twist round an' see if you're +hurt any." + +Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report any +injuries. + +"That's good," the boy said heartily. "Fix yerself an' go on deck. Dad +wants to see you. I'm his son,--Dan, they call me,--an' I'm cook's +helper an' everything else aboard that's too dirty for the men. There +ain't no boy here 'cep' me sence Otto went overboard--an' he was only a +Dutchy, an' twenty year old at that. How'd you come to fall off in a +dead flat ca'am?" + +"'Twasn't a calm," said Harvey, sulkily. "It was a gale, and I was +seasick. Guess I must have rolled over the rail." + +"There was a little common swell yes'day an' last night," said the boy. +"But ef thet's your notion of a gale----" He whistled. "You'll know +more 'fore you're through. Hurry! Dad's waitin'." + +Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his +life received a direct order--never, at least, without long, and +sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the +reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his +spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on the +edge of nervous prostration. He could not see why he should be expected +to hurry for any man's pleasure, and said so. "Your dad can come down +here if he's so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to New +York right away. It'll pay him." + +Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on him. +"Say, Dad!" he shouted up the foc'sle hatch, "he says you kin slip down +an' see him ef you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?" + +The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard from a +human chest: "Quit foolin', Dan, and send him to me." + +Dan sniggered, and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes. There was +something in the tones on the deck that made the boy dissemble his +extreme rage and console himself with the thought of gradually +unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth on the voyage +home. This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his friends for +life. He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular ladder, and +stumbled aft, over a score of obstructions, to where a small, +thick-set, clean-shaven man with gray eyebrows sat on a step that led +up to the quarter-deck. The swell had passed in the night, leaving a +long, oily sea, dotted round the horizon with the sails of a dozen +fishing-boats. Between them lay little black specks, showing where the +dories were out fishing. The schooner, with a triangular riding-sail on +the mainmast, played easily at anchor, and except for the man by the +cabin-roof--"house" they call it--she was deserted. + +"Mornin'--Good afternoon, I should say. You've nigh slep' the clock +round, young feller," was the greeting. + +"Mornin'," said Harvey. He did not like being called "young feller"; +and, as one rescued from drowning, expected sympathy. His mother +suffered agonies whenever he got his feet wet; but this mariner did not +seem excited. + +"Naow let's hear all abaout it. It's quite providential, first an' +last, fer all concerned. What might be your name? Where from (we +mistrust it's Noo York), an' where baound (we mistrust it's Europe)?" + +Harvey gave his name, the name of the steamer, and a short history of +the accident, winding up with a demand to be taken back immediately to +New York, where his father would pay anything any one chose to name. + +"H'm," said the shaven man, quite unmoved by the end of Harvey's +speech. "I can't say we think special of any man, or boy even, that +falls overboard from that kind o' packet in a flat ca'am. Least of all +when his excuse is that he's seasick." + +"Excuse!" cried Harvey. "D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into your +dirty little boat for fun?" + +"Not knowin' what your notions o' fun may be, I can't rightly say, +young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn't call the boat which, under +Providence, was the means o' savin' ye, names. In the first place, it's +blame irreligious. In the second, it's annoyin' to my feelin's--an' I'm +Disko Troop o' the _We're Here_ o' Gloucester, which you don't seem +rightly to know." + +"I don't know and I don't care," said Harvey. "I'm grateful enough for +being saved and all that, of course! but I want you to understand that +the sooner you take me back to New York the better it'll pay you." + +"Meanin'--haow?" Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a suspiciously +mild blue eye. + +"Dollars and cents," said Harvey, delighted to think that he was making +an impression. "Cold dollars and cents." He thrust a hand into a +pocket, and threw out his stomach a little, which was his way of being +grand. "You've done the best day's work you ever did in your life when +you pulled me in. I'm all the son Harvey Cheyne has." + +"He's bin favoured," said Disko, dryly. + +"And if you don't know who Harvey Cheyne is, you don't know +much--that's all. Now turn her around and let's hurry." + +Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled with +people discussing and envying his father's dollars. + +"Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't. Take a reef in your stummick, young +feller. It's full o' my vittles." + +Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy by the +stump-foremast, and blood rushed to his face. "We'll pay for that too," +he said. "When do you suppose we shall get to New York?" + +"I don't use Noo York any. Ner Boston. We may see Eastern Point about +September; an' your pa--I'm real sorry I hain't heerd tell of him--may +give me ten dollars efter all your talk. Then o' course he mayn't." + +"Ten dollars! Why, see here, I--" Harvey dived into his pocket for the +wad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes. + +"Not lawful currency; an' bad for the lungs. Heave 'em overboard, young +feller, and try agin." + +"It's been stolen!" cried Harvey, hotly. + +"You'll hev to wait till you see your pa to reward me, then?" + +"A hundred and thirty-four dollars--all stolen," said Harvey, hunting +wildly through his pockets. "Give them back." + +A curious change flitted across old Troop's hard face. "What might you +have been doin' at your time o' life with one hundred an' thirty-four +dollars, young feller?" + +"It was part of my pocket-money--for a month." This Harvey thought +would be a knock-down blow, and it was--indirectly. + +"Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his +pocket-money--for one month only! You don't remember hittin' anything +when you fell over, do you? Crack agin a stanchion, le's say. Old man +Hasken o' the East Wind"--Troop seemed to be talking to himself--"he +tripped on a hatch an' butted the mainmast with his head--hardish. +'Baout three weeks afterwards, old man Hasken he would hev it that the +"East Wind" was a commerce-destroyin' man-o'-war, an' so he declared +war on Sable Island because it was Bridish, an' the shoals run aout too +far. They sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head an' feet appearin', fer +the rest o' the trip, an' now he's to home in Essex playin' with little +rag dolls." + +Harvey choked with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: "We're sorry +fer you. We're very sorry fer you--an' so young. We won't say no more +abaout the money, I guess." + +"'Course you won't. You stole it." + +"Suit yourself. We stole it ef it's any comfort to you. Naow, abaout +goin' back. Allowin' we could do it, which we can't, you ain't in no +fit state to go back to your home, an' we've jest come on to the Banks, +workin' fer our bread. We don't see the ha'af of a hundred dollars a +month, let alone pocket-money; an' with good luck we'll be ashore again +somewheres abaout the first weeks o' September." + +"But--but it's May now, and I can't stay here doin' nothing just +because you want to fish. I can't, I tell you!" + +"Right an' jest; jest an' right. No one asks you to do nothin'. There's +a heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I mistrust +he lost his grip in a gale we f'und there. Anyways, he never come back +to deny it. You've turned up, plain, plumb providential for all +concerned. I mistrust, though, there's ruther few things you kin do. +Ain't thet so?" + +"I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore," said +Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about "piracy," at +which Troop almost--not quite--smiled. + +"Excep' talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more'n you've a +mind to aboard the _We're Here_. Keep your eyes open, an' help Dan to +do ez he's bid, an' sechlike, an' I'll give you--you ain't wuth it, but +I'll give--ten an' a ha'af a month; say thirty-five at the end o' the +trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us all +abaout your dad an' your ma an' your money afterwards." + +"She's on the steamer," said Harvey, his eyes filling with tears. "Take +me to New York at once." + +"Poor woman--poor woman! When she has you back she'll forgit it all, +though. There's eight of us on the _We're Here_, an' ef we went back +naow--it's more'n a thousand mile--we'd lose the season. The men they +wouldn't hev it, allowin' I was agreeable." + +"But my father would make it all right." + +"He'd try. I don't doubt he'd try," said Troop; "but a whole season's +catch is eight men's bread; an' you'll be better in your health when +you see him in the fall. Go forward an' help Dan. It's ten an' a ha'af +a month, e I said, an' o' course, all f'und, same e the rest o' us." + +"Do you mean I'm to clean pots and pans and things?" said Harvey. + +"An' other things. You've no call to shout, young feller." + +"I won't! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little +fish-kettle"--Harvey stamped on the deck--"ten times over, if you take +me to New York safe; and--and--you're in a hundred and thirty by me, +anyhow." + +"Haow?" said Troop, the iron face darkening. + +"How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want me to do +menial work"--Harvey was very proud of that adjective--"till the Fall. +I tell you I will not. You hear?" + +Troop regarded the top of the mainmast with deep interest for a while, +as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him. + +"Hsh!" he said at last. "I'm figurin' out my responsibilities in my own +mind. It's a matter o' jedgment." + +Dan stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. "Don't go to tamperin' +with Dad any more," he pleaded. "You've called him a thief two or three +times over, an' he don't take that from any livin' bein'." + +"I won't!" Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and still +Troop meditated. + +"Seems kinder unneighbourly," he said at last, his eye travelling down +to Harvey. "I--don't blame you, not a mite, young feeler, nor you won't +blame me when the bile's out o' your systim. Be sure you sense what I +say? Ten an' a ha'af fer second boy on the schooner--an' all found--fer +to teach you an' fer the sake o' your health. Yes or no?" + +"No!" said Harvey. "Take me back to New York or I'll see you--" + +He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in the +scuppers, holding on to a nose that bled while Troop looked down on him +serenely. + +"Dan," he said to his son, "I was sot agin this young feeler when I +first saw him on account o' hasty jedgments. Never you be led astray by +hasty jedgments, Dan. Naow I'm sorry for him, because he's clear +distracted in his upper works. He ain't responsible fer the names he's +give me, nor fer his other statements--nor fer jumpin' overboard, which +I'm abaout ha'af convinced he did. You be gentle with him, Dan, 'r I'll +give you twice what I've give him. Them hemmeridges clears the head. +Let him sluice it off!" + +Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older men +bunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless heir to thirty millions. + + + +CHAPTER II + +"I warned ye," said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark, +oiled planking. "Dad ain't noways hasty, but you fair earned it. Pshaw! +there's no sense takin' on so." Harvey's shoulders were rising and +falling in spasms of dry sobbing. "I know the feelin'. First time Dad +laid me out was the last--and that was my first trip. Makes ye feel +sickish an' lonesome. I know." + +"It does," moaned Harvey. "That man's either crazy or drunk, and--and I +can't do anything." + +"Don't say that to Dad," whispered Dan. "He's set agin all liquor, +an'--well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made you +call him a thief? He's my dad." + +Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing wad +of bills. "I'm not crazy," he wound up. "Only--your father has never +seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy up +this boat once a week and never miss it." + +"You don't know what the _We're Here's_ worth. Your dad must hev a pile +o' money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out a straight +yarn. Go ahead." + +"In gold mines and things, West." + +"I've read o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go around +with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call that the +Wild West, and I've heard that their spurs an' bridles was solid +silver." + +"You are a chump!" said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. "My father +hasn't any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his car." + +"Haow? Lobster-car?" + +"No. His own private car, of course. You've seen a private car some +time in your life?" + +"Slatin Beeman he hez one," said Dan, cautiously. "I saw her at the +Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin' her run." (Dan meant +cleaning the windows.) "But Slatin Beeman he owns 'baout every railroad +on Long Island, they say, an' they say he's bought 'baout ha'af Noo +Hampshire an' run a line fence around her, an' filled her up with lions +an' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an' crocodiles an' such all. Slatin +Beeman he's a millionaire. I've seen his car. Yes?" + +"Well, my father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has two +private cars. One's named for me, the 'Harvey', and one for my mother, +the 'Constance'." + +"Hold on," said Dan. "Dad don't ever let me swear, but I guess you can. +'Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if you're lyin'." + +"Of course," said Harvey. + +"The ain't 'niff. Say, 'Hope I may die if I ain't speaking' truth.'" + +"Hope I may die right here," said Harvey, "if every word I've spoken +isn't the cold truth." + +"Hundred an' thirty-four dollars an' all?" said Dan. "I heard ye +talkin' to Dad, an' I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up, same's Jonah." + +Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young person +along his own lines, and ten minutes' questioning convinced him that +Harvey was not lying--much. Besides, he had bound himself by the most +terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he sat, alive, with a red-ended +nose, in the scuppers, recounting marvels upon marvels. + +"Gosh!" said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when Harvey +had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour. Then a grin +of mischievous delight overspread his broad face. "I believe you, +Harvey. Dad's made a mistake fer once in his life." + +"He has, sure," said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge. + +"He'll be mad clear through. Dad jest hates to be mistook in his +jedgments." Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Harvey, don't you +spile the catch by lettin' on." + +"I don't want to be knocked down again. I'll get even with him, though." + +"Never heard any man ever got even with dad. But he'd knock ye down +again sure. The more he was mistook the more he'd do it. But gold-mines +and pistols--" + +"I never said a word about pistols," Harvey cut in, for he was on his +oath. + +"Thet's so; no more you did. Two private cars, then, one named fer you +an' one fer her; an' two hundred dollars a month pocket-money, all +knocked into the scuppers fer not workin' fer ten an' a ha'af a month! +It's the top haul o' the season." He exploded with noiseless chuckles. + +"Then I was right?" said Harvey, who thought he had found a sympathiser. + +"You was wrong; the wrongest kind o' wrong! You take right hold an' +pitch in 'longside o' me, or you'll catch it, an' I'll catch it fer +backin' you up. Dad always gives me double helps 'cause I'm his son, +an' he hates favourin' folk. 'Guess you're kinder mad at dad. I've been +that way time an' again. But dad's a mighty jest man; all the fleet +says so." + +"Looks like justice, this, don't it?" Harvey pointed to his outraged +nose. + +"Thet's nothin'. Lets the shore blood outer you. Dad did it for yer +health. Say, though, I can't have dealin's with a man that thinks me or +dad or any one on the _We're Here's_ a thief. We ain't any common +wharf-end crowd by any manner o' means. We're fishermen, an' we've +shipped together for six years an' more. Don't you make any mistake on +that! I told ye dad don't let me swear. He calls 'em vain oaths, and +pounds me; but ef I could say what you said 'baout your pap an' his +fixin's, I'd say that 'baout your dollars. I dunno what was in your +pockets when I dried your kit, fer I didn't look to see; but I'd say, +using the very same words ez you used jest now, neither me nor dad--an' +we was the only two that teched you after you was brought aboard--knows +anythin' 'baout the money. Thet's my say. Naow?" + +The bloodletting had certainly cleared Harvey's brain, and maybe the +loneliness of the sea had something to do with it. "That's all right," +he said. Then he looked down confusedly. "'Seems to me that for a +fellow just saved from drowning I haven't been over and above grateful, +Dan." + +"Well, you was shook up and silly," said Dan. "Anyway, there was only +dad an' me aboard to see it. The cook he don't count." + +"I might have thought about losing the bills that way," Harvey said, +half to himself, "instead of calling everybody in sight a thief. +Where's your father?" + +"In the cabin. What d' you want o' him again?" + +"You'll see," said Harvey, and he stepped, rather groggily, for his +head was still singing, to the cabin steps where the little ship's +clock hung in plain sight of the wheel. Troop, in the +chocolate-and-yellow painted cabin, was busy with a note-book and an +enormous black pencil which he sucked hard from time to time. + +"I haven't acted quite right," said Harvey, surprised at his own +meekness. + +"What's wrong naow?" said the skipper. "Walked into Dan, hev ye?" + +"No; it's about you." + +"I'm here to listen." + +"Well, I--I'm here to take things back," said Harvey very quickly. +"When a man's saved from drowning--" he gulped. + +"Ey? You'll make a man yet ef you go on this way." + +"He oughtn't begin by calling people names." + +"Jest an' right--right an' jest," said Troop, with the ghost of a dry +smile. + +"So I'm here to say I'm sorry." Another big gulp. + +Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and held +out an eleven-inch hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' good; +an' this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments." A smothered chuckle +on deck caught his ear. "I am very seldom mistook in my jedgments." The +eleven-inch hand closed on Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "We'll +put a little more gristle to that 'fore we've done with you, young +feller; an' I don't think any worse of ye fer anythin' the's gone by. +You wasn't fairly responsible. Go right abaout your business an' you +won't take no hurt." + +"You're white," said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to the +tips of his ears. + +"I don't feel it," said he. + +"I didn't mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows he +don't think the worse of any man, Dad's give himself away. He hates to +be mistook in his jedgments too. Ho! ho! Onct Dad has a jedgment, he'd +sooner dip his colours to the British than change it. I'm glad it's +settled right eend up. Dad's right when he says he can't take you back. +It's all the livin' we make here--fishin'. The men'll be back like +sharks after a dead whale in ha'af an hour." + +"What for?" said Harvey. + +"Supper, o' course. Don't your stummick tell you? You've a heap to +learn." + +"Guess I have," said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropes +and blocks overhead. + +"She's a daisy," said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. +"Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her salt +wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into the +darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts. + +"What's that for? It's all empty," said Harvey. + +"You an' me an' a few more hev got to fill it," said Dan. "That's where +the fish goes." + +"Alive?" said Harvey. + +"Well, no. They're so's to be ruther dead--an' flat--an' salt. There's +a hundred hogshead o' salt in the bins, an' we hain't more'n covered +our dunnage to now." + +"Where are the fish, though?" + +"'In the sea they say, in the boats we pray,'" said Dan, quoting a +fisherman's proverb. "You come in last night with 'baout forty of 'em." + +He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarter-deck. + +"You an' me we'll sluice that out when they're through. 'Send we'll hev +full pens to-night! I've seen her down ha'af a foot with fish waitin' +to clean, an' we stood to the tables till we was splittin' ourselves +instid o' them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they're comm' in naow." Dan +looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards them +over the shining, silky sea. + +"I've never seen the sea from so low down," said Harvey. "It's fine." + +The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden lights +on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green mackerel shades +in the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to be pulling her dories +towards her by invisible strings, and the little black figures in the +tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys. + +"They've struck on good," said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. "Manuel +hain't room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, Aeneid +he?" + +"Which is Manuel? I don't see how you can tell 'em 'way off, as you do." + +"Last boat to the south'ard. He fund you last night," said Dan, +pointing. "Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can't mistake him. East o' +him--he's a heap better'n he rows--is Pennsylvania. Loaded with +saleratus, by the looks of him. East o' him--see how pretty they string +out all along--with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He's a Galway +man inhabitin' South Boston, where they all live mostly, an' mostly +them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away yonder--you'll hear him +tune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man-o'-war's man he was on the old +Ohio first of our navy, he says, to go araound the Horn. He never talks +of much else, 'cept when he sings, but he has fair fishin' luck. There! +What did I tell you?" + +A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. +Harvey heard something about somebody's hands and feet being cold, and +then: + + "Bring forth the chart, the doleful chart, + See where them mountings meet! + The clouds are thick around their heads, + The mists around their feet." + +"Full boat," said Dan, with a chuckle. "If he give us 'O Captain' it's +topping' too!" + +The bellow continued: + + "And naow to thee, O Capting, + Most earnestly I pray, + That they shall never bury me + In church or cloister gray." + +"Double game for Tom Platt. He'll tell you all about the old Ohio +tomorrow. 'See that blue dory behind him? He's my uncle,--Dad's own +brother,--an' ef there's any bad luck loose on the Banks she'll fetch +up agin Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he's rowin'. I'll lay my +wage and share he's the only man stung up to-day--an' he's stung up +good." + +"What'll sting him?" said Harvey, getting interested. + +"Strawberries, mostly. Pumpkins, sometimes, an' sometimes lemons an' +cucumbers. Yes, he's stung up from his elbows down. That man's luck's +perfectly paralyzin'. Naow we'll take a-holt o' the tackles an' hist +'em in. Is it true what you told me jest now, that you never done a +hand's turn o' work in all your born life? Must feel kinder awful, +don't it?" + +"I'm going to try to work, anyway," Harvey replied stoutly. "Only it's +all dead new." + +"Lay a-holt o' that tackle, then. Behind ye!" + +Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the +stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran from +something he called a "topping-lift," as Manuel drew alongside in his +loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey +learned to know well later, and with a short-handled fork began to +throw fish into the pen on deck. "Two hundred and thirty-one," he +shouted. + +"Give him the hook," said Dan, and Harvey ran it into Manuel's hands. +He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory's bow, caught Dan's +tackle, hooked it to the stern-becket, and clambered into the schooner. + +"Pull!" shouted Dan, and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how easily +the dory rose. + +"Hold on, she don't nest in the crosstrees!" Dan laughed; and Harvey +held on, for the boat lay in the air above his head. + +"Lower away," Dan shouted, and as Harvey lowered, Dan swayed the light +boat with one hand till it landed softly just behind the mainmast. +"They don't weigh nothin' empty. Thet was right smart fer a passenger. +There's more trick to it in a sea-way." + +"Ah ha!" said Manuel, holding out a brown hand. "You are some pretty +well now? This time last night the fish they fish for you. Now you fish +for fish. Eh, wha-at?" + +"I'm--I'm ever so grateful," Harvey stammered, and his unfortunate hand +stole to his pocket once more, but he remembered that he had no money +to offer. When he knew Manuel better the mere thought of the mistake he +might have made would cover him with hot, uneasy blushes in his bunk. + +"There is no to be thankful for to me!" said Manuel. "How shall I leave +you dreeft, dreeft all around the Banks? Now you are a fisherman eh, +wha-at? Ouh! Auh!" He bent backward and forward stiffly from the hips +to get the kinks out of himself. + +"I have not cleaned boat to-day. Too busy. They struck on queek. Danny, +my son, clean for me." + +Harvey moved forward at once. Here was something he could do for the +man who had saved his life. + +Dan threw him a swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the slime +clumsily, but with great good-will. "Hike out the foot-boards; they +slide in them grooves," said Dan. "Swab 'em an' lay 'em down. Never let +a foot-board jam. Ye may want her bad some day. Here's Long Jack." + +A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside. + +"Manuel, you take the tackle. I'll fix the tables. Harvey, clear +Manuel's boat. Long Jack's nestin' on the top of her." + +Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory just +above his head. + +"Jest like the Injian puzzle-boxes, ain't they?" said Dan, as the one +boat dropped into the other. + +"Takes to ut like a duck to water," said Long Jack, a grizzly-chinned, +long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro exactly as Manuel had done. +Disko in the cabin growled up the hatchway, and they could hear him +suck his pencil. + +"Wan hunder an' forty-nine an' a half-bad luck to ye, Discobolus!" said +Long Jack. "I'm murderin' meself to fill your pockuts. Slate ut for a +bad catch. The Portugee has bate me." + +Whack came another dory alongside, and more fish shot into the pen. + +"Two hundred and three. Let's look at the passenger!" The speaker was +even larger than the Galway man, and his face was made curious by a +purple cut running slant-ways from his left eye to the right corner of +his mouth. + +Not knowing what else to do, Harvey swabbed each dory as it came down, +pulled out the foot-boards, and laid them in the bottom of the boat. + +"He's caught on good," said the scarred man, who was Tom Platt, +watching him critically. "There are two ways o' doin' everything. One's +fisher-fashion--any end first an' a slippery hitch over all--an' the +other's--" + +"What we did on the old Ohio!" Dan interrupted, brushing into the knot +of men with a long board on legs. "Get out o' here, Tom Platt, an' +leave me fix the tables." + +He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, kicked +out the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging blow from the +man-o'-war's man. + +"An' they did that on the Ohio, too, Danny. See?" said Tom Platt, +laughing. + +"Guess they was swivel-eyed, then, fer it didn't git home, and I know +who'll find his boots on the main-truck ef he don't leave us alone. +Haul ahead! I'm busy, can't ye see?" + +"Danny, ye lie on the cable an' sleep all day," said Long Jack. "You're +the hoight av impidence, an' I'm persuaded ye'll corrupt our supercargo +in a week." + +"His name's Harvey," said Dan, waving two strangely shaped knives, "an' +he'll be worth five of any Sou' Boston clam-digger 'fore long." He laid +the knives tastefully on the table, cocked his head on one side, and +admired the effect. + +"I think it's forty-two," said a small voice overside, and there was a +roar of laughter as another voice answered, "Then my luck's turned fer +onct, 'caze I'm forty-five, though I be stung outer all shape." + +"Forty-two or forty-five. I've lost count," the small voice said. + +"It's Penn an' Uncle Salters caountin' catch. This beats the circus any +day," said Dan. "Jest look at 'em!" + +"Come in--come in!" roared Long Jack. "It's wet out yondher, children." + +"Forty-two, ye said." This was Uncle Salters. + +"I'll count again, then," the voice replied meekly. The two dories +swung together and bunted into the schooner's side. + +"Patience o' Jerusalem!" snapped Uncle Salters, backing water with a +splash. "What possest a farmer like you to set foot in a boat beats me. +You've nigh stove me all up." + +"I am sorry, Mr. Salters. I came to sea on account of nervous +dyspepsia. You advised me, I think." + +"You an' your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole," roared +Uncle Salters, a fat and tubby little man. "You're comin' down on me +agin. Did ye say forty-two or forty-five?" + +"I've forgotten, Mr. Salters. Let's count." + +"Don't see as it could be forty-five. I'm forty-five," said Uncle +Salters. "You count keerful, Penn." + +Disko Troop came out of the cabin. "Salters, you pitch your fish in +naow at once," he said in the tone of authority. + +"Don't spile the catch, Dad," Dan murmured. "Them two are on'y jest +beginnin'." + +"Mother av delight! He's forkin' them wan by wan," howled Long Jack, as +Uncle Salters got to work laboriously; the little man in the other dory +counting a line of notches on the gunwale. + +"That was last week's catch," he said, looking up plaintively, his +forefinger where he had left off. + +Manuel nudged Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and, leaning far +overside, slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made her fast +forward. The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat in--man, fish, +and all. + +"One, two, four-nine," said Tom Platt, counting with a practised eye. +"Forty-seven. Penn, you're it!" Dan let the after-tackle run, and slid +him out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own fish. + +"Hold on!" roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist. "Hold on, I'm a +bit mixed in my caount." + +He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like +"Pennsylvania." + +"Forty-one," said Tom Platt. "Beat by a farmer, Salters. An' you sech a +sailor, too!" + +"'Tweren't fair caount," said he, stumbling out of the pen; "an' I'm +stung up all to pieces." + +His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white. + +"Some folks will find strawberry-bottom," said Dan, addressing the +newly risen moon, "ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me." + +"An' others," said Uncle Salters, "eats the fat o' the land in sloth, +an' mocks their own blood-kin." + +"Seat ye! Seat ye!" a voice Harvey had not heard called from the +foc'sle. Disko Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went forward on +the word. Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea reel and the +tangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down full length on the deck, and Dan +dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him banging casks with a +hammer. + +"Salt," he said, returning. "Soon as we're through supper we git to +dressing-down. You'll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt an' Dad they stow +together, an' you'll hear 'em arguin'. We're second ha'af, you an' me +an' Manuel an' Penn--the youth an' beauty o' the boat." + +"What's the good of that?" said Harvey. "I'm hungry." + +"They'll be through in a minute. Suff! She smells good to-night. Dad +ships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It's a full catch +today, Aeneid it?" He pointed at the pens piled high with cod. "What +water did ye hev, Manuel?" + +"Twenty-fife father," said the Portuguese, sleepily. "They strike on +good an' queek. Some day I show you, Harvey." + +The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder men +came aft. The cook had no need to cry "second half." Dan and Manuel +were down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt, last and most +deliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with the back +of his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down before a tin pan of +cod's tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and fried potato, a +loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful coffee. Hungry as they +were, they waited while "Pennsylvania" solemnly asked a blessing. Then +they stoked in silence till Dan drew a breath over his tin cup and +demanded of Harvey how he felt. + +"'Most full, but there's just room for another piece." + +The cook was a huge, jet-black negro, and, unlike all the negroes +Harvey had met, did not talk, contenting himself with smiles and +dumb-show invitations to eat more. + +"See, Harvey," said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, "it's jest +as I said. The young an' handsome men--like me an' Pennsy an' you an' +Manuel--we're second ha'af, an' we eats when the first ha'af are +through. They're the old fish; an' they're mean an' humpy, an' their +stummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which they don't +deserve. Aeneid that so, doctor?" + +The cook nodded. + +"Can't he talk?" said Harvey in a whisper. + +"'Nough to get along. Not much o' anything we know. His natural +tongue's kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, he +does, where the farmers speak homemade Scotch. Cape Breton's full o' +niggers whose folk run in there durin' aour war, an' they talk like +farmers--all huffy-chuffy." + +"That is not Scotch," said "Pennsylvania." "That is Gaelic. So I read +in a book." + +"Penn reads a heap. Most of what he says is so--'cep' when it comes to +a caount o' fish--eh?" + +"Does your father just let them say how many they've caught without +checking them?" said Harvey. + +"Why, yes. Where's the sense of a man lyin' fer a few old cod?" + +"Was a man once lied for his catch," Manuel put in. "Lied every day. +Fife, ten, twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was." + +"Where was that?" said Dan. "None o' aour folk." + +"Frenchman of Anguille." + +"Ah! Them West Shore Frenchmen don't caount anyway. Stands to reason +they can't caount. Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks, Harvey, +you'll know why," said Dan, with an awful contempt. + + "Always more and never less, + Every time we come to dress," + +Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the "second ha'af" scrambled up at +once. + +The shadow of the masts and rigging, with the never-furled riding-sail, +rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; and the pile of +fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. In the hold there +were tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt moved +among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the +inboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was drumming +impatiently with a knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at his feet. + +"You pitch to dad an' Tom Platt down the hatch, an' take keer Uncle +Salters don't cut yer eye out," said Dan, swinging himself into the +hold. "I'll pass salt below." + +Penn and Manuel stood knee deep among cod in the pen, flourishing drawn +knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and mittens on his hands, faced +Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and the +tub. + +"Hi!" shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up with a +finger under its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on the edge +of the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of tearing, and the +fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either side of the neck, +dropped at Long Jack's feet. + +"Hi!" said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod's +liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head and +offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, who +snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, the backbone flew +over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, gutted, and open, splashed +in the tub, sending the salt water into Harvey's astonished mouth. +After the first yell, the men were silent. The cod moved along as +though they were alive, and long ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the +miraculous dexterity of it all, his tub was full. + +"Pitch!" grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and Harvey +pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch. + +"Hi! Pitch 'em bunchy," shouted Dan. "Don't scatter! Uncle Salters is +the best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!" + +Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting +magazine pages against time. Manuel's body, cramped over from the hips, +stayed like a statue; but his long arms grabbed the fish without +ceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was easy to see he was +weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him without breaking the +chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled because he had caught his +finger in a Frenchman's hook. These hooks are made of soft metal, to be +rebent after use; but the cod very often get away with them and are +hooked again elsewhere; and that is one of the many reasons why the +Gloucester boats despise the Frenchmen. + +Down below, the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough flesh +sounded like the whirring of a grindstone--steady undertune to the +"click-nick" of knives in the pen; the wrench and shloop of torn heads, +dropped liver, and flying offal; the "caraaah" of Uncle Salters's knife +scooping away backbones; and the flap of wet, open bodies falling into +the tub. + +At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; for +fresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back ached with +the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his life that he +was one of the working gang of men, took pride in the thought, and held +on sullenly. + +"Knife oh!" shouted Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, gasping +among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and Long +Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a black +shadow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, and retreated. + +"Blood-ends for breakfast an' head-chowder," said Long Jack, smacking +his lips. + +"Knife oh!" repeated Uncle Salters, waving the flat, curved splitter's +weapon. + +"Look by your foot, Harve," cried Dan below. + +Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch combing. +He dealt these around, taking over the dulled ones. + +"Water!" said Disko Troop. + +"Scuttle-butt's for'ard an' the dipper's alongside. Hurry, Harve," said +Dan. + +He was back in a minute with a big dipperful of stale brown water which +tasted like nectar, and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom Platt. + +"These are cod," said Disko. "They ain't Damarskus figs, Tom Platt, nor +yet silver bars. I've told you that ever single time since we've sailed +together." + +"A matter o' seven seasons," returned Tom Platt coolly. "Good stowin's +good stowin' all the same, an' there's a right an' a wrong way o' +stowin' ballast even. If you'd ever seen four hundred ton o' iron set +into the--" + +"Hi!" With a yell from Manuel the work began again, and never stopped +till the pen was empty. The instant the last fish was down, Disko Troop +rolled aft to the cabin with his brother; Manuel and Long Jack went +forward; Tom Platt only waited long enough to slide home the hatch ere +he too disappeared. In half a minute Harvey heard deep snores in the +cabin, and he was staring blankly at Dan and Penn. + +"I did a little better that time, Danny," said Penn, whose eyelids were +heavy with sleep. "But I think it is my duty to help clean." + +"'Wouldn't hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal," said Dan. "Turn +in, Penn. You've no call to do boy's work. Draw a bucket, Harvey. Oh, +Penn, dump these in the gurry-butt 'fore you sleep. Kin you keep awake +that long?" + +Penn took up the heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a cask +with a hinged top lashed by the foc'sle; then he too dropped out of +sight in the cabin. + +"Boys clean up after dressin' down an' first watch in ca'am weather is +boy's watch on the _We're Here_." Dan sluiced the pen energetically, +unshipped the table, set it up to dry in the moonlight, ran the red +knife-blades through a wad of oakum, and began to sharpen them on a +tiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offal and backbones overboard under +his direction. + +At the first splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from the +oily water and sighed a weird whistling sigh. Harvey started back with +a shout, but Dan only laughed. + +"Grampus," said he. "Beggin' fer fish-heads. They up-eend the way when +they're hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, hain't he?" A +horrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of white +sank, and the water bubbled oilily. "Hain't ye never seen a grampus +up-eend before? You'll see 'em by hundreds 'fore ye're through. Say, +it's good to hev a boy aboard again. Otto was too old, an' a Dutchy at +that. Him an' me we fought consid'ble. 'Wouldn't ha' keered fer that ef +he'd hed a Christian tongue in his head. Sleepy?" + +"Dead sleepy," said Harvey, nodding forward. + +"Mustn't sleep on watch. Rouse up an' see ef our anchor-light's bright +an' shinin'. You're on watch now, Harve." + +"Pshaw! What's to hurt us? Bright's day. Sn-orrr!" + +"Jest when things happen, Dad says. Fine weather's good sleepin', an' +'fore you know, mebbe, you're cut in two by a liner, an' seventeen +brass-bound officers, all gen'elmen, lift their hand to it that your +lights was aout an' there was a thick fog. Harve, I've kinder took to +you, but ef you nod onct more I'll lay into you with a rope's end." + +The moon, who sees many strange things on the Banks, looked down on a +slim youth in knickerbockers and a red jersey, staggering around the +cluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner, while behind him, waving a +knotted rope, walked, after the manner of an executioner, a boy who +yawned and nodded between the blows he dealt. + +The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted a +little in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the +miserable procession continued. Harvey expostulated, threatened, +whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words clotting on +his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and slashed away with +the rope's end, punishing the dories as often as he hit Harvey. At last +the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke little +Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side +on the main hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to +their berths. + + + +CHAPTER III + +It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, +and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of +juicy fragments of fish--the blood-ends the cook had collected +overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who +were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the +foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, and +investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It +was another perfect day--soft, mild, and clear; and Harvey breathed to +the very bottom of his lungs. + +More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas were +full of sails and dories. Far away on the horizon, the smoke of some +liner, her hull invisible, smudged the blue, and to eastward a big +ship's top-gallant sails, just lifting, made a square nick in it. Disko +Troop was smoking by the roof of the cabin--one eye on the craft +around, and the other on the little fly at the main-mast-head. + +"When Dad kerflummoxes that way," said Dan in a whisper, "he's doin' +some high-line thinkin' fer all hands. I'll lay my wage an' share we'll +make berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, an' the Fleet they know Dad +knows. 'See 'em comm' up one by one, lookin' fer nothin' in particular, +o' course, but scrowgin' on us all the time? There's the _Prince Leboo_; +she's a Chat-ham boat. She's crep' up sence last night. An' see that +big one with a patch in her foresail an' a new jib? She's the _Carrie +Pitman_ from West Chat-ham. She won't keep her canvas long onless her +luck's changed since last season. She don't do much 'cep' drift. There +ain't an anchor made 'll hold her. . . . When the smoke puffs up in +little rings like that, Dad's studyin' the fish. Ef we speak to him +now, he'll git mad. Las' time I did, he jest took an' hove a boot at +me." + +Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes that +saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fish--pitting his +knowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod in his own +sea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive schooners on the +horizon as a compliment to his powers. But now that it was paid, he +wished to draw away and make his berth alone, till it was time to go up +to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that roaring town upon the +waters. So Disko Troop thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, +food-supplies, and other domestic arrangements, from the point of view +of a twenty-pound cod; was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself, and +looked remarkably like one. Then he removed the pipe from his teeth. + +"Dad," said Dan, "we've done our chores. Can't we go overside a piece? +It's good catchin' weather." + +"Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them ha'af baked brown shoes. Give +him suthin' fit to wear." + +"Dad's pleased--that settles it," said Dan, delightedly, dragging +Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. "Dad +keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, 'cause Ma sez I'm +keerless." He rummaged through a locker, and in less than three minutes +Harvey was adorned with fisherman's rubber boots that came half up his +thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the elbows, a pair of +nippers, and a sou'wester. + +"Naow ye look somethin' like," said Dan. "Hurry!" + +"Keep nigh an' handy," said Troop "an' don't go visitin' raound the +Fleet. If any one asks you what I'm cal'latin' to do, speak the +truth--fer ye don't know." + +A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay astern of the schooner. Dan +hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, +while Harvey tumbled clumsily after. + +"That's no way o' gettin' into a boat," said Dan. "Ef there was any sea +you'd go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet her." + +Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart and watched Harvey's +work. The boy had rowed, in a lady-like fashion, on the Adirondack +ponds; but there is a difference between squeaking pins and +well-balanced ruflocks--light sculls and stubby, eight-foot sea-oars. +They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted. + +"Short! Row short!" said Dan. "Ef you cramp your oar in any kind o' sea +you're liable to turn her over. Ain't she a daisy? Mine, too." + +The little dory was specklessly clean. In her bows lay a tiny anchor, +two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, brown dory-roding. +A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under Harvey's right hand, +beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and a shorter wooden stick. +A couple of lines, with very heavy leads and double cod-hooks, all +neatly coiled on square reels, were stuck in their place by the gunwale. + +"Where's the sail and mast?" said Harvey, for his hands were beginning +to blister. + +Dan chuckled. "Ye don't sail fishin'-dories much. Ye pull; but ye +needn't pull so hard. Don't you wish you owned her?" + +"Well, I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked 'em," +Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family till +then. + +"That's so. I forgot your dad's a millionaire. You don't act millionary +any, naow. But a dory an' craft an' gear"--Dan spoke as though she were +a whaleboat--"costs a heap. Think your dad 'u'd give you one fer--fer a +pet like?" + +"Shouldn't wonder. It would be 'most the only thing I haven't stuck him +for yet." + +"Must be an expensive kinder kid to home. Don't slitheroo thet way, +Harve. Short's the trick, because no sea's ever dead still, an' the +swells 'll--" + +Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and knocked him +backwards. + +"That was what I was goin' to say. I hed to learn too, but I wasn't +more than eight years old when I got my schoolin'." + +Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown. + +"No good gettin' mad at things, Dad says. It's our own fault ef we +can't handle 'em, he says. Le's try here. Manuel 'll give us the water." + +The "Portugee" was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan up-ended an +oar he waved his left arm three times. + +"Thirty fathom," said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. "Over +with the doughboys. Bait same's I do, Harvey, an' don't snarl your +reel." + +Dan's line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of +baiting and heaving out the leads. The dory drifted along easily. It +was not worth while to anchor till they were sure of good ground. + +"Here we come!" Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on Harvey's +shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. "Muckle, Harvey, +muckle! Under your hand! Quick!" + +Evidently "muckle" could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed over +the maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled it +inboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short wooden stick he +called a "gob-stick." Then Harvey felt a tug, and pulled up zealously. + +"Why, these are strawberries!" he shouted. "Look!" + +The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one side and +white on the other--perfect reproductions of the land fruit, except +that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and slimy. + +"Don't tech 'em. Slat 'em off. Don't--" + +The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the hook, and +was admiring them. + +"Ouch!" he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had grasped +many nettles. + +"Now ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothin' 'cep' fish should be +teched with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat 'em off agin the gunnel, +an' bait up, Harve. Lookin' won't help any. It's all in the wages." + +Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, and +wondered what his mother would say if she could see him hanging over +the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered agonies whenever +he went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way, Harvey remembered +distinctly that he used to laugh at her anxieties. Suddenly the line +flashed through his hand, stinging even through the "nippers," the +woolen circlets supposed to protect it. + +"He's a logy. Give him room accordin' to his strength," cried Dan. +"I'll help ye." + +"No, you won't," Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. "It's my +first fish. Is--is it a whale?" + +"Halibut, mebbe." Dan peered down into the water alongside, and +flourished the big "muckle," ready for all chances. Something white and +oval flickered and fluttered through the green. "I'll lay my wage an' +share he's over a hundred. Are you so everlastin' anxious to land him +alone?" + +Harvey's knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been banged +against the gunwale; his face was purple-blue between excitement and +exertion; he dripped with sweat, and was half-blinded from staring at +the circling sunlit ripples about the swiftly moving line. The boys +were tired long ere the halibut, who took charge of them and the dory +for the next twenty minutes. But the big flat fish was gaffed and +hauled in at last. + +"Beginner's luck," said Dan, wiping his forehead. "He's all of a +hundred." + +Harvey looked at the huge gray-and-mottled creature with unspeakable +pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs ashore, but it +had never occurred to him to ask how they came inland. Now he knew; and +every inch of his body ached with fatigue. + +"Ef Dad was along," said Dan, hauling up, "he'd read the signs plain's +print. The fish are runnin' smaller an' smaller, an' you've took 'baout +as logy a halibut's we're apt to find this trip. Yesterday's catch--did +ye notice it?--was all big fish an' no halibut. Dad he'd read them +signs right off. Dad says everythin' on the Banks is signs, an' can be +read wrong er right. Dad's deeper'n the Whale-hole." + +Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the _We're Here_, and a +potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging. + +"What did I say, naow? That's the call fer the whole crowd. Dad's onter +something, er he'd never break fishin' this time o' day. Reel up, +Harve, an' we'll pull back." + +They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the dory +over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them to +Penn, who was careering around a fixed point for all the world like a +gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down again with +enormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his dory swung round +and snubbed herself on her rope. + +"We'll hev to help him, else he'll root an' seed here," said Dan. + +"What's the matter?" said Harvey. This was a new world, where he could +not lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions humbly. +And the sea was horribly big and unexcited. + +"Anchor's fouled. Penn's always losing 'em. Lost two this trip +a'ready--on sandy bottom too--an' Dad says next one he loses, sure's +fishin', he'll give him the kelleg. That 'u'd break Penn's heart." + +"What's a 'kelleg'?" said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be some +kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the storybooks. + +"Big stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridin' in the bows +fur's you can see a dory, an' all the fleet knows what it means. They'd +guy him dreadful. Penn couldn't stand that no more'n a dog with a +dipper to his tail. He's so everlastin' sensitive. Hello, Penn! Stuck +again? Don't try any more o' your patents. Come up on her, and keep +your rodin' straight up an' down." + +"It doesn't move," said the little man, panting. "It doesn't move at +all, and instead I tried everything." + +"What's all this hurrah's-nest for'ard?" said Dan, pointing to a wild +tangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by the hand +of inexperience. + +"Oh, that," said Penn proudly, "is a Spanish windlass. Mr. Salters +showed me how to make it; but even that doesn't move her." + +Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or twice +on the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once. + +"Haul up, Penn," he said laughing, "er she'll git stuck again." + +They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor with +big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely. + +"Oh, say, while I think of it, Harve," said Dan when they were out of +ear-shot, "Penn ain't quite all caulked. He ain't nowise dangerous, but +his mind's give out. See?" + +"Is that so, or is it one of your father's judgments?" + +Harvey asked as he bent to his oars. He felt he was learning to handle +them more easily. + +"Dad ain't mistook this time. Penn's a sure 'nuff loony." + +"No, he ain't thet exactly, so much ez a harmless ijut. It was this way +(you're rowin' quite so, Harve), an' I tell you 'cause it's right you +orter know. He was a Moravian preacher once. Jacob Boiler wuz his name, +Dad told me, an' he lived with his wife an' four children somewheres +out Pennsylvania way. Well, Penn he took his folks along to a Moravian +meetin'--camp-meetin' most like--an' they stayed over jest one night in +Johns-town. You've heered talk o' Johnstown?" + +Harvey considered. "Yes, I have. But I don't know why. It sticks in my +head same as Ashtabula." + +"Both was big accidents--thet's why, Harve. Well, that one single night +Penn and his folks was to the hotel Johnstown was wiped out. 'Dam bust +an' flooded her, an' the houses struck adrift an' bumped into each +other an' sunk. I've seen the pictures, an' they're dretful. Penn he +saw his folk drowned all'n a heap 'fore he rightly knew what was +comin'. His mind give out from that on. He mistrusted somethin' hed +happened up to Johnstown, but for the poor life of him he couldn't +remember what, an' he jest drifted araound smilin' an' wonderin'. He +didn't know what he was, nor yit what he hed bin, an' thet way he run +agin Uncle Salters, who was visitin' 'n Allegheny City. Ha'af my +mother's folks they live scattered inside o' Pennsylvania, an' Uncle +Salters he visits araound winters. Uncle Salters he kinder adopted +Penn, well knowin' what his trouble wuz; an' he brought him East, an' +he give him work on his farm." + +"Why, I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when the boats +bumped. Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?" + +"Farmer!" shouted Dan. "There ain't water enough 'tween here an' +Hatt'rus to wash the furrer-mold off'n his boots. He's jest everlastin' +farmer. Why, Harve, I've seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long towards +sundown, an' set twiddlin' the spigot to the scuttle-butt same's ef +'twas a cow's bag. He's thet much farmer. Well, Penn an' he they ran +the farm--up Exeter way 'twur. Uncle Salters he sold it this spring to +a jay from Boston as wanted to build a summer-haouse, an' he got a heap +for it. Well, them two loonies scratched along till, one day, Penn's +church--he'd belonged to the Moravians--found out where he wuz drifted +an' layin', an' wrote to Uncle Salters. 'Never heerd what they said +exactly; but Uncle Salters was mad. He's a 'piscopolian mostly--but he +jest let 'em hev it both sides o' the bow, 's if he was a Baptist; an' +sez he warn't goin' to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection in +Pennsylvania or anywheres else. Then he come to Dad, towin' Penn,--thet +was two trips back,--an' sez he an' Penn must fish a trip fer their +health. 'Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn't hunt the Banks fer +Jacob Boiler. Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he'd been fishin' +off an' on fer thirty years, when he warn't inventin' patent manures, +an' he took quarter-share in the _We're Here_; an' the trip done Penn +so much good, Dad made a habit o' takin' him. Some day, Dad sez, he'll +remember his wife an' kids an' Johnstown, an' then, like as not, he'll +die, Dad sez. Don't ye talk abaout Johnstown ner such things to Penn, +'r Uncle Salters he'll heave ye overboard." + +"Poor Penn!" murmured Harvey. "I shouldn't ever have thought Uncle +Salters cared for him by the look of 'em together." + +"I like Penn, though; we all do," said Dan. "We ought to ha' give him a +tow, but I wanted to tell ye first." + +They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little behind +them. + +"You needn't heave in the dories till after dinner," said Troop from +the deck. "We'll dress daown right off. Fix table, boys!" + +"Deeper'n the Whale-deep," said Dan, with a wink, as he set the gear +for dressing down. "Look at them boats that hev edged up sence mornin'. +They're all waitin' on Dad. See 'em, Harve?" + +"They are all alike to me." And indeed to a landsman, the nodding +schooners around seemed run from the same mold. + +"They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit +steeved that way, she's the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her skipper, +the meanest man on the Banks. We'll tell him so when we strike the Main +Ledge. 'Way off yonder's the Day's Eye. The two Jeraulds own her. She's +from Harwich; fastish, too, an' hez good luck; but Dad he'd find fish +in a graveyard. Them other three, side along, they're the Margie Smith, +Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all from home. 'Guess we'll see the Abbie M. +Deering to-morrer, Dad, won't we? They're all slippin' over from the +shaol o' 'Oueereau." + +"You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny." When Troop called his son +Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. "Boys, we're too +crowded," he went on, addressing the crew as they clambered inboard. +"We'll leave 'em to bait big an' catch small." He looked at the catch +in the pen, and it was curious to see how little and level the fish +ran. Save for Harvey's halibut, there was nothing over fifteen pounds +on deck. + +"I'm waitin' on the weather," he added. + +"Ye'll have to make it yourself, Disko, for there's no sign I can see," +said Long Jack, sweeping the clear horizon. + +And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the Bank fog +dropped on them, "between fish and fish," as they say. It drove +steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourless +water. The men stopped dressing-down without a word. Long Jack and +Uncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets, and began +to heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet hempen cable +strained on the barrel. Manuel and Tom Platt gave a hand at the last. +The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail bellied as Troop +steadied her at the wheel. "Up jib and foresail," said he. + +"Slip 'em in the smother," shouted Long Jack, making fast the +jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the +foresail; and the foreboom creaked as the _We're Here_ looked up into +the wind and dived off into blank, whirling white. + +"There's wind behind this fog," said Troop. + +It was wonderful beyond words to Harvey; and the most wonderful part +was that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from Troop, +ending with, "That's good, my son!" + +"Never seen anchor weighed before?" said Tom Platt, to Harvey gaping at +the damp canvas of the foresail. + +"No. Where are we going?" + +"Fish and make berth, as you'll find out 'fore you've been a week +aboard. It's all new to you, but we never know what may come to us. +Now, take me--Tom Platt--I'd never ha' thought--" + +"It's better than fourteen dollars a month an' a bullet in your belly," +said Troop, from the wheel. "Ease your jumbo a grind." + +"Dollars an' cents better," returned the man-o'-war's man, doing +something to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. "But we didn't +think o' that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the Miss Jim Buck, +I outside Beau-fort Harbor, with Fort Macon heavin' hot shot at our +stern, an' a livin' gale atop of all. Where was you then, Disko?" + +"Jest here, or hereabouts," Disko replied, "earnin' my bread on the +deep waters, an' dodgin' Reb privateers. Sorry I can't accommodate you +with red-hot shot, Tom Platt; but I guess we'll come aout all right on +wind 'fore we see Eastern Point." + +There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the bows now, varied by +a solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered down on the +foc'sle. The rigging dripped clammy drops, and the men lounged along +the lee of the house--all save Uncle Salters, who sat stiffly on the +main-hatch nursing his stung hands. + +"Guess she'd carry stays'l," said Disko, rolling one eye at his brother. + +"Guess she wouldn't to any sorter profit. What's the sense o' wastin' +canvas?" the farmer-sailor replied. + +The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands. A few seconds +later a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the boat, smote +Uncle Salters between the shoulders, and drenched him from head to +foot. He rose sputtering, and went forward only to catch another. + +"See Dad chase him all around the deck," said Dan. "Uncle Salters he +thinks his quarter share's our canvas. Dad's put this duckin' act up on +him two trips runnin'. Hi! That found him where he feeds." Uncle +Salters had taken refuge by the foremast, but a wave slapped him over +the knees. Disko's face was as blank as the circle of the wheel. + +"Guess she'd lie easier under stays'l, Salters," said Disko, as though +he had seen nothing. + +"Set your old kite, then," roared the victim through a cloud of spray; +"only don't lay it to me if anything happens. Penn, you go below right +off an' git your coffee. You ought to hev more sense than to bum +araound on deck this weather." + +"Now they'll swill coffee an' play checkers till the cows come home," +said Dan, as Uncle Salters hustled Penn into the fore-cabin. "'Looks to +me like's if we'd all be doin' so fer a spell. There's nothin' in +creation deader-limpsey-idler'n a Banker when she ain't on fish." + +"I'm glad ye spoke, Danny," cried Long Jack, who had been casting round +in search of amusement. "I'd clean forgot we'd a passenger under that +T-wharf hat. There's no idleness for thim that don't know their ropes. +Pass him along, Tom Platt, an' we'll larn him." + +"'Tain't my trick this time," grinned Dan. "You've got to go it alone. +Dad learned me with a rope's end." + +For an hour Long Jack walked his prey up and down, teaching, as he +said, "things at the sea that ivry man must know, blind, dhrunk, or +asleep." There is not much gear to a seventy-ton schooner with a +stump-foremast, but Long Jack had a gift of expression. When he wished +to draw Harvey's attention to the peak-halyards, he dug his knuckles +into the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze for half a minute. +He emphasized the difference between fore and aft generally by rubbing +Harvey's nose along a few feet of the boom, and the lead of each rope +was fixed in Harvey's mind by the end of the rope itself. + +The lesson would have been easier had the deck been at all free; but +there appeared to be a place on it for everything and anything except a +man. Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the chain and hemp +cables, all very unpleasant to trip over; the foc'sle stovepipe, and +the gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch to hold the fish-livers. Aft of +these the foreboom and booby of the main-hatch took all the space that +was not needed for the pumps and dressing-pens. Then came the nests of +dories lashed to ring-bolts by the quarter-deck; the house, with tubs +and oddments lashed all around it; and, last, the sixty-foot main-boom +in its crutch, splitting things length-wise, to duck and dodge under +every time. + +Tom Platt, of course, could not keep his oar out of the business, but +ranged alongside with enormous and unnecessary descriptions of sails +and spars on the old Ohio. + +"Niver mind fwhat he says; attind to me, Innocince. Tom Platt, this +bally-hoo's not the Ohio, an' you're mixing the bhoy bad." + +"He'll be ruined for life, beginnin' on a fore-an'-after this way," Tom +Platt pleaded. "Give him a chance to know a few leadin' principles. +Sailin's an art, Harvey, as I'd show you if I had ye in the fore-top o' +the--" + +"I know ut. Ye'd talk him dead an' cowld. Silince, Tom Platt! Now, +after all I've said, how'd you reef the foresail, Harve? Take your time +answerin'." + +"Haul that in," said Harvey, pointing to leeward. + +"Fwhat? The North Atlantuc?" + +"No, the boom. Then run that rope you showed me back there--" + +"That's no way," Tom Platt burst in. + +"Quiet! He's larnin', an' has not the names good yet. Go on, Harve." + +"Oh, it's the reef-pennant. I'd hook the tackle on to the reef-pennant, +and then let down--" + +"Lower the sail, child! Lower!" said Tom Platt, in a professional agony. + +"Lower the throat and peak halyards," Harvey went on. Those names stuck +in his head. + +"Lay your hand on thim," said Long Jack. + +Harvey obeyed. "Lower till that rope-loop--on the after-leach-kris--no, +it's cringle--till the cringle was down on the boom. Then I'd tie her +up the way you said, and then I'd hoist up the peak and throat halyards +again." + +"You've forgot to pass the tack-earing, but wid time and help ye'll +larn. There's good and just reason for ivry rope aboard, or else +'twould be overboard. D'ye follow me? 'Tis dollars an' cents I'm +puttin' into your pocket, ye skinny little supercargo, so that fwhin +ye've filled out ye can ship from Boston to Cuba an' tell thim Long +Jack larned you. Now I'll chase ye around a piece, callin' the ropes, +an' you'll lay your hand on thim as I call." + +He began, and Harvey, who was feeling rather tired, walked slowly to +the rope named. A rope's end licked round his ribs, and nearly knocked +the breath out of him. + +"When you own a boat," said Tom Platt, with severe eyes, "you can walk. +Till then, take all orders at the run. Once more--to make sure!" + +Harvey was in a glow with the exercise, and this last cut warmed him +thoroughly. Now he was a singularly smart boy, the son of a very clever +man and a very sensitive woman, with a fine resolute temper that +systematic spoiling had nearly turned to mulish obstinacy. He looked at +the other men, and saw that even Dan did not smile. It was evidently +all in the day's work, though it hurt abominably; so he swallowed the +hint with a gulp and a gasp and a grin. The same smartness that led him +to take such advantage of his mother made him very sure that no one on +the boat, except, maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One +learns a great deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over half a +dozen ropes, and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide, +one eye on Tom Platt. + +"Ver' good. Ver' good don," said Manuel. "After supper I show you a +little schooner I make, with all her ropes. So we shall learn." + +"Fust-class fer--a passenger," said Dan. "Dad he's jest allowed you'll +be wuth your salt maybe 'fore you're draownded. Thet's a heap fer Dad. +I'll learn you more our next watch together." + +"Taller!" grunted Disko, peering through the fog as it smoked over the +bows. There was nothing to be seen ten feet beyond the surging +jib-boom, while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn, pale +waves whispering and lipping one to the other. + +"Now I'll learn you something Long Jack can't," shouted Tom Platt, as +from a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea lead +hollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of mutton +tallow, and went forward. "I'll learn you how to fly the Blue Pigeon. +Shooo!" + +Disko did something to the wheel that checked the schooner's way, while +Manuel, with Harvey to help (and a proud boy was Harvey), let down the +jib in a lump on the boom. The lead sung a deep droning song as Tom +Platt whirled it round and round. + +"Go ahead, man," said Long Jack, impatiently. "We're not drawin' +twenty-five fut off Fire Island in a fog. There's no trick to ut." + +"Don't be jealous, Galway." The released lead plopped into the sea far +ahead as the schooner surged slowly forward. + +"Soundin' is a trick, though," said Dan, "when your dipsey lead's all +the eye you're like to hev for a week. What d'you make it, Dad?" + +Disko's face relaxed. His skill and honour were involved in the march +he had stolen on the rest of the Fleet, and he had his reputation as a +master artist who knew the Banks blindfold. "Sixty, mebbe--ef I'm any +judge," he replied, with a glance at the tiny compass in the window of +the house. + +"Sixty," sung out Tom Platt, hauling in great wet coils. + +The schooner gathered way once more. "Heave!" said Disko, after a +quarter of an hour. + +"What d'you make it?" Dan whispered, and he looked at Harvey proudly. +But Harvey was too proud of his own performances to be impressed just +then. + +"Fifty," said the father. "I mistrust we're right over the nick o' +Green Bank on old Sixty-Fifty." + +"Fifty!" roared Tom Platt. They could scarcely see him through the fog. +"She's bust within a yard--like the shells at Fort Macon." + +"Bait up, Harve," said Dan, diving for a line on the reel. + +The schooner seemed to be straying promiscuously through the smother, +her headsail banging wildly. The men waited and looked at the boys who +began fishing. + +"Heugh!" Dan's lines twitched on the scored and scarred rail. "Now haow +in thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It's a big un. +Poke-hooked, too." They hauled together, and landed a goggle-eyed +twenty-pound cod. He had taken the bait right into his stomach. + +"Why, he's all covered with little crabs," cried Harvey, turning him +over. + +"By the great hook-block, they're lousy already," said Long Jack. +"Disko, ye kape your spare eyes under the keel." + +Splash went the anchor, and they all heaved over the lines, each man +taking his own place at the bulwarks. + +"Are they good to eat?" Harvey panted, as he lugged in another +crab-covered cod. + +"Sure. When they're lousy it's a sign they've all been herdin' together +by the thousand, and when they take the bait that way they're hungry. +Never mind how the bait sets. They'll bite on the bare hook." + +"Say, this is great!" Harvey cried, as the fish came in gasping and +splashing--nearly all poke-hooked, as Dan had said. "Why can't we +always fish from the boat instead of from the dories?" + +"Allus can, till we begin to dress daown. Efter thet, the heads and +offals 'u'd scare the fish to Fundy. Boatfishin' ain't reckoned +progressive, though, unless ye know as much as dad knows. Guess we'll +run aout aour trawl to-night. Harder on the back, this, than frum the +dory, ain't it?" + +It was rather back-breaking work, for in a dory the weight of a cod is +water-borne till the last minute, and you are, so to speak, abreast of +him; but the few feet of a schooner's freeboard make so much extra +dead-hauling, and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the stomach. But it +was wild and furious sport so long as it lasted; and a big pile lay +aboard when the fish ceased biting. + +"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters?" Harvey asked, slapping the slime off +his oilskins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation of the +others. + +"Git 's coffee and see." + +Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post, the foc'sle table +down and opened, utterly unconscious of fish or weather, sat the two +men, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters snarling at Penn's +every move. + +"What's the matter naow?" said the former, as Harvey, one hand in the +leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the cook. + +"Big fish and lousy--heaps and heaps," Harvey replied, quoting Long +Jack. "How's the game?" + +Little Penn's jaw dropped. "'Tweren't none o' his fault," snapped Uncle +Salters. "Penn's deef." + +"Checkers, weren't it?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with the +steaming coffee in a tin pail. "That lets us out o' cleanin' up +to-night. Dad's a jest man. They'll have to do it." + +"An' two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o' trawl, while +they're cleanin'," said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste. + +"Um! Guess I'd ruther clean up, Dad." + +"Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress daown! Dress daown! Penn'll +pitch while you two bait up." + +"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?" said +Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. "This knife's +gum-blunt, Dan." + +"Ef stickin' out cable don't wake ye, guess you'd better hire a boy o' +your own," said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs full of +trawl-line lashed to windward of the house. "Oh, Harve, don't ye want +to slip down an' git 's bait?" + +"Bait ez we are," said Disko. "I mistrust shag-fishin' will pay better, +ez things go." + +That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as the +fish were cleaned--an improvement on paddling bare-handed in the little +bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line carrying a +big hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of every single +hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it should run clear +when shot from the dory, was a scientific business. Dan managed it in +the dark, without looking, while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs +and bewailed his fate. But the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like +tatting on an old maid's lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore I +could well walk," he said. "But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh, +Dad!" This shouted towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt were +salting. "How many skates you reckon we'll need?" + +"'Baout three. Hurry!" + +"There's three hundred fathom to each tub," Dan explained; "more'n +enough to lay out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I did." He stuck +his finger in his mouth. "I tell you, Harve, there ain't money in +Gloucester 'u'd hire me to ship on a reg'lar trawler. It may be +progressive, but, barrin' that, it's the putterin'est, slimjammest +business top of earth." + +"I don't know what this is, if 'tisn't regular trawling," said Harvey +sulkily. "My fingers are all cut to frazzles." + +"Pshaw! This is just one o' Dad's blame experiments. He don't trawl +'less there's mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet's why he's +baitin' ez he is. We'll hev her saggin' full when we take her up er we +won't see a fin." + +Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the boys +profited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom Platt and +Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory with a lantern, +snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some small, painted +trawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what Harvey regarded as +an exceedingly rough sea. "They'll be drowned. Why, the dory's loaded +like a freight-car," he cried. + +"We'll be back," said Long Jack, "an' in case you'll not be lookin' for +us, we'll lay into you both if the trawl's snarled." + +The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemed +impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's side, +slid over the ridge, and was swallowed up in the damp dusk. + +"Take ahold here, an' keep ringin' steady," said Dan, passing Harvey +the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass. + +Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But Disko +in the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a murderer, +and when he went to supper he even smiled dryly at the anxious Harvey. + +"This ain't no weather," said Dan. "Why, you an' me could set thet +trawl! They've only gone out jest far 'nough so's not to foul our +cable. They don't need no bell reelly." + +"Clang! clang! clang!" Harvey kept it up, varied with occasional +rub-a-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bump +alongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory-tackle; Long +Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together, it seemed, one half the +North Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them in the air, +landing with a clatter. + +"Nary snarl," said Tom Platt as he dripped. "Danny, you'll do yet." + +"The pleasure av your comp'ny to the banquit," said Long Jack, +squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant and +stuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey's face. "We do be condescending to +honour the second half wid our presence." And off they all four rolled +to supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to the brim on fish-chowder and +fried pies, and fell fast asleep just as Manuel produced from a locker +a lovely two-foot model of the Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and was +going to show Harvey the ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingers +as Penn pushed him into his bunk. + +"It must be a sad thing--a very sad thing," said Penn, watching the +boy's face, "for his mother and his father, who think he is dead. To +lose a child--to lose a man-child!" + +"Git out o' this, Penn," said Dan. "Go aft and finish your game with +Uncle Salters. Tell Dad I'll stand Harve's watch ef he don't keer. He's +played aout." + +"Ver' good boy," said Manuel, slipping out of his boots and +disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. "Expec' he make +good man, Danny. I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he says. Eh, +wha-at?" + +Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore. + +It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder men +stretched their watches. The hour struck clear in the cabin; the nosing +bows slapped and scuffed with the seas; the foc'sle stove-pipe hissed +and sputtered as the spray caught it; and the boys slept on, while +Disko, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, each in turn, stumped +aft to look at the wheel, forward to see that the anchor held, or to +veer out a little more cable against chafing, with a glance at the dim +anchor-light between each round. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Harvey waked to find the "first half" at breakfast, the foc'sle door +drawn to a crack, and every square inch of the schooner singing its own +tune. The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny galley over +the glare of the stove, and the pots and pans in the pierced wooden +board before it jarred and racketed to each plunge. Up and up the +foc'sle climbed, yearning and surging and quivering, and then, with a +clear, sickle-like swoop, came down into the seas. He could hear the +flaring bows cut and squelch, and there was a pause ere the divided +waters came down on the deck above, like a volley of buckshot. Followed +the woolly sound of the cable in the hawse-hole; and a grunt and squeal +of the windlass; a yaw, a punt, and a kick, and the _We're Here_ +gathered herself together to repeat the motions. + +"Now, ashore," he heard Long Jack saying, "ye've chores, an' ye must do +thim in any weather. Here we're well clear of the fleet, an' we've no +chores--an' that's a blessin'. Good night, all." He passed like a big +snake from the table to his bunk, and began to smoke. Tom Platt +followed his example; Uncle Salters, with Penn, fought his way up the +ladder to stand his watch, and the cook set for the "second half." + +It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs, with a shake +and a yawn. It ate till it could eat no more; and then Manuel filled +his pipe with some terrible tobacco, crotched himself between the +pawl-post and a forward bunk, cocked his feet up on the table, and +smiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke. Dan lay at length in +his bunk, wrestling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped accordion, whose tunes +went up and down with the pitching of the _We're Here_. The cook, his +shoulders against the locker where he kept the fried pies (Dan was fond +of fried pies), peeled potatoes, with one eye on the stove in event of +too much water finding its way down the pipe; and the general smell and +smother were past all description. + +Harvey considered affairs, wondered that he was not deathly sick, and +crawled into his bunk again, as the softest and safest place, while Dan +struck up, "I don't want to play in your yard," as accurately as the +wild jerks allowed. + +"How long is this for?" Harvey asked of Manuel. + +"Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl. Perhaps +to-night. Perhaps two days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?" + +"I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn't seem to upset +me now--much." + +"That is because we make you fisherman, these days. If I was you, when +I come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for my good +luck." + +"Give who?" + +"To be sure--the Virgin of our Church on the Hill. She is very good to +fishermen all the time. That is why so few of us Portugee men ever are +drowned." + +"You're a Roman Catholic, then?" + +"I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist, +then? Eh, wha-at? I always give candles--two, three more when I come to +Gloucester. The good Virgin she never forgets me, Manuel." + +"I don't sense it that way," Tom Platt put in from his bunk, his +scarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe. +"It stands to reason the sea's the sea; and you'll get jest about +what's goin', candles or kerosene, fer that matter." + +"'Tis a mighty good thing," said Long Jack, "to have a frind at coort, +though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years back I was crew +to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid a +northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. The ould man was +dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iver I +stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show the saints fwhat manner +o' craft they saved me out av.' Now, I'm here, as ye can well see, an' +the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, that took me a month to make, I +gave ut to the priest, an' he hung ut up forninst the altar. There's +more sense in givin' a model that's by way o' bein' a work av art than +any candle. Ye can buy candles at store, but a model shows the good +saints ye've tuk trouble an' are grateful." + +"D'you believe that, Irish?" said Tom Platt, turning on his elbow. + +"Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?" + +"Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o' the old Ohio, and she's to +Calem museum now. Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess Enoch he never +done it fer no sacrifice; an' the way I take it is--" + +There were the makings of an hour-long discussion of the kind that +fishermen love, where the talk runs in shouting circles and no one +proves anything at the end, had not Dan struck up this cheerful rhyme: + + "Up jumped the mackerel with his stripe'd back. + Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack; + _For_ it's windy weather--" + +Here Long Jack joined in: + + "_And_ it's blowy weather; + _When_ the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together!" + +Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom Platt, holding the accordion +low in the bunk: + + "Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head, + Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead; + _For_ it's windy weather," etc. + +Tom Platt seemed to be hunting for something. Dan crouched lower, but +sang louder: + + "Up jumped the flounder that swims to the ground. + Chuckle-head! Chuckle-head! Mind where ye sound!" + +Tom Platt's huge rubber boot whirled across the foc'sle and caught +Dan's uplifted arm. There was war between the man and the boy ever +since Dan had discovered that the mere whistling of that tune would +make him angry as he heaved the lead. + +"Thought I'd fetch yer," said Dan, returning the gift with precision. +"Ef you don't like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain't goin' to lie +here all day an' listen to you an' Long Jack arguin' 'baout candles. +Fiddle, Tom Platt; or I'll learn Harve here the tune!" + +Tom Platt leaned down to a locker and brought up an old white fiddle. +Manuel's eye glistened, and from somewhere behind the pawl-post he drew +out a tiny, guitar-like thing with wire strings, which he called a +machette. + +"'Tis a concert," said Long Jack, beaming through the smoke. "A reg'lar +Boston concert." + +There was a burst of spray as the hatch opened, and Disko, in yellow +oilskins, descended. + +"Ye're just in time, Disko. Fwhat's she doin' outside?" + +"Jest this!" He dropped on to the lockers with the push and heave of +the _We're Here_. + +"We're singin' to kape our breakfasts down. Ye'll lead, av course, +Disko," said Long Jack. + +"Guess there ain't more'n 'baout two old songs I know, an' ye've heerd +them both." + +His excuses were cut short by Tom Platt launching into a most dolorous +tune, like unto the moaning of winds and the creaking of masts. With +his eyes fixed on the beams above, Disko began this ancient, ancient +ditty, Tom Platt flourishing all round him to make the tune and words +fit a little: + + "There is a crack packet--crack packet o' fame, + She hails from Noo York, an' the _Dreadnought's_ her name. + You may talk o' your fliers--Swallowtail and Black Ball-- + But the _Dreadnought's_ the packet that can beat them all. + "Now the _Dreadnought_ she lies in the River Mersey, + Because of the tug-boat to take her to sea; + But when she's off soundings you shortly will know + +(Chorus.) + + She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord, let her go! + + "Now the _Dreadnought_ she's howlin' crost the Banks o' Newfoundland, + Where the water's all shallow and the bottom's all sand. + Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro: + +(Chorus.) + + 'She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord, let her go!'", + +There were scores of verses, for he worked the _Dreadnought_ every mile +of the way between Liverpool and New York as conscientiously as though +he were on her deck, and the accordion pumped and the fiddle squeaked +beside him. Tom Platt followed with something about "the rough and +tough McGinn, who would pilot the vessel in." Then they called on +Harvey, who felt very flattered, to contribute to the entertainment; +but all that he could remember were some pieces of "Skipper Ireson's +Ride" that he had been taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. It +seemed that they might be appropriate to the time and place, but he had +no more than mentioned the title when Disko brought down one foot with +a bang, and cried, "Don't go on, young feller. That's a mistaken +jedgment--one o' the worst kind, too, becaze it's catchin' to the ear." + +"I orter ha' warned you," said Dan. "Thet allus fetches Dad." + +"What's wrong?" said Harvey, surprised and a little angry. + +"All you're goin' to say," said Disko. "All dead wrong from start to +finish, an' Whittier he's to blame. I have no special call to right any +Marblehead man, but 'tweren't no fault o' Ireson's. My father he told +me the tale time an' again, an' this is the way 'twuz." + +"For the wan hundredth time," put in Long Jack under his breath + +"Ben Ireson he was skipper o' the Betty, young feller, comin' home frum +the Banks--that was before the war of 1812, but jestice is jestice at +all times. They fund the Active o' Portland, an' Gibbons o' that town +he was her skipper; they fund her leakin' off Cape Cod Light. There was +a terr'ble gale on, an' they was gettin' the Betty home 's fast as they +could craowd her. Well, Ireson he said there warn't any sense to +reskin' a boat in that sea; the men they wouldn't hev it; and he laid +it before them to stay by the Active till the sea run daown a piece. +They wouldn't hev that either, hangin' araound the Cape in any sech +weather, leak or no leak. They jest up stays'l an' quit, nat'rally +takin' Ireson with 'em. Folks to Marblehead was mad at him not runnin' +the risk, and becaze nex' day, when the sea was ca'am (they never +stopped to think o' that), some of the Active's folks was took off by a +Truro man. They come into Marblehead with their own tale to tell, +sayin' how Ireson had shamed his town, an' so forth an' so on, an' +Ireson's men they was scared, seein' public feelin' agin' 'em, an' they +went back on Ireson, an' swore he was respons'ble for the hull act. +'Tweren't the women neither that tarred and feathered him--Marblehead +women don't act that way--'twas a passel o' men an' boys, an' they +carted him araound town in an old dory till the bottom fell aout, and +Ireson he told 'em they'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the facts +come aout later, same's they usually do, too late to be any ways useful +to an honest man; an' Whittier he come along an' picked up the slack +eend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over onct +more after he was dead. 'Twas the only tune Whittier ever slipped up, +an' 'tweren't fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought that piece back +from school. You don't know no better, o' course; but I've give you the +facts, hereafter an' evermore to be remembered. Ben Ireson weren't no +sech kind o' man as Whittier makes aout; my father he knew him well, +before an' after that business, an' you beware o' hasty jedgments, +young feller. Next!" + +Harvey had never heard Disko talk so long, and collapsed with burning +cheeks; but, as Dan said promptly, a boy could only learn what he was +taught at school, and life was too short to keep track of every lie +along the coast. + +Then Manuel touched the jangling, jarring little machette to a queer +tune, and sang something in Portuguese about "Nina, innocente!" ending +with a full-handed sweep that brought the song up with a jerk. Then +Disko obliged with his second song, to an old-fashioned creaky tune, +and all joined in the chorus. This is one stanza: + + "Now Aprile is over and melted the snow, + And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow; + Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear, + We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear." + +Here the fiddle went very softly for a while by itself, and then: + + "Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin, + Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea; + Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin, + When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!" + +That made Harvey almost weep, though he could not tell why. But it was +much worse when the cook dropped the potatoes and held out his hands +for the fiddle. Still leaning against the locker door, he struck into a +tune that was like something very bad but sure to happen whatever you +did. After a little he sang, in an unknown tongue, his big chin down on +the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs glaring in the lamplight. Harvey +swung out of his bunk to hear better; and amid the straining of the +timbers and the wash of the waters the tune crooned and moaned on, like +lee surf in a blind fog, till it ended with a wail. + +"Jimmy Christmas! Thet gives me the blue creevles," said Dan. "What in +thunder is it?" + +"The song of Fin McCoul," said the cook, "when he wass going to +Norway." His English was not thick, but all clear-cut, as though it +came from a phonograph. + +"Faith, I've been to Norway, but I didn't make that unwholesim noise. +'Tis like some of the old songs, though," said Long Jack, sighing. + +"Don't let's hev another 'thout somethin' between," said Dan; and the +accordion struck up a rattling, catchy tune that ended: + + "It's six an' twenty Sundays sence las' we saw the land, + With fifteen hunder quintal, + An' fifteen hunder quintal, + 'Teen hunder toppin' quintal, + 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand!" + +"Hold on!" roared Tom Platt. "D'ye want to nail the trip, Dan? That's +Jonah sure, 'less you sing it after all our salt's wet." + +"No, 'tain't, is it, Dad? Not unless you sing the very las' verse. You +can't learn me anything on Jonahs!" + +"What's that?" said Harvey. "What's a Jonah?" + +"A Jonah's anything that spoils the luck. Sometimes it's a +man--sometimes it's a boy--or a bucket. I've known a splittin'-knife +Jonah two trips till we was on to her," said Tom Platt. "There's all +sorts o' Jonahs. Jim Bourke was one till he was drowned on Georges. I'd +never ship with Jim Bourke, not if I was starvin'. There wuz a green +dory on the Ezra Flood. Thet was a Jonah, too, the worst sort o' Jonah. +Drowned four men, she did, an' used to shine fiery O, nights in the +nest." + +"And you believe that?" said Harvey, remembering what Tom Platt had +said about candles and models. "Haven't we all got to take what's +served?" + +A mutter of dissent ran round the bunks. "Outboard, yes; inboard, +things can happen," said Disko. "Don't you go makin' a mock of Jonahs, +young feller." + +"Well, Harve ain't no Jonah. Day after we catched him," Dan cut in, "we +had a toppin' good catch." + +The cook threw up his head and laughed suddenly--a queer, thin laugh. +He was a most disconcerting nigger. + +"Murder!" said Long Jack. "Don't do that again, doctor. We ain't used +to ut." + +"What's wrong?" said Dan. "Ain't he our mascot, and didn't they strike +on good after we'd struck him?" + +"Oh! yess," said the cook. "I know that, but the catch iss not finish +yet." + +"He ain't goin' to do us any harm," said Dan, hotly. "Where are ye +hintin' an' edgin' to? He's all right." + +"No harm. No. But one day he will be your master, Danny." + +"That all?" said Dan, placidly. "He wun't--not by a jugful." + +"Master!" said the cook, pointing to Harvey. "Man!" and he pointed to +Dan. + +"That's news. Haow soon?" said Dan, with a laugh. + +"In some years, and I shall see it. Master and man--man and master." + +"How in thunder d'ye work that out?" said Tom Platt. + +"In my head, where I can see." + +"Haow?" This from all the others at once. + +"I do not know, but so it will be." He dropped his head, and went on +peeling the potatoes, and not another word could they get out of him. + +"Well," said Dan, "a heap o' things'll hev to come abaout 'fore Harve's +any master o' mine; but I'm glad the doctor ain't choosen to mark him +for a Jonah. Now, I mistrust Uncle Salters fer the Jonerest Jonah in +the Fleet regardin' his own special luck. Dunno ef it's spreadin' +same's smallpox. He ought to be on the _Carrie Pitman_. That boat's her +own Jonah, sure--crews an' gear made no differ to her driftin'. Jiminy +Christmas! She'll etch loose in a flat ca'am." + +"We're well clear o' the Fleet, anyway," said Disko. "_Carrie Pitman_ an' +all." There was a rapping on the deck. + +"Uncle Salters has catched his luck," said Dan as his father departed. + +"It's blown clear," Disko cried, and all the foc'sle tumbled up for a +bit of fresh air. The fog had gone, but a sullen sea ran in great +rollers behind it. The _We're Here_ slid, as it were, into long, sunk +avenues and ditches which felt quite sheltered and homelike if they +would only stay still; but they changed without rest or mercy, and +flung up the schooner to crown one peak of a thousand gray hills, while +the wind hooted through her rigging as she zigzagged down the slopes. +Far away a sea would burst into a sheet of foam, and the others would +follow suit as at a signal, till Harvey's eyes swam with the vision of +interlacing whites and grays. Four or five Mother Carey's chickens +stormed round in circles, shrieking as they swept past the bows. A +rain-squall or two strayed aimlessly over the hopeless waste, ran down +'wind and back again, and melted away. + +"Seems to me I saw somethin' flicker jest naow over yonder," said Uncle +Salters, pointing to the northeast. + +"Can't be any of the fleet," said Disko, peering under his eyebrows, a +hand on the foc'sle gangway as the solid bows hatcheted into the +troughs. "Sea's oilin' over dretful fast. Danny, don't you want to skip +up a piece an' see how aour trawl-buoy lays?" + +Danny, in his big boots, trotted rather than climbed up the main +rigging (this consumed Harvey with envy), hitched himself around the +reeling cross-trees, and let his eye rove till it caught the tiny black +buoy-flag on the shoulder of a mile-away swell. + +"She's all right," he hailed. "Sail O! Dead to the no'th'ard, comin' +down like smoke! Schooner she be, too." + +They waited yet another half-hour, the sky clearing in patches, with a +flicker of sickly sun from time to time that made patches of +olive-green water. Then a stump-foremast lifted, ducked, and +disappeared, to be followed on the next wave by a high stern with +old-fashioned wooden snail's-horn davits. The snails were red-tanned. + +"Frenchmen!" shouted Dan. "No, 'tain't, neither. Da-ad!" + +"That's no French," said Disko. "Salters, your blame luck holds +tighter'n a screw in a keg-head." + +"I've eyes. It's Uncle Abishai." + +"You can't nowise tell fer sure." + +"The head-king of all Jonahs," groaned Tom Platt. "Oh, Salters, +Salters, why wasn't you abed an' asleep?" + +"How could I tell?" said poor Salters, as the schooner swung up. + +She might have been the very Flying Dutchman, so foul, draggled, and +unkempt was every rope and stick aboard. Her old-style quarterdeck was +some or five feet high, and her rigging flew knotted and tangled like +weed at a wharf-end. She was running before the wind--yawing +frightfully--her staysail let down to act as a sort of extra +foresail,--"scandalized," they call it,--and her foreboom guyed out +over the side. Her bowsprit cocked up like an old-fashioned frigate's; +her jib-boom had been fished and spliced and nailed and clamped beyond +further repair; and as she hove herself forward, and sat down on her +broad tail, she looked for all the world like a blouzy, frouzy, bad old +woman sneering at a decent girl. + +"That's Abishai," said Salters. "Full o' gin an' Judique men, an' the +judgments o' Providence layin' fer him an' never takin' good holt He's +run in to bait, Miquelon way." + +"He'll run her under," said Long Jack. "That's no rig fer this weather." + +"Not he, 'r he'd'a done it long ago," Disko replied. "Looks 's if he +cal'lated to run us under. Ain't she daown by the head more 'n natural, +Tom Platt?" + +"Ef it's his style o' loadin' her she ain't safe," said the sailor +slowly. "Ef she's spewed her oakum he'd better git to his pumps mighty +quick." + +The creature threshed up, wore round with a clatter and raffle, and lay +head to wind within ear-shot. + +A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, and a thick voice yelled +something Harvey could not understand. But Disko's face darkened. "He'd +resk every stick he hez to carry bad news. Says we're in fer a shift o' +wind. He's in fer worse. Abishai! Abi-shai!" He waved his arm up and +down with the gesture of a man at the pumps, and pointed forward. The +crew mocked him and laughed. + +"Jounce ye, an' strip ye an' trip ye!" yelled Uncle Abishai. "A livin' +gale--a livin' gale. Yab! Cast up fer your last trip, all you +Gloucester haddocks. You won't see Gloucester no more, no more!" + +"Crazy full--as usual," said Tom Platt. "Wish he hadn't spied us, +though." + +She drifted out of hearing while the gray-head yelled something about a +dance at the Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc'sle. Harvey +shuddered. He had seen the sloven tilled decks and the savage-eyed crew. + +"An' that's a fine little floatin' hell fer her draught," said Long +Jack. "I wondher what mischief he's been at ashore." + +"He's a trawler," Dan explained to Harvey, "an' he runs in fer bait all +along the coast. Oh, no, not home, he don't go. He deals along the +south an' east shore up yonder." He nodded in the direction of the +pitiless Newfoundland beaches. "Dad won't never take me ashore there. +They're a mighty tough crowd--an' Abishai's the toughest. You saw his +boat? Well, she's nigh seventy year old, they say; the last o' the old +Marblehead heel-tappers. They don't make them quarterdecks any more. +Abishai don't use Marblehead, though. He ain't wanted there. He jes' +drif's araound, in debt, trawlin' an' cussin' like you've heard. Bin a +Jonah fer years an' years, he hez. 'Gits liquor frum the Feecamp boats +fer makin' spells an' selling winds an' such truck. Crazy, I guess." + +"'Twon't be any use underrunnin' the trawl to-night," said Tom Platt, +with quiet despair. "He come alongside special to cuss us. I'd give my +wage an' share to see him at the gangway o' the old Ohio 'fore we quit +floggin'. Jest abaout six dozen, an' Sam Mocatta layin' 'em on +criss-cross!" + +The disheveled "heel-tapper" danced drunkenly down wind, and all eyes +followed her. Suddenly the cook cried in his phonograph voice: "It wass +his own death made him speak so! He iss fey--fey, I tell you! Look!" +She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine three or four miles distant. +The patch dulled and faded out, and even as the light passed so did the +schooner. She dropped into a hollow and--was not. + +"Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!" shouted Disko, jumping aft. +"Drunk or sober, we've got to help 'em. Heave short and break her out! +Smart!" + +Harvey was thrown on the deck by the shock that followed the setting of +the jib and foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and to save +time, jerked the anchor bodily from the bottom, heaving in as they +moved away. This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted to except in +matters of life and death, and the little _We're Here_ complained like +a human. They ran down to where Abishai's craft had vanished; found two +or three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a stove-in dory, but nothing +more. "Let 'em go," said Disko, though no one had hinted at picking +them up. "I wouldn't hev a match that belonged to Abishai aboard. Guess +she run clear under. Must ha' been spewin' her oakum fer a week, an' +they never thought to pump her. That's one more boat gone along o' +leavin' port all hands drunk." + +"Glory be!" said Long Jack. "We'd ha' been obliged to help 'em if they +was top o' water." + +"'Thinkin' o' that myself," said Tom Platt. + +"Fey! Fey!" said the cook, rolling his eyes. "He haas taken his own +luck with him." + +"Ver' good thing, I think, to tell the Fleet when we see. Eh, wha-at?" +said Manuel. "If you runna that way before the 'wind, and she work open +her seams--" He threw out his hands with an indescribable gesture, +while Penn sat down on the house and sobbed at the sheer horror and +pity of it all. Harvey could not realize that he had seen death on the +open waters, but he felt very sick. Then Dan went up the cross-trees, +and Disko steered them back to within sight of their own trawl-buoys +just before the fog blanketed the sea once again. + +"We go mighty quick hereabouts when we do go," was all he said to +Harvey. "You think on that fer a spell, young feller. That was liquor." + +"After dinner it was calm enough to fish from the decks,--Penn and +Uncle Salters were very zealous this time,--and the catch was large and +large fish. + +"Abishai has shorely took his luck with him," said Salters. "The wind +hain't backed ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl? I despise +superstition, anyway." + +Tom Platt insisted that they had much better haul the thing and make a +new berth. But the cook said: "The luck iss in two pieces. You will +find it so when you look. I know." This so tickled Long Jack that he +overbore Tom Platt and the two went out together. + +Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in on one side of the dory, +picking off the fish, rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to the +sea again--something like pinning and unpinning linen on a wash-line. +It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the long, sagging +line may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when they heard, "And naow +to thee, O Capting," booming out of the fog, the crew of the _We're +Here_ took heart. The dory swirled alongside well loaded, Tom Platt +yelling for Manuel to act as relief-boat. + +"The luck's cut square in two pieces," said Long Jack, forking in the +fish, while Harvey stood open-mouthed at the skill with which the +plunging dory was saved from destruction. "One half was jest punkins. +Tom Platt wanted to haul her an' ha' done wid ut; but I said, "I'll +back the doctor that has the second sight, an' the other half come up +sagging full o' big uns. Hurry, Man'nle, an' bring's a tub o' bait. +There's luck afloat to-night." + +The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from which their brethren had +just been taken, and Tom Platt and Long Jack moved methodically up and +down the length of the trawl, the boat's nose surging under the wet +line of hooks, stripping the sea-cucumbers that they called pumpkins, +slatting off the fresh-caught cod against the gunwale, rebaiting, and +loading Manuel's dory till dusk. + +"I'll take no risks," said Disko then--"not with him floatin' around so +near. Abishai won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories an' we'll +dress daown after supper." + +That was a mighty dressing-down, attended by three or four blowing +grampuses. It lasted till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice heard to +chuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish into the hold. + +"Say, you're haulin' ahead dretful fast," said Dan, when they ground +the knives after the men had turned in. "There's somethin' of a sea +to-night, an' I hain't heard you make no remarks on it." + +"Too busy," Harvey replied, testing a blade's edge. "Come to think of +it, she is a high-kicker." + +The little schooner was gambolling all around her anchor among the +silver-tipped waves. Backing with a start of affected surprise at the +sight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, while the +spray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with the report of a +gun. Shaking her head, she would say: "Well, I'm sorry I can't stay any +longer with you. I'm going North," and would sidle off, halting +suddenly with a dramatic rattle of her rigging. "As I was just going to +observe," she would begin, as gravely as a drunken man addressing a +lamp-post. The rest of the sentence (she acted her words in dumb-show, +of course) was lost in a fit of the fidgets, when she behaved like a +puppy chewing a string, a clumsy woman in a side-saddle, a hen with her +head cut off, or a cow stung by a hornet, exactly as the whims of the +sea took her. + +"See her sayin' her piece. She's Patrick Henry naow," said Dan. + +She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her jib-boom from +port to starboard. + +"But-ez-fer me, give me liberty-er give me-death!" + +Wop! She sat down in the moon-path on the water, courtesying with a +flourish of pride impressive enough had not the wheel-gear sniggered +mockingly in its box. + +Harvey laughed aloud. "Why, it's just as if she was alive," he said. + +"She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin'," said Dan +enthusiastically, as he was slung across the deck in a batter of spray. +"Fends 'em off an' fends 'em off, an' 'Don't ye come anigh me,' she +sez. Look at her--jest look at her! Sakes! You should see one o' them +toothpicks histin' up her anchor on her spike outer fifteen-fathom +water." + +"What's a toothpick, Dan?" + +"Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats. Fine's a yacht forward, with +yacht sterns to 'em, an' spike bowsprits, an' a haouse that 'u'd take +our hold. I've heard that Burgess himself he made the models fer three +or four of 'em. Dad's sot agin 'em on account o' their pitchin' an' +joltin', but there's heaps o' money in 'em. Dad can find fish, but he +ain't no ways progressive--he don't go with the march o' the times. +They're chock-full o' labour-savin' jigs an' sech all. 'Ever seed the +Elector o' Gloucester? She's a daisy, ef she is a toothpick." + +"What do they cost, Dan?" + +"Hills o' dollars. Fifteen thousand, p'haps; more, mebbe. There's +gold-leaf an' everything you kin think of." Then to himself, half under +his breath, "Guess I'd call her Hattie S., too." + + + +CHAPTER V + +That was the first of many talks with Dan, who told Harvey why he would +transfer his dory's name to the imaginary Burgess-modelled haddocker. +Harvey heard a good deal about the real Hattie at Gloucester; saw a +lock of her hair--which Dan, finding fair words of no avail, had +"hooked" as she sat in front of him at school that winter--and a +photograph. Hattie was about fourteen years old, with an awful contempt +for boys, and had been trampling on Dan's heart through the winter. All +this was revealed under oath of solemn secrecy on moonlit decks, in the +dead dark, or in choking fog; the whining wheel behind them, the +climbing deck before, and without, the unresting, clamorous sea. Once, +of course, as the boys came to know each other, there was a fight, +which raged from bow to stern till Penn came up and separated them, but +promised not to tell Disko, who thought fighting on watch rather worse +than sleeping. Harvey was no match for Dan physically, but it says a +great deal for his new training that he took his defeat and did not try +to get even with his conqueror by underhand methods. + +That was after he had been cured of a string of boils between his +elbows and wrists, where the wet jersey and oilskins cut into the +flesh. The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they were ripe +Dan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that now he was +a "blooded Banker"; the affliction of gurry-sores being the mark of the +caste that claimed him. + +Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head with too +much thinking. He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, and often +longed to see her and above all to tell her of this wonderful new life, +and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it. Otherwise he +preferred not to wonder too much how she was bearing the shock of his +supposed death. But one day, as he stood on the foc'sle ladder, guying +the cook, who had accused him and Dan of hooking fried pies, it +occurred to him that this was a vast improvement on being snubbed by +strangers in the smoking-room of a hired liner. + +He was a recognized part of the scheme of things on the We're Here; had +his place at the table and among the bunks; and could hold his own in +the long talks on stormy days, when the others were always ready to +listen to what they called his "fairy-tales" of his life ashore. It did +not take him more than two days and a quarter to feel that if he spoke +of his own life--it seemed very far away--no one except Dan (and even +Dan's belief was sorely tried) credited him. So he invented a friend, a +boy he had heard of, who drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, +Ohio, and ordered five suits of clothes at a time and led things called +"germans" at parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen, but +all the presents were solid silver. Salters protested that this kind of +yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, but +he listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the end +gave Harvey entirely new notions on "germans," clothes, cigarettes with +gold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, champagne, +card-playing, and hotel accommodation. Little by little he changed his +tone when speaking of his "friend," whom Long Jack had christened "the +Crazy Kid," "the Gilt-edged Baby," "the Suckin' Vanderpoop," and other +pet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would +even invent histories about silk pajamas and specially imported +neckwear, to the "friend's" discredit. Harvey was a very adaptable +person, with a keen eye and ear for every face and tone about him. + +Before long he knew where Disko kept the old greencrusted quadrant that +they called the "hog-yoke"--under the bed-bag in his bunk. When he took +the sun, and with the help of "The Old Farmer's" almanac found the +latitude, Harvey would jump down into the cabin and scratch the +reckoning and date with a nail on the rust of the stove-pipe. Now, the +chief engineer of the liner could have done no more, and no engineer of +thirty years' service could have assumed one half of the +ancient-mariner air with which Harvey, first careful to spit over the +side, made public the schooner's position for that day, and then and +not till then relieved Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette in +all these things. + +The said "hog-yoke," an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac, Blunt's +"Coast Pilot," and Bowditch's "Navigator" were all the weapons Disko +needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that was his spare eye. +Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platt taught him first how to +"fly the blue pigeon"; and, though his strength was not equal to +continuous sounding in any sort of a sea, for calm weather with a +seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko used him freely. As Dan said: + +"'Tain't soundin's dad wants. It's samples. Grease her up good, Harve." +Harvey would tallow the cup at the end, and carefully bring the sand, +shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to Disko, who fingered and +smelt it and gave judgment As has been said, when Disko thought of cod +he thought as a cod; and by some long-tested mixture of instinct and +experience, moved the We're Here from berth to berth, always with the +fish, as a blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseen board. + +But Disko's board was the Grand Bank--a triangle two hundred and fifty +miles on each side--a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank fog, +vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of +the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet. + +For days they worked in fog--Harvey at the bell--till, grown familiar +with the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, his heart rather in +his mouth. But the fog would not lift, and the fish were biting, and no +one can stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. Harvey devoted +himself to his lines and the gaff or gob-stick as Tom Platt called for +them; and they rowed back to the schooner guided by the bell and Tom's +instinct; Manuel's conch sounding thin and faint beside them. But it +was an unearthly experience, and, for the first time in a month, Harvey +dreamed of the shifting, smoking floors of water round the dory, the +lines that strayed away into nothing, and the air above that melted on +the sea below ten feet from his straining eyes. A few days later he was +out with Manuel on what should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the +whole length of the roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing, +and Harvey grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth was +lost. "Whale-hole," said Manuel, hauling in. "That is good joke on +Disko. Come!" and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and the +others jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them to the +edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand Bank. They +made another berth through the fog, and that time the hair of Harvey's +head stood up when he went out in Manuel's dory. A whiteness moved in +the whiteness of the fog with a breath like the breath of the grave, +and there was a roaring, a plunging, and spouting. It was his first +introduction to the dread summer berg of the Banks, and he cowered in +the bottom of the boat while Manuel laughed. There were days, though, +clear and soft and warm, when it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf +over the hand-lines and spank the drifting "sun-scalds" with an oar; +and there were days of light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steer +the schooner from one berth to another. + +It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his band +on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythed +back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, in spite of +Disko saying that it would break a snake's back to follow his wake. +But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were sailing on the wind +with the staysail--an old one, luckily--set, and Harvey jammed her +right into it to show Dan how completely he had mastered the art. The +foresail went over with a bang, and the foregaff stabbed and ripped +through the staysail, which was, of course, prevented from going over +by the mainstay. They lowered the wreck in awful silence, and Harvey +spent his leisure hours for the next few days under Tom Platt's lee, +learning to use a needle and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he +said, he had made the very same blunder himself in his early days. + +Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had combined +Disko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's swinging overhand when +the lines were hauled, Manuel's round-shouldered but effective stroke +in a dory, and Tom Platt's generous Ohio stride along the deck. + +"'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut," said Long Jack, when Harvey +was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. "I'll lay my wage an' +share 'tis more'n half play-actin' to him, an' he consates himself he's +a bowld mariner. Watch his little bit av a back now!" + +"That's the way we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they make +believe all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, an' +so till they die--pretendin' an' pretendin'. I done it on the old Ohio, +I know. Stood my first watch--harbor-watch--feelin' finer'n Farragut. +Dan's full o' the same kind o' notions. See 'em now, actin' to be +genewine moss-backs--very hair a rope-yarn an' blood Stockholm tar." He +spoke down the cabin stairs. "Guess you're mistook in your judgments +fer once, Disko. What in Rome made ye tell us all here the kid was +crazy?" + +"He wuz," Disko replied. "Crazy ez a loon when he come aboard; but I'll +say he's sobered up consid'ble sence. I cured him." + +"He yarns good," said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaout a kid +of his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up an' +down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppers to a crowd o' +sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. He +knows scores of 'em." + +"Guess he strikes 'em outen his own head," Disko called from the cabin, +where he was busy with the logbook. "Stands to reason that sort is all +made up. It don't take in no one but Dan, an' he laughs at it. I've +heard him, behind my back." + +"Yever hear what Sim'on Peter Ca'houn said when they whacked up a match +'twix' his sister Hitty an' Lorin' Jerauld, an' the boys put up that +joke on him daown to Georges?" drawled Uncle Salters, who was dripping +peaceably under the lee of the starboard dory-nest. + +Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a Cape Cod +man, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. Uncle Salters +went on with a rasping chuckie: + +"Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he said, an' he was jest right, abaout Lorin', +'Ha'af on the taown,' he said, 'an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' they +told me she's married a 'ich man.' Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he hedn't no +roof to his mouth, an' talked that way." + +"He didn't talk any Pennsylvania Dutch," Tom Platt replied. "You'd +better leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Ca'houns was gypsies +frum 'way back." + +"Wal, I don't profess to be any elocutionist," Salters said. "I'm +comin' to the moral o' things. That's jest abaout what aour Harve be! +Ha'af on the taown, an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' there's some'll +believe he's a rich man. Yah!" + +"Did ye ever think how sweet 'twould be to sail wid a full crew o' +Salterses?" said Long Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'af in the +muck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' makes out he's a fisherman!" + +A little laugh went round at Salters's expense. + +Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the log-book that he kept in a +hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that ran on, +page after soiled page: + +"July 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to northward. So +ends this day. + +"July 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish. + +"July 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N.E. and fine +weather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish. + +"July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So ends +this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478." + +They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed themselves if it +were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice he suggested +that, if it was not an impertinence, he thought he could preach a +little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his throat at the mere notion, +reminding him that he was not a preacher and mustn't think of such +things. "We'd hev him rememberin' Johns-town next," Salters explained, +"an' what would happen then?" so they compromised on his reading aloud +from a book called "Josephus." It was an old leather-bound volume, +smelling of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like the Bible, but +enlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it nearly +from cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a silent little body. He would +not utter a word for three days on end sometimes, though he played +checkers, listened to the songs, and laughed at the stories. When they +tried to stir him up, he would answer: "I don't wish to seem +unneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing to say. My head feels +quite empty. I've almost forgotten my name." He would turn to Uncle +Salters with an expectant smile. + +"Why, Pennsylvania Pratt," Salters would shout "You'll fergit me next!" + +"No--never," Penn would say, shutting his lips firmly. "Pennsylvania +Pratt, of course," he would repeat over and over. Sometimes it was +Uncle Salters who forgot, and told him he was Haskins or Rich or +McVitty; but Penn was equally content--till next time. + +He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as a lost +child and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn liked the boy, +he relaxed, too. Salters was not an amiable person (He esteemed it his +business to keep the boys in order); and the first time Harvey, in fear +and trembling, on a still day, managed to shin up to the main-truck +(Dan was behind him ready to help), he esteemed it his duty to hang +Salters's big sea-boots up there--a sight of shame and derision to the +nearest schooner. With Disko, Harvey took no liberties; not even when +the old man dropped direct orders, and treated him, like the rest of +the crew, to "Don't you want to do so and so?" and "Guess you'd +better," and so forth. There was something about the clean-shaven lips +and the puckered corners of the eyes that was mightily sobering to +young blood. + +Disko showed him the meaning of the thumbed and pricked chart, which, +he said, laid over any government publication whatsoever; led him, +pencil in hand, from berth to berth over the whole string of banks--Le +Have, Western, Banquereau, St. Pierre, Green, and Grand--talking "cod" +meantime. Taught him, too, the principle on which the "hog-yoke" was +worked. + +In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head for figures, +and the notion of stealing information from one glimpse of the sullen +Bank sun appealed to all his keen wits. For other sea-matters his age +handicapped him. As Disko said, he should have begun when he was ten. +Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; and at +a pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry-score on his palm, could dress +down by sense of touch. He could steer in anything short of half a gale +from the feel of the wind on his face, humouring the _We're Here_ just +when she needed it. These things he did as automatically as he skipped +about the rigging, or made his dory a part of his own will and body. +But he could not communicate his knowledge to Harvey. + +Still there was a good deal of general information flying about the +schooner on stormy days, when they lay up in the foc'sle or sat on the +cabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, leads, and rings rolled and +rattled in the pauses of the talk. Disko spoke of whaling voyages in +the Fifties; of great she-whales slain beside their young; of death +agonies on the black tossing seas, and blood that spurted forty feet in +the air; of boats smashed to splinters; of patent rockets that went off +wrong-end-first and bombarded the trembling crews; of cutting-in and +boiling-down, and that terrible "nip" of '71, when twelve hundred men +were made homeless on the ice in three days--wonderful tales, all true. +But more wonderful still were his stories of the cod, and how they +argued and reasoned on their private businesses deep down below the +keel. + +Long Jack's tastes ran more to the supernatural. He held them silent +with ghastly stories of the "Yo-hoes" on Monomoy Beach, that mock and +terrify lonely clam-diggers; of sand-walkers and dune-haunters who were +never properly buried; of hidden treasure on Fire Island guarded by the +spirits of Kidd's men; of ships that sailed in the fog straight over +Truro township; of that harbor in Maine where no one but a stranger +will lie at anchor twice in a certain place because of a dead crew who +row alongside at midnight with the anchor in the bow of their +old-fashioned boat, whistling--not calling, but whistling--for the soul +of the man who broke their rest. + +Harvey had a notion that the east coast of his native land, from Mount +Desert south, was populated chiefly by people who took their horses +there in the summer and entertained in country-houses with hardwood +floors and Vantine portires. He laughed at the ghost-tales,--not as +much as he would have done a month before,--but ended by sitting still +and shuddering. + +Tom Platt dealt with his interminable trip round the Horn on the old +Ohio in flogging days, with a navy more extinct than the dodo--the navy +that passed away in the great war. He told them how red-hot shot are +dropped into a cannon, a wad of wet clay between them and the +cartridge; how they sizzle and reek when they strike wood, and how the +little ship-boys of the Miss Jim Buck hove water over them and shouted +to the fort to try again. And he told tales of blockade--long weeks of +swaying at anchor, varied only by the departure and return of steamers +that had used up their coal (there was no chance for the +sailing-ships); of gales and cold that kept two hundred men, night and +day, pounding and chopping at the ice on cable, blocks, and rigging, +when the galley was as red-hot as the fort's shot, and men drank cocoa +by the bucket. Tom Platt had no use for steam. His service closed when +that thing was comparatively new. He admitted that it was a specious +invention in time of peace, but looked hopefully for the day when sails +should come back again on ten-thousand-ton frigates with +hundred-and-ninety-foot booms. + +Manuel's talk was slow and gentle--all about pretty girls in Madeira +washing clothes in the dry beds of streams, by moonlight, under waving +bananas; legends of saints, and tales of queer dances or fights away in +the cold Newfoundland baiting-ports. Salters was mainly agricultural; +for, though he read "Josephus" and expounded it, his mission in life +was to prove the value of green manures, and specially of clover, +against every form of phosphate whatsoever. He grew libellous about +phosphates; he dragged greasy "Orange Judd" books from his bunk and +intoned them, wagging his finger at Harvey, to whom it was all Greek. +Little Penn was so genuinely pained when Harvey made fun of Salters's +lectures that the boy gave it up, and suffered in polite silence. That +was very good for Harvey. + +The cook naturally did not join in these conversations. As a rule, he +spoke only when it was absolutely necessary; but at times a queer gift +of speech descended on him, and he held forth, half in Gaelic, half in +broken English, an hour at a time. He was especially communicative with +the boys, and he never withdrew his prophecy that one day Harvey would +be Dan's master, and that he would see it. He told them of +mail-carrying in the winter up Cape Breton way, of the dog-train that +goes to Coudray, and of the ram-steamer _Arctic_, that breaks the ice +between the mainland and Prince Edward Island. Then he told them +stories that his mother had told him, of life far to the southward, +where water never froze; and he said that when he died his soul would +go to lie down on a warm white beach of sand with palm-trees waving +above. That seemed to the boys a very odd idea for a man who had never +seen a palm in his life. Then, too, regularly at each meal, he would +ask Harvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cooking was to his taste; and +this always made the "second half" laugh. Yet they had a great respect +for the cook's judgment, and in their hearts considered Harvey +something of a mascot by consequence. + +And while Harvey was taking in knowledge of new things at each pore and +hard health with every gulp of the good air, the We're Here went her +ways and did her business on the Bank, and the silvery-gray kenches of +well-pressed fish mounted higher and higher in the hold. No one day's +work was out of common, but the average days were many and close +together. + +Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was closely watched--"scrowged +upon," Dan called it--by his neighbours, but he had a very pretty knack +of giving them the slip through the curdling, glidy fog-banks. Disko +avoided company for two reasons. He wished to make his own +experiments, in the first place; and in the second, he objected to the +mixed gatherings of a fleet of all nations. The bulk of them were +mainly Gloucester boats, with a scattering from Provincetown, Harwich, +Chatham, and some of the Maine ports, but the crews drew from goodness +knows where. Risk breeds recklessness, and when greed is added there +are fine chances for every kind of accident in the crowded fleet, +which, like a mob of sheep, is huddled round some unrecognized leader. +"Let the two Jeraulds lead 'em," said Disko. "We're baound to lay among +'em for a spell on the Eastern Shoals; though ef luck holds, we won't +hev to lay long. Where we are naow, Harve, ain't considered noways good +graound." + +"Ain't it?" said Harvey, who was drawing water (he had learned just how +to wiggle the bucket), after an unusually long dressing-down. +"Shouldn't mind striking some poor ground for a change, then." + +"All the graound I want to see--don't want to strike her--is Eastern +Point," said Dan. "Say, Dad, it looks's if we wouldn't hev to lay +more'n two weeks on the Shoals. You'll meet all the comp'ny you want +then, Harve. That's the time we begin to work. No reg'lar meals fer no +one then. 'Mug-up when ye're hungry, an' sleep when ye can't keep +awake. Good job you wasn't picked up a month later than you was, or +we'd never ha' had you dressed in shape fer the Old Virgin." + +Harvey understood from the Eldridge chart that the Old Virgin and a +nest of curiously named shoals were the turning-point of the cruise, +and that with good luck they would wet the balance of their salt there. +But seeing the size of the Virgin (it was one tiny dot), he wondered +how even Disko with the hog-yoke and the lead could find her. He +learned later that Disko was entirely equal to that and any other +business and could even help others. A big four-by-five blackboard hung +in the cabin, and Harvey never understood the need of it till, after +some blinding thick days, they heard the unmelodious tooting of a +foot-power fog-horn--a machine whose note is as that of a consumptive +elephant. + +They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their foot to +save trouble. "Square-rigger bellowin' fer his latitude," said Long +Jack. The dripping red head-sails of a bark glided out of the fog, and +the _We're Here_ rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand. + +The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings. + +"Frenchman," said Uncle Salters, scornfully. "Miquelon boat from St. +Malo." The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I'm 'most outer 'baccy, +too, Disko." + +"Same here," said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vous--backez vous! Standez +awayez, you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from--St. Malo, eh?" + +"Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet--St. Malo! St. Pierre et +Miquelon," cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps and laughing. +Then all together, "Bord! Bord!" + +"Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetch +anywheres, exceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six forty-nine's +good enough fer them; an' I guess it's abaout right, too." + +Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in the +main-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark. + +"Seems kinder uneighbourly to let 'em swedge off like this," Salters +suggested, feeling in his pockets. + +"Hev ye learned French then sence last trip?" said Disko. "I don't want +no more stone-ballast hove at us 'long o' your callin' Miquelon boats +'footy cochins,' same's you did off Le Have." + +"Harmon Rush he said that was the way to rise 'em. Plain United States +is good enough fer me. We're all dretful short on terbakker. Young +feller, don't you speak French?" + +"Oh, yes," said Harvey valiantly; and he bawled: "Hi! Say! Arretez +vous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour tabac." + +"Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed again. + +"That hit 'em. Let's heave a dory over, anyway," said Tom Platt. "I +don't exactly hold no certificates on French, but I know another lingo +that goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, an' interpret." + +The raffle and confusion when he and Harvey were hauled up the bark's +black side was indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck round with +glaring coloured prints of the Virgin--the Virgin of Newfoundland, they +called her. Harvey found his French of no recognized Bank brand, and +his conversation was limited to nods and grins. But Tom Platt waved his +arms and got along swimmingly. The captain gave him a drink of +unspeakable gin, and the opera-comique crew, with their hairy throats, +red caps, and long knives, greeted him as a brother. Then the trade +began. They had tobacco, plenty of it--American, that had never paid +duty to France. They wanted chocolate and crackers. Harvey rowed back +to arrange with the cook and Disko, who owned the stores, and on his +return the cocoa-tins and cracker-bags were counted out by the +Frenchman's wheel. It looked like a piratical division of loot; but Tom +Platt came out of it roped with black pigtail and stuffed with cakes of +chewing and smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners swung off into +the mist, and the last Harvey heard was a gay chorus: + + "Par derriere chez ma tante, + Il'y a un bois joli, + Et le rossignol y chante + Et le jour et la nuit.... + + Que donneriez vous, belle, + Qui l'amenerait ici? + Je donnerai Quebec, + Sorel et Saint Denis." + +"How was it my French didn't go, and your sign-talk did?" Harvey +demanded when the barter had been distributed among the We're Heres. + +"Sign-talk!" Platt guffawed. "Well, yes, 'twas sign-talk, but a heap +older'n your French, Harve. Them French boats are chockfull o' +Freemasons, an' that's why." + +"Are you a Freemason, then?" + +"Looks that way, don't it?" said the man-o'-war's man, stuffing his +pipe; and Harvey had another mystery of the deep sea to brood upon. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The thing that struck him most was the exceedingly casual way in which +some craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fishing-boats, as Dan said, +were naturally dependent on the courtesy and wisdom of their +neighbours; but one expected better things of steamers. That was after +another interesting interview, when they had been chased for three +miles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, all boarded over on the upper +deck, that smelt like a thousand cattle-pens. A very excited officer +yelled at them through a speaking-trumpet, and she lay and lollopped +helplessly on the water while Disko ran the _We're Here_ under her lee +and gave the skipper a piece of his mind. "Where might ye be--eh? Ye +don't deserve to be anywheres. You barn-yard tramps go hoggin' the road +on the high seas with no blame consideration fer your neighbours, an' +your eyes in your coffee-cups instid o' in your silly heads." + +At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something about +Disko's own eyes. "We haven't had an observation for three days. D'you +suppose we can run her blind?" he shouted. + +"Wa-al, I can," Disko retorted. "What's come to your lead? Et it? Can't +ye smell bottom, or are them cattle too rank?" + +"What d' ye feed 'em?" said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness, for +the smell of the pens woke all the farmer in him. "They say they fall +off dretful on a v'yage. Dunno as it's any o' my business, but I've a +kind o' notion that oil-cake broke small an' sprinkled--" + +"Thunder!" said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over the +side. "What asylum did they let His Whiskers out of?" + +"Young feller," Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging, "let me +tell yeou 'fore we go any further that I've--" + +The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense politeness. +"Excuse me," he said, "but I've asked for my reckoning. If the +agricultural person with the hair will kindly shut his head, the +sea-green barnacle with the wall-eye may per-haps condescend to +enlighten us." + +"Naow you've made a show o' me, Salters," said Disko, angrily. He could +not stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped out the +latitude and longitude without more lectures. + +"Well, that's a boat-load of lunatics, sure," said the skipper, as he +rang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into the +schooner. + +"Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him an' his crowd are +abaout the likeliest I've ever seen," said Disko as the _We're Here_ +slid away. "I was jest givin' him my jedgment on lullsikin' round these +waters like a lost child, an' you must cut in with your fool farmin'. +Can't ye never keep things sep'rate?" + +Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, winking one to the other and +full of joy; but Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till evening, +Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was practically a barn on blue +water, and Disko insisting that, even if this were the case, decency +and fisher-pride demanded that he should have kept "things sep'rate." +Long Jack stood it in silence for a time,--an angry skipper makes an +unhappy crew,--and then he spoke across the table after supper: + +"Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?" said he. + +"They'll tell that tale agin us fer years--that's all," said Disko. +"Oil-cake sprinkled!" + +"With salt, o' course," said Salters, impenitent, reading the farming +reports from a week-old New York paper. + +"It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's," the skipper went on. + +"Can't see ut that way," said Long Jack, the peacemaker "Look at here, +Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather cud ha' +met a tramp an' over an' above givin' her her reckonin',--over an' +above that, I say,--cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent on the +management av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they will +not. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. Double +game an' twice runnin'--all to us." Dan kicked Harvey under the table, +and Harvey choked in his cup. + +"Well," said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat +plastered, "I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' mine, 'fore I +spoke." + +"An' right there," said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline and +etiquette--"right there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked him to +stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to be +anyways--what it shouldn't." + +"Dunno but that's so," said Disko, who saw his way to an honourable +retreat from a fit of the dignities. + +"Why, o' course it was so," said Salters, "you bein' skipper here; an' +I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint--not from any leadin' or conviction, +but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two blame boys of +aours." + +"Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd done? +Always those blame boys. But I wouldn't have missed the show fer a +half-share in a halibutter," Dan whispered. + +"Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate," said Disko, and the +light of new argument lit in Salters's eye as he crumbled cut plug into +his pipe. + +"There's a power av vartue in keepin' things sep'rate," said Long Jack, +intent on stilling the storm. "That's fwhat Steyning of Steyning and +Hare's f'und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on the _Marilla D. Kuhn_, +instid o' Cap. Newton that was took with inflam'try rheumatism an' +couldn't go. Counahan the Navigator we called him." + +"Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night 'thout a pond o' rum +somewheres in the manifest," said Tom Platt, playing up to the lead. +"He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston lookin' fer the +Lord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his merits. Sam Coy, up to +Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free fer a year or more on account +of his stories. + +"Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't he?" + +"Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the _Caspar McVeagh_ was built; but +he could niver keep things sep'rate. Steyning tuk him fer the reason +the thief tuk the hot stove--bekaze there was nothin' else that season. +The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he whacked up an iverlastin' +hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha' floated the _Marilla_, insurance an' +all, in fwhat they stowed aboard her. They lef' Boston Harbour for the +great Grand Bank wid a roarin' nor'wester behind 'em an' all hands full +to the bung. An' the hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did +they set, an' divil a rope did they lay hand to, till they'd seen the +bottom av a fifteen-gallon cask o' bug-juice. That was about wan week, +so far as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he told +ut!) All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an' the +_Marilla_--'twas summer, and they'd give her a foretopmast--struck her +gait and kept ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' thrembled over it +for a whoile, an' made out, betwix' that an' the chart an' the singin' +in his head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable Island, gettin' +along glorious, but speakin' nothin'. Then they broached another keg, +an' quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another spell. The _Marilla_ she +lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her +lee-rail up to that time--hustlin' on one an' the same slant. But they +saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintly they obsarved +they'd bin out a matter o' fourteen days and they mis-trusted the Bank +has suspinded payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty fathom. 'That's +me,' sez Counahan. 'That's me iv'ry time! I've run her slat on the Bank +fer you, an' when we get thirty fathom we'll turn in like little men. +Counahan is the b'y,' sez he. 'Counahan the Navigator!' + +"Nex' cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan: 'Either the lead-line's tuk +to stretchin' or else the Bank's sunk.' + +"They hauled ut up, bein' just about in that state when ut seemed right +an' reasonable, and sat down on the deck countin' the knots, an' +gettin' her snarled up hijjus. The _Marilla_ she'd struck her gait, an' +she hild ut, an' prisintly along came a tramp, an' Counahan spoke her. + +"'Hev ye seen any fishin'-boats now?' sez he, quite casual. + +"'There's lashin's av them off the Irish coast,' sez the tramp. + +"'Aah! go shake yerself,' sez Counahan. 'Fwhat have I to do wid the +Irish coast?' + +"'Then fwhat are ye doin' here?' sez the tramp. + +"'Sufferin' Christianity!' sez Counahan (he always said that whin his +pumps sucked an' he was not feelin' good)--'Sufferin' Christianity!' he +sez, 'where am I at?' + +"'Thirty-five mile west-sou'west o' Cape Clear,' sez the tramp, 'if +that's any consolation to you.' + +"Counahan fetched wan jump, four feet sivin inches, measured by the +cook. + +"'Consolation!' sez he, bould as brass. 'D'ye take me fer a dialect? +Thirty-five mile from Cape Clear, an' fourteen days from Boston Light. +Sufferin' Christianity, 'tis a record, an' by the same token I've a +mother to Skibbereen!' Think av ut! The gall av um! But ye see he could +niver keep things sep'rate. + +"The crew was mostly Cork an' Kerry men, barrin' one Marylander that +wanted to go back, but they called him a mutineer, an' they ran the +ould _Marilla_ into Skibbereen, an' they had an illigant time visitin' +around with frinds on the ould sod fer a week. Thin they wint back, an' +it cost 'em two an' thirty days to beat to the Banks again. 'Twas +gettin' on towards fall, and grub was low, so Counahan ran her back to +Boston, wid no more bones to ut." + +"And what did the firm say?" Harvey demanded. + +"Fwhat could they? The fish was on the Banks, an' Counahan was at +T-wharf talkin' av his record trip east! They tuk their satisfaction +out av that, an' ut all came av not keepin' the crew and the rum +sep'rate in the first place; an' confusin' Skibbereen wid 'Queereau, in +the second. Counahan the Navigator, rest his sowl! He was an imprompju +citizen!" + +"Once I was in the Lucy Holmes," said Manuel, in his gentle voice. +"They not want any of her feesh in Gloucester. Eh, wha-at? Give us no +price. So we go across the water, and think to sell to some Fayal man. +Then it blow fresh, and we cannot see well. Eh, wha-at? Then it blow +some more fresh, and we go down below and drive very fast--no one know +where. By and by we see a land, and it get some hot. Then come two, +three nigger in a brick. Eh, wha-at? We ask where we are, and they +say--now, what you all think?" + +"Grand Canary," said Disko, after a moment. Manuel shook his head, +smiling. + +"Blanco," said Tom Platt. + +"No. Worse than that. We was below Bezagos, and the brick she was from +Liberia! So we sell our feesh there! Not bad, so? Eh, wha-at?" + +"Can a schooner like this go right across to Africa?" said Harvey. + +"Go araound the Horn ef there's anythin' worth goin' fer, and the grub +holds aout," said Disko. "My father he run his packet, an' she was a +kind o' pinkey, abaout fifty ton, I guess,--the Rupert,--he run her +over to Greenland's icy mountains the year ha'af our fleet was tryin' +after cod there. An' what's more, he took my mother along with him,--to +show her haow the money was earned, I presoom,--an' they was all iced +up, an' I was born at Disko. Don't remember nothin' abaout it, o' +course. We come back when the ice eased in the spring, but they named +me fer the place. Kinder mean trick to put up on a baby, but we're all +baound to make mistakes in aour lives." + +"Sure! Sure!" said Salters, wagging his head. "All baound to make +mistakes, an' I tell you two boys here thet after you've made a +mistake--ye don't make fewer'n a hundred a day--the next best thing's +to own up to it like men." + +Long Jack winked one tremendous wink that embraced all hands except +Disko and Salters, and the incident was closed. + +Then they made berth after berth to the northward, the dories out +almost every day, running along the east edge of the Grand Bank in +thirty- to forty-fathom water, and fishing steadily. + +It was here Harvey first met the squid, who is one of the best +cod-baits, but uncertain in his moods. They were waked out of their +bunks one black night by yells of "Squid O!" from Salters, and for an +hour and a half every soul aboard hung over his squid-jig--a piece of +lead painted red and armed at the lower end with a circle of pins bent +backward like half-opened umbrella ribs. The squid--for some unknown +reason--likes, and wraps himself round, this thing, and is hauled up +ere he can escape from the pins. But as he leaves his home he squirts +first water and next ink into his captor's face; and it was curious to +see the men weaving their heads from side to side to dodge the shot. +They were as black as sweeps when the flurry ended; but a pile of fresh +squid lay on the deck, and the large cod thinks very well of a little +shiny piece of squid tentacle at the tip of a clam-baited hook. Next +day they caught many fish, and met the _Carrie Pitman_, to whom they +shouted their luck, and she wanted to trade--seven cod for one +fair-sized squid; but Disko would not agree at the price, and the +_Carrie_ dropped sullenly to leeward and anchored half a mile away, in +the hope of striking on to some for herself. + +Disco said nothing till after supper, when he sent Dan and Manuel out +to buoy the _We're Here's_ cable and announced his intention of turning +in with the broad-axe. Dan naturally repeated these remarks to the dory +from the _Carrie_, who wanted to know why they were buoying their cable, +since they were not on rocky bottom. + +"Dad sez he wouldn't trust a ferryboat within five mile o' you," Dan +howled cheerfully. + +"Why don't he git out, then? Who's hinderin'?" said the other. + +"'Cause you've jest the same ez lee-bowed him, an' he don't take that +from any boat, not to speak o' sech a driftin' gurry-butt as you be." + +"She ain't driftin' any this trip," said the man angrily, for the +_Carrie Pitman_ had an unsavory reputation for breaking her ground-tackle. + +"Then haow d'you make berths?" said Dan. "It's her best p'int o' +sailin'. An' ef she's quit driftin', what in thunder are you doin' with +a new jib-boom?" That shot went home. + +"Hey, you Portugoosy organ-grinder, take your monkey back to +Gloucester. Go back to school, Dan Troop," was the answer. + +"O-ver-alls! O-ver-alls!" yelled Dan, who knew that one of the _Carrie's_ +crew had worked in an overall factory the winter before. + +"Shrimp! Gloucester shrimp! Git aout, you Novy!" + +To call a Gloucester man a Nova Scotian is not well received. Dan +answered in kind. + +"Novy yourself, ye Scrabble-towners! ye Chatham wreckers! Git aout with +your brick in your stockin'!" And the forces separated, but Chatham +had the worst of it. + +"I knew haow 'twould be," said Disko. "She's drawed the wind raound +already. Some one oughter put a deesist on thet packet. She'll snore +till midnight, an' jest when we're gettin' our sleep she'll strike +adrift. Good job we ain't crowded with craft hereaways. But I ain't +goin' to up anchor fer Chatham. She may hold." + +The wind, which had hauled round, rose at sundown and blew steadily. +There was not enough sea, though, to disturb even a dory's tackle, but +the _Carrie Pitman_ was a law unto herself. At the end of the boys' watch +they heard the crack-crack-crack of a huge muzzle-loading revolver +aboard her. + +"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sung Dan. "Here she comes, Dad; butt-end +first, walkin' in her sleep same's she done on 'Queereau." + +Had she been any other boat Disko would have taken his chances, but now +he cut the cable as the _Carrie Pitman_, with all the North Atlantic to +play in, lurched down directly upon them. The _We're Here_, under jib +and riding-sail, gave her no more room than was absolutely +necessary,--Disko did not wish to spend a week hunting for his +cable,--but scuttled up into the wind as the _Carrie_ passed within easy +hail, a silent and angry boat, at the mercy of a raking broadside of +Bank chaff. + +"Good evenin'," said Disko, raising his head-gear, "an' haow does your +garden grow?" + +"Go to Ohio an' hire a mule," said Uncle Salters. "We don't want no +farmers here." + +"Will I lend YOU my dory-anchor?" cried Long Jack. + +"Unship your rudder an' stick it in the mud," bawled Tom Platt. + +"Say!" Dan's voice rose shrill and high, as he stood on the wheel-box. +"Sa-ay! Is there a strike in the o-ver-all factory; or hev they hired +girls, ye Shackamaxons?" + +"Veer out the tiller-lines," cried Harvey, "and nail 'em to the +bottom!" That was a salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by Tom +Platt. Manuel leaned over the stern and yelled: "Johanna Morgan play +the organ! Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb with a gesture of +unspeakable contempt and derision, while little Penn covered himself +with glory by piping up: "Gee a little! Hssh! Come here. Haw!" + +They rode on their chain for the rest of the night, a short, snappy, +uneasy motion, as Harvey found, and wasted half the forenoon recovering +the cable. But the boys agreed the trouble was cheap at the price of +triumph and glory, and they thought with grief over all the beautiful +things that they might have said to the discomfited _Carrie_. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Next day they fell in with more sails, all circling slowly from the +east northerly towards the west. But just when they expected to make +the shoals by the Virgin the fog shut down, and they anchored, +surrounded by the tinklings of invisible bells. There was not much +fishing, but occasionally dory met dory in the fog and exchanged news. + +That night, a little before dawn, Dan and Harvey, who had been sleeping +most of the day, tumbled out to "hook" fried pies. There was no reason +why they should not have taken them openly; but they tasted better so, +and it made the cook angry. The heat and smell below drove them on deck +with their plunder, and they found Disko at the bell, which he handed +over to Harvey. + +"Keep her goin'," said he. "I mistrust I hear somethin'. Ef it's +anything, I'm best where I am so's to get at things." + +It was a forlorn little jingle; the thick air seemed to pinch it off, +and in the pauses Harvey heard the muffled shriek of a liner's siren, +and he knew enough of the Banks to know what that meant. It came to +him, with horrible distinctness, how a boy in a cherry-coloured +jersey--he despised fancy blazers now with all a fisher-man's +contempt--how an ignorant, rowdy boy had once said it would be "great" +if a steamer ran down a fishing-boat. That boy had a stateroom with a +hot and cold bath, and spent ten minutes each morning picking over a +gilt-edged bill of fare. And that same boy--no, his very much older +brother--was up at four of the dim dawn in streaming, crackling +oilskins, hammering, literally for the dear life, on a bell smaller +than the steward's breakfast-bell, while somewhere close at hand a +thirty-foot steel stem was storming along at twenty miles an hour! The +bitterest thought of all was that there were folks asleep in dry, +upholstered cabins who would never learn that they had massacred a boat +before breakfast. So Harvey rang the bell. + +"Yes, they slow daown one turn o' their blame propeller," said Dan, +applying himself to Manuel's conch, "fer to keep inside the law, an' +that's consolin' when we're all at the bottom. Hark to her! She's a +humper!" + +"Aooo-whoo-whupp!" went the siren. "Wingle-tingle-tink," went the bell. +"Graaa-ouch!" went the conch, while sea and sky were all mired up in +milky fog. Then Harvey felt that he was near a moving body, and found +himself looking up and up at the wet edge of a cliff-like bow, leaping, +it seemed, directly over the schooner. A jaunty little feather of water +curled in front of it, and as it lifted it showed a long ladder of +Roman numerals-XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., and so forth--on a +salmon-coloured gleaming side. It tilted forward and downward with a +heart-stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a line of +brass-rimmed port-holes flashed past; a jet of steam puffed in Harvey's +helplessly uplifted hands; a spout of hot water roared along the rail +of the _We're Here_, and the little schooner staggered and shook in a +rush of screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished in the fog. +Harvey got ready to faint or be sick, or both, when he heard a crack +like a trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in his ear, a +far-away telephone voice drawling: "Heave to! You've sunk us!" + +"Is it us?" he gasped. + +"No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're goin' to look," said Dan, running out +a dory. + +In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, and the cook were overside +and away. Presently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped clean across, +drifted past the bows. Then an empty green dory came by, knocking on +the _We're Here's_ side, as though she wished to be taken in. Then +followed something, face down, in a blue jersey, but--it was not the +whole of a man. Penn changed colour and caught his breath with a click. +Harvey pounded despairingly at the bell, for he feared they might be +sunk at any minute, and he jumped at Dan's hail as the crew came back. + +"The Jennie Cushman," said Dan, hysterically, "cut clean in +half--graound up an' trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile away. +Dad's got the old man. There ain't any one else, and--there was his +son, too. Oh, Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I've seen--" He dropped +his head on his arms and sobbed while the others dragged a gray-headed +man aboard. + +"What did you pick me up for?" the stranger groaned. "Disko, what did +you pick me up for?" + +Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man's eyes were +wild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew. Then up and +spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or Rich or McVitty when +Uncle Salters forgot; and his face was changed on him from the face of +a fool to the countenance of an old, wise man, and he said in a strong +voice: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the +name of the Lord! I was--I am a minister of the Gospel. Leave him to +me." + +"Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then pray my son back to me! Pray +back a nine-thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of fish. If +you'd left me alone my widow could ha' gone on to the Provident an' +worked fer her board, an' never known--an' never known. Now I'll hev to +tell her." + +"There ain't nothin' to say," said Disko. "Better lie down a piece, +Jason Olley." + +When a man has lost his only son, his summer's work, and his means of +livelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give consolation. + +"All Gloucester men, wasn't they?" said Tom Platt, fiddling helplessly +with a dory-becket. + +"Oh, that don't make no odds," said Jason, wringing the wet from his +beard. "I'll be rowin' summer boarders araound East Gloucester this +fall." He rolled heavily to the rail, singing: + + "Happy birds that sing and fly + Round thine altars, O Most High!" + +"Come with me. Come below!" said Penn, as though he had a right to give +orders. Their eyes met and fought for a quarter of a minute. + +"I dunno who you be, but I'll come," said Jason submissively. "Mebbe +I'll get back some o' the--some o' the-nine thousand dollars." Penn led +him into the cabin and slid the door behind. + +"That ain't Penn," cried Uncle Salters. "It's Jacob Boiler, an'--he's +remembered Johnstown! I never seed such eyes in any livin' man's head. +What's to do naow? What'll I do naow?" + +They could hear Penn's voice and Jason's together. Then Penn's went on +alone, and Salters slipped off his hat, for Penn was praying. Presently +the little man came up the steps, huge drops of sweat on his face, and +looked at the crew. Dan was still sobbing by the wheel. + +"He don't know us," Salters groaned. "It's all to do over again, +checkers and everything--an' what'll he say to me?" + +Penn spoke; they could hear that it was to strangers. "I have prayed," +said he. "Our people believe in prayer. I have prayed for the life of +this man's son. Mine were drowned before my eyes--she and my eldest +and--the others. Shall a man be more wise than his Maker? I prayed +never for their lives, but I have prayed for this man's son, and he +will surely be sent him." + +Salters looked pleadingly at Penn to see if he remembered. + +"How long have I been mad?" Penn asked suddenly. His mouth was +twitching. + +"Pshaw, Penn! You weren't never mad," Salters began "Only a little +distracted like." + +"I saw the houses strike the bridge before the fires broke out. I do +not remember any more. How long ago is that?" + +"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" cried Dan, and Harvey whimpered +in sympathy. + +"Abaout five year," said Disko, in a shaking voice. + +"Then I have been a charge on some one for every day of that time. Who +was the man?" + +Disko pointed to Salters. + +"Ye hain't--ye hain't!" cried the sea-farmer, twisting his hands +together. "Ye've more'n earned your keep twice-told; an' there's money +owin' you, Penn, besides ha'af o' my quarter-share in the boat, which +is yours fer value received." + +"You are good men. I can see that in your faces. But--" + +"Mother av Mercy," whispered Long Jack, "an' he's been wid us all these +trips! He's clean bewitched." + +A schooner's bell struck up alongside, and a voice hailed through the +fog: "O Disko! 'Heard abaout the Jennie Cushman?" + +"They have found his son," cried Penn. "Stand you still and see the +salvation of the Lord!" + +"Got Jason aboard here," Disko answered, but his voice quavered. +"There--warn't any one else?" + +"We've fund one, though. 'Run acrost him snarled up in a mess o' lumber +thet might ha' bin a foc'sle. His head's cut some." + +"Who is he?" + +The _We're Here's_ heart-beats answered one another. + +"Guess it's young Olley," the voice drawled. + +Penn raised his hands and said something in German. Harvey could have +sworn that a bright sun was shining upon his lifted face; but the drawl +went on: "Sa-ay! You fellers guyed us consid'rable t'other night." + +"We don't feel like guyin' any now," said Disko. + +"I know it; but to tell the honest truth we was kinder--kinder driftin' +when we run agin young Olley." + +It was the irrepressible _Carrie Pitman_, and a roar of unsteady laughter +went up from the deck of the _We're Here_. + +"Hedn't you 'baout's well send the old man aboard? We're runnin' in fer +more bait an' graound-tackle. Guess you won't want him, anyway, an' +this blame windlass work makes us short-handed. We'll take care of him. +He married my woman's aunt." + +"I'll give you anything in the boat," said Troop. + +"Don't want nothin', 'less, mebbe, an anchor that'll hold. Say! Young +Olley's gittin' kinder baulky an' excited. Send the old man along." + +Penn waked him from his stupor of despair, and Tom Platt rowed him +over. He went away without a word of thanks, not knowing what was to +come; and the fog closed over all. + +"And now," said Penn, drawing a deep breath as though about to preach. +"And now"--the erect body sank like a sword driven home into the +scabbard; the light faded from the overbright eyes; the voice returned +to its usual pitiful little titter--"and now," said Pennsylvania Pratt, +"do you think it's too early for a little game of checkers, Mr. +Salters?" + +"The very thing--the very thing I was goin' to say myself," cried +Salters promptly. "It beats all, Penn, how ye git on to what's in a +man's mind." + +The little fellow blushed and meekly followed Salters forward. + +"Up anchor! Hurry! Let's quit these crazy waters," shouted Disko, and +never was he more swiftly obeyed. + +"Now what in creation d'ye suppose is the meanin' o' that all?" said +Long Jack, when they were working through the fog once more, damp, +dripping, and bewildered. + +"The way I sense it," said Disko, at the wheel, "is this: The Jennie +Cushman business comin' on an empty stummick--" + +"H-he saw one of them go by," sobbed Harvey. + +"An' that, o' course, kinder hove him outer water, julluk runnin' a +craft ashore; hove him right aout, I take it, to rememberin' Johnstown +an' Jacob Boiler an' such-like reminiscences. Well, consolin' Jason +there held him up a piece, same's shorin' up a boat. Then, bein' weak, +them props slipped an' slipped, an' he slided down the ways, an' naow +he's water-borne agin. That's haow I sense it." + +They decided that Disko was entirely correct. + +"'Twould ha' bruk Salters all up," said Long Jack, "if Penn had stayed +Jacob Boilerin'. Did ye see his face when Penn asked who he'd been +charged on all these years? How is ut, Salters?" + +"Asleep--dead asleep. Turned in like a child," Salters replied, +tiptoeing aft. "There won't be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did ye +ever see sech a gift in prayer? He everlastin'ly hiked young Olley +outer the ocean. Thet's my belief. Jason was tur'ble praoud of his boy, +an' I mistrusted all along 'twas a jedgment on worshippin' vain idols." + +"There's others jes as sot," said Disko. + +"That's difrunt," Salters retorted quickly. "Penn's not all caulked, +an' I ain't only but doin' my duty by him." + +They waited, those hungry men, three hours, till Penn reappeared with a +smooth face and a blank mind. He said he believed that he had been +dreaming. Then he wanted to know why they were so silent, and they +could not tell him. + + +Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the next three or four days; and +when they could not go out, turned them into the hold to stack the +ship's stores into smaller compass, to make more room for the fish. The +packed mass ran from the cabin partition to the sliding door behind the +foc'sle stove; and Disko showed how there is great art in stowing cargo +so as to bring a schooner to her best draft. The crew were thus kept +lively till they recovered their spirits; and Harvey was tickled with a +rope's end by Long Jack for being, as the Galway man said, "sorrowful +as a sick cat over fwhat couldn't be helped." He did a great deal of +thinking in those weary days, and told Dan what he thought, and Dan +agreed with him--even to the extent of asking for fried pies instead of +hooking them. + +But a week later the two nearly upset the Hattie S. in a wild attempt +to stab a shark with an old bayonet tied to a stick. The grim brute +rubbed alongside the dory begging for small fish, and between the three +of them it was a mercy they all got off alive. + +At last, after playing blindman's-buff in the fog, there came a morning +when Disko shouted down the foc'sle: "Hurry, boys! We're in taown!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +To the end of his days, Harvey will never forget that sight. The sun +was just clear of the horizon they had not seen for nearly a week, and +his low red light struck into the riding-sails of three fleets of +anchored schooners--one to the north, one to the westward, and one to +the south. There must have been nearly a hundred of them, of every +possible make and build, with, far away, a square-rigged Frenchman, all +bowing and courtesying one to the other. From every boat dories were +dropping away like bees from a crowded hive, and the clamour of voices, +the rattling of ropes and blocks, and the splash of the oars carried +for miles across the heaving water. The sails turned all colours, +black, pearly-gray, and white, as the sun mounted; and more boats swung +up through the mists to the southward. + +The dories gathered in clusters, separated, reformed, and broke again, +all heading one way; while men hailed and whistled and cat-called and +sang, and the water was speckled with rubbish thrown overboard. + +"It's a town," said Harvey. "Disko was right. It IS a town!" + +"I've seen smaller," said Disko. "There's about a thousand men here; +an' yonder's the Virgin." He pointed to a vacant space of greenish sea, +where there were no dories. + +The _We're Here_ skirted round the northern squadron, Disko waving his +hand to friend after friend, and anchored as nearly as a racing yacht +at the end of the season. The Bank fleet pass good seamanship in +silence; but a bungler is jeered all along the line. + +"Jest in time fer the caplin," cried the Mary Chilton. + +"'Salt 'most wet?" asked the King Philip. + +"Hey, Tom Platt! Come t' supper to-night?" said the Henry Clay; and so +questions and answers flew back and forth. Men had met one another +before, dory-fishing in the fog, and there is no place for gossip like +the Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about Harvey's rescue, and +asked if he were worth his salt yet. The young bloods jested with Dan, +who had a lively tongue of his own, and inquired after their health by +the town-nicknames they least liked. Manuel's countrymen jabbered at +him in their own language; and even the silent cook was seen riding the +jib-boom and shouting Gaelic to a friend as black as himself. After +they had buoyed the cable--all around the Virgin is rocky bottom, and +carelessness means chafed ground-tackle and danger from drifting--after +they had buoyed the cable, their dories went forth to join the mob of +boats anchored about a mile away. The schooners rocked and dipped at a +safe distance, like mother ducks watching their brood, while the dories +behaved like mannerless ducklings. + +As they drove into the confusion, boat banging boat, Harvey's ears +tingled at the comments on his rowing. Every dialect from Labrador to +Long Island, with Portuguese, Neapolitan, Lingua Franca, French, and +Gaelic, with songs and shoutings and new oaths, rattled round him, and +he seemed to be the butt of it all. For the first time in his life he +felt shy--perhaps that came from living so long with only the _We're +Heres_--among the scores of wild faces that rose and fell with the +reeling small craft. A gentle, breathing swell, three furlongs from +trough to barrel, would quietly shoulder up a string of variously +painted dories. They hung for an instant, a wonderful frieze against +the sky-line, and their men pointed and hailed. Next moment the open +mouths, waving arms, and bare chests disappeared, while on another +swell came up an entirely new line of characters like paper figures in +a toy theatre. So Harvey stared. "Watch out!" said Dan, flourishing a +dip-net "When I tell you dip, you dip. The caplin'll school any time +from naow on. Where'll we lay, Tom Platt?" + +Pushing, shoving, and hauling, greeting old friends here and warning +old enemies there, Commodore Tom Platt led his little fleet well to +leeward of the general crowd, and immediately three or four men began +to haul on their anchors with intent to lee-bow the _We're Heres_. But +a yell of laughter went up as a dory shot from her station with +exceeding speed, its occupant pulling madly on the roding. + +"Give her slack!" roared twenty voices. "Let him shake it out." + +"What's the matter?" said Harvey, as the boat flashed away to the +southward. "He's anchored, isn't he?" + +"Anchored, sure enough, but his graound-tackle's kinder shifty," said +Dan, laughing. "Whale's fouled it. . . . Dip Harve! Here they come!" + +The sea round them clouded and darkened, and then frizzed up in showers +of tiny silver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the cod +began to leap like trout in May; while behind the cod three or four +broad gray-backs broke the water into boils. + +Then everybody shouted and tried to haul up his anchor to get among the +school, and fouled his neighbour's line and said what was in his heart, +and dipped furiously with his dip-net, and shrieked cautions and advice +to his companions, while the deep fizzed like freshly opened +soda-water, and cod, men, and whales together flung in upon the +luckless bait. Harvey was nearly knocked overboard by the handle of +Dan's net. But in all the wild tumult he noticed, and never forgot, the +wicked, set little eye--something like a circus elephant's eye--of a +whale that drove along almost level with the water, and, so he said, +winked at him. Three boats found their rodings fouled by these reckless +mid-sea hunters, and were towed half a mile ere their horses shook the +line free. + +Then the caplin moved off, and five minutes later there was no sound +except the splash of the sinkers overside, the flapping of the cod, and +the whack of the muckles as the men stunned them. It was wonderful +fishing. Harvey could see the glimmering cod below, swimming slowly in +droves, biting as steadily as they swam. Bank law strictly forbids more +than one hook on one line when the dories are on the Virgin or the +Eastern Shoals; but so close lay the boats that even single hooks +snarled, and Harvey found himself in hot argument with a gentle, hairy +Newfoundlander on one side and a howling Portuguese on the other. + +Worse than any tangle of fishing-lines was the confusion of the +dory-rodings below water. Each man had anchored where it seemed good to +him, drifting and rowing round his fixed point. As the fish struck on +less quickly, each man wanted to haul up and get to better ground; but +every third man found himself intimately connected with some four or +five neighbours. To cut another's roding is crime unspeakable on the +Banks; yet it was done, and done without detection, three or four times +that day. Tom Platt caught a Maine man in the black act and knocked him +over the gunwale with an oar, and Manuel served a fellow-countryman in +the same way. But Harvey's anchor-line was cut, and so was Penn's, and +they were turned into relief-boats to carry fish to the _We're Here_ as +the dories filled. The caplin schooled once more at twilight, when the +mad clamour was repeated; and at dusk they rowed back to dress down by +the light of kerosene-lamps on the edge of the pen. + +It was a huge pile, and they went to sleep while they were dressing. +Next day several boats fished right above the cap of the Virgin; and +Harvey, with them, looked down on the very weed of that lonely rock, +which rises to within twenty feet of the surface. The cod were there in +legions, marching solemnly over the leathery kelp. When they bit, they +bit all together; and so when they stopped. There was a slack time at +noon, and the dories began to search for amusement. It was Dan who +sighted the Hope Of Prague just coming up, and as her boats joined the +company they were greeted with the question: "Who's the meanest man in +the Fleet?" + +Three hundred voices answered cheerily: "Nick Bra-ady." It sounded like +an organ chant. + +"Who stole the lampwicks?" That was Dan's contribution. + +"Nick Bra-ady," sang the boats. + +"Who biled the salt bait fer soup?" This was an unknown backbiter a +quarter of a mile away. + +Again the joyful chorus. Now, Brady was not especially mean, but he had +that reputation, and the Fleet made the most of it. Then they +discovered a man from a Truro boat who, six years before, had been +convicted of using a tackle with five or six hooks--a "scrowger," they +call it--in the Shoals. Naturally, he had been christened "Scrowger +Jim"; and though he had hidden himself on the Georges ever since, he +found his honours waiting for him full blown. They took it up in a sort +of firecracker chorus: "Jim! O Jim! Jim! O Jim! Sssscrowger Jim!" That +pleased everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man--he had been making +it up all day, and talked about it for weeks--sang, "The _Carrie +Pitman's_ anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that they +were indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how he was +off for beans, because even poets must not have things all their own +way. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. Was there a +careless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang about him and his +food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told at full length. +Had a man hooked tobacco from a mess-mate? He was named in meeting; the +name tossed from roller to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, Long +Jack's market-boat that he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh, +but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter's +views on manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey's +ladylike handling of the oar--all were laid before the public; and as +the fog fell around them in silvery sheets beneath the sun, the voices +sounded like a bench of invisible judges pronouncing sentence. + +The dories roved and fished and squabbled till a swell underran the +sea. Then they drew more apart to save their sides, and some one called +that if the swell continued the Virgin would break. A reckless Galway +man with his nephew denied this, hauled up anchor, and rowed over the +very rock itself. Many voices called them to come away, while others +dared them to hold on. As the smooth-backed rollers passed to the +southward, they hove the dory high and high into the mist, and dropped +her in ugly, sucking, dimpled water, where she spun round her anchor, +within a foot or two of the hidden rock. It was playing with death for +mere bravado; and the boats looked on in uneasy silence till Long Jack +rowed up behind his countrymen and quietly cut their roding. + +"Can't ye hear ut knockin'?" he cried. "Pull for you miserable lives! +Pull!" + +The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the next +swell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There was a +deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of +acres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal sea. +Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the Galway men held +their tongue. + +"Ain't it elegant?" said Dan, bobbing like a young seal at home. +"She'll break about once every ha'af hour now, 'les the swell piles up +good. What's her reg'lar time when she's at work, Tom Platt?" + +"Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. Harve, you've seen the +greatest thing on the Banks; an' but for Long Jack you'd seen some dead +men too." + +There came a sound of merriment where the fog lay thicker and the +schooners were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously out of +the mist, and was received with shouts and cries of, "Come along, +darlin'," from the Irishry. + +"Another Frenchman?" said Harvey. + +"Hain't you eyes? She's a Baltimore boat; goin' in fear an' tremblin'," +said Dan. "We'll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess it's the fust +time her skipper ever met up with the Fleet this way." + +She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail was +looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind was +moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of the sea, +and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt figurehead, +looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross a +muddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. That was very much her +situation. She knew she was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the +Virgin, had caught the roar of it, and was, therefore, asking her way. +This is a small part of what she heard from the dancing dories: + +"The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin' of? 'This is Le Have on a Sunday +mornin'. Go home an' sober up." + +"Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an' tell 'em we're comin'." + +Half a dozen voices together, in a most tuneful chorus, as her stern +went down with a roll and a bubble into the troughs: +"Thay-aah-she-strikes!" + +"Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You're on top of her now." + +"Daown! Hard daown! Let go everything!" + +"All hands to the pumps!" + +"Daown jib an' pole her!" + +Here the skipper lost his temper and said things. Instantly fishing was +suspended to answer him, and he heard many curious facts about his boat +and her next port of call. They asked him if he were insured; and +whence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it belonged to the +_Carrie Pitman_; they called his boat a mud-scow, and accused him of +dumping garbage to frighten the fish; they offered to tow him and +charge it to his wife; and one audacious youth slipped up almost under +the counter, smacked it with his open palm, and yelled: "Gid up, Buck!" + +The cook emptied a pan of ashes on him, and he replied with cod-heads. +The bark's crew fired small coal from the galley, and the dories +threatened to come aboard and "razee" her. They would have warned her +at once had she been in real peril; but, seeing her well clear of the +Virgin, they made the most of their chances. The fun was spoilt when +the rock spoke again, a half-mile to windward, and the tormented bark +set everything that would draw and went her ways; but the dories felt +that the honours lay with them. + +All that night the Virgin roared hoarsely; and next morning, over an +angry, white-headed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering masts +waiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove out till ten o'clock, when the +two Jeraulds of the Day's Eye, imagining a lull which did not exist, +set the example. In a minute half the boats were out and bobbing in the +cockly swells, but Troop kept the _We're Heres_ at work dressing down. +He saw no sense in "dares"; and as the storm grew that evening they had +the pleasure of receiving wet strangers only too glad to make any +refuge in the gale. The boys stood by the dory-tackles with lanterns, +the men ready to haul, one eye cocked for the sweeping wave that would +make them drop everything and hold on for dear life. Out of the dark +would come a yell of "Dory, dory!" They would hook up and haul in a +drenched man and a half-sunk boat, till their decks were littered down +with nests of dories and the bunks were full. Five times in their watch +did Harvey, with Dan, jump at the foregaff where it lay lashed on the +boom, and cling with arms, legs, and teeth to rope and spar and sodden +canvas as a big wave filled the decks. One dory was smashed to pieces, +and the sea pitched the man head first on to the decks, cutting his +forehead open; and about dawn, when the racing seas glimmered white all +along their cold edges, another man, blue and ghastly, crawled in with +a broken hand, asking news of his brother. Seven extra mouths sat down +to breakfast: A Swede; a Chatham skipper; a boy from Hancock, Maine; +one Duxbury, and three Provincetown men. + +There was a general sorting out among the Fleet next day; and though no +one said anything, all ate with better appetites when boat after boat +reported full crews aboard. Only a couple of Portuguese and an old man +from Gloucester were drowned, but many were cut or bruised; and two +schooners had parted their tackle and been blown to the southward, +three days' sail. A man died on a Frenchman--it was the same bark that +had traded tobacco with the _We're Heres_. She slipped away quite +quietly one wet, white morning, moved to a patch of deep water, her +sails all hanging anyhow, and Harvey saw the funeral through Disko's +spy-glass. It was only an oblong bundle slid overside. They did not +seem to have any form of service, but in the night, at anchor, Harvey +heard them across the star-powdered black water, singing something that +sounded like a hymn. It went to a very slow tune. + + "La brigantine + Qui va tourner, + Roule et s'incline + Pour m'entrainer. + Oh, Vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, patrie; + Quebec, adieu!" + +Tom Platt visited her, because, he said, the dead man was his brother +as a Freemason. It came out that a wave had doubled the poor fellow +over the heel of the bowsprit and broken his back. The news spread like +a flash, for, contrary to general custom, the Frenchman held an auction +of the dead man's kit,--he had no friends at St Malo or Miquelon,--and +everything was spread out on the top of the house, from his red knitted +cap to the leather belt with the sheath-knife at the back. Dan and +Harvey were out on twenty-fathom water in the Hattie S., and naturally +rowed over to join the crowd. It was a long pull, and they stayed some +little time while Dan bought the knife, which had a curious brass +handle. When they dropped overside and pushed off into a drizzle of +rain and a lop of sea, it occurred to them that they might get into +trouble for neglecting the lines. + +"Guess 'twon't hurt us any to be warmed up," said Dan, shivering under +his oilskins, and they rowed on into the heart of a white fog, which, +as usual, dropped on them without warning. + +"There's too much blame tide hereabouts to trust to your instinks," he +said. "Heave over the anchor, Harve, and we'll fish a piece till the +thing lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. Three pound ain't any too much +in this water. See how she's tightened on her rodin' already." + +There was quite a little bubble at the bows, where some irresponsible +Bank current held the dory full stretch on her rope; but they could not +see a boat's length in any direction. Harvey turned up his collar and +bunched himself over his reel with the air of a wearied navigator. Fog +had no special terrors for him now. They fished a while in silence, and +found the cod struck on well. Then Dan drew the sheath-knife and tested +the edge of it on the gunwale. + +"That's a daisy," said Harvey. "How did you get it so cheap?" + +"On account o' their blame Cath'lic superstitions," said Dan, jabbing +with the bright blade. "They don't fancy takin' iron from off a dead +man, so to speak. 'See them Arichat Frenchmen step back when I bid?" + +"But an auction ain't taking anythink off a dead man. It's business." + +"We know it ain't, but there's no goin' in the teeth o' superstition. +That's one o' the advantages o' livin' in a progressive country." And +Dan began whistling: + + "Oh, Double Thatcher, how are you? + Now Eastern Point comes inter view. + The girls an' boys we soon shall see, + At anchor off Cape Ann!" + +"Why didn't that Eastport man bid, then? He bought his boots. Ain't +Maine progressive?" + +"Maine? Pshaw! They don't know enough, or they hain't got money enough, +to paint their haouses in Maine. I've seen 'em. The Eastport man he +told me that the knife had been used--so the French captain told +him--used up on the French coast last year." + +"Cut a man? Heave 's the muckle." Harvey hauled in his fish, rebaited, +and threw over. + +"Killed him! Course, when I heard that I was keener'n ever to get it." + +"Christmas! I didn't know it," said Harvey, turning round. "I'll give +you a dollar for it when I--get my wages. Say, I'll give you two +dollars." + +"Honest? D'you like it as much as all that?" said Dan, flushing. "Well, +to tell the truth, I kinder got it for you--to give; but I didn't let +on till I saw how you'd take it. It's yours and welcome, Harve, because +we're dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an' so followin'. Catch +a-holt!" + +He held it out, belt and all. + +"But look at here. Dan, I don't see--" + +"Take it. 'Tain't no use to me. I wish you to hev it." The temptation +was irresistible. "Dan, you're a white man," said Harvey. "I'll keep it +as long as I live." + +"That's good hearin'," said Dan, with a pleasant laugh; and then, +anxious to change the subject: "'Look's if your line was fast to +somethin'." + +"Fouled, I guess," said Harve, tugging. Before he pulled up he fastened +the belt round him, and with deep delight heard the tip of the sheath +click on the thwart. "Concern the thing!" he cried. "She acts as though +she were on strawberry-bottom. It's all sand here, ain't it?" + +Dan reached over and gave a judgmatic tweak. "Hollbut'll act that way +'f he's sulky. Thet's no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once or twice. She +gives, sure. Guess we'd better haul up an' make certain." + +They pulled together, making fast at each turn on the cleats, and the +hidden weight rose sluggishly. + +"Prize, oh! Haul!" shouted Dan, but the shout ended in a shrill, double +shriek of horror, for out of the sea came the body of the dead +Frenchman buried two days before! The hook had caught him under the +right armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and shoulders +above water. His arms were tied to his side, and--he had no face. The +boys fell over each other in a heap at the bottom of the dory, and +there they lay while the thing bobbed alongside, held on the shortened +line. + +"The tide--the tide brought him!" said Harvey with quivering lips, as +he fumbled at the clasp of the belt. + +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Harve!" groaned Dan, "be quick. He's come for it. Let +him have it. Take it off." + +"I don't want it! I don't want it!" cried Harvey. "I can't find the +bu-buckle." + +"Quick, Harve! He's on your line!" + +Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing the head that had no face +under its streaming hair. "He's fast still," he whispered to Dan, who +slipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt far +overside. The body shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously rose to +his knees, whiter than the fog. + +"He come for it. He come for it. I've seen a stale one hauled up on a +trawl and I didn't much care, but he come to us special." + +"I wish--I wish I hadn't taken the knife. Then he'd have come on your +line." + +"Dunno as thet would ha' made any differ. We're both scared out o' ten +years' growth. Oh, Harve, did ye see his head?" + +"Did I? I'll never forget it. But look at here, Dan; it couldn't have +been meant. It was only the tide." + +"Tide! He come for it, Harve. Why, they sunk him six miles to south'ard +o' the Fleet, an' we're two miles from where she's lyin' now. They told +me he was weighted with a fathom an' a half o' chain-cable." + +"Wonder what he did with the knife--up on the French coast?" + +"Something bad. 'Guess he's bound to take it with him to the Judgment, +an' so-- What are you doin' with the fish?" + +"Heaving 'em overboard," said Harvey. + +"What for? We sha'n't eat 'em." + +"I don't care. I had to look at his face while I was takin' the belt +off. You can keep your catch if you like. I've no use for mine." + +Dan said nothing, but threw his fish over again. + +"Guess it's best to be on the safe side," he murmured at last. "I'd +give a month's pay if this fog 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fog +that ye don't see in clear weather--yo-hoes an' hollerers and such +like. I'm sorter relieved he come the way he did instid o' walkin'. He +might ha' walked." + +"Don't, Dan! We're right on top of him now. 'Wish I was safe aboard, +hem' pounded by Uncle Salters." + +"They'll be lookin' fer us in a little. Gimme the tooter." Dan took the +tin dinner-horn, but paused before he blew. + +"Go on," said Harvey. "I don't want to stay here all night" + +"Question is, haow he'd take it. There was a man frum down the coast +told me once he was in a schooner where they darsen't ever blow a horn +to the dories, becaze the skipper--not the man he was with, but a +captain that had run her five years before--he'd drowned a boy +alongside in a drunk fit; an' ever after, that boy he'd row along-side +too and shout, 'Dory! dory!' with the rest." + +"Dory! dory!" a muffled voice cried through the fog. They cowered +again, and the horn dropped from Dan's hand. + +"Hold on!" cried Harvey; "it's the cook." + +"Dunno what made me think o' thet fool tale, either," said Dan. "It's +the doctor, sure enough." + +"Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!" + +"We're here," sung both boys together. They heard oars, but could see +nothing till the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into them. + +"What iss happened?" said he. "You will be beaten at home." + +"Thet's what we want. Thet's what we're sufferin' for" said Dan. +"Anything homey's good enough fer us. We've had kinder depressin' +company." As the cook passed them a line, Dan told him the tale. + +"Yess! He come for hiss knife," was all he said at the end. + +Never had the little rocking _We're Here_ looked so deliciously +home-like as when the cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them back to +her. There was a warm glow of light from the cabin and a satisfying +smell of food forward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko and the +others, all quite alive and solid, leaning over the rail and promising +them a first-class pounding. But the cook was a black; master of +strategy. He did not get the dories aboard till he had given the more +striking points of the tale, explaining as he backed and bumped round +the counter how Harvey was the mascot to destroy any possible bad luck. +So the boys came override as rather uncanny heroes, and every one asked +them questions instead of pounding them for making trouble. Little Penn +delivered quite a speech on the folly of superstitions; but public +opinion was against him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the most +excruciating ghost-stories, till nearly midnight. Under that influence +no one except Salters and Penn said anything about "idolatry," when the +cook put a lighted candle, a cake of flour and water, and a pinch of +salt on a shingle, and floated them out astern to keep the Frenchman +quiet in case he was still restless. Dan lit the candle because he had +bought the belt, and the cook grunted and muttered charms as long as he +could see the ducking point of flame. + +Said Harvey to Dan, as they turned in after watch: + +"How about progress and Catholic superstitions?" + +"Huh! I guess I'm as enlightened and progressive as the next man, but +when it comes to a dead St. Malo deck-hand scarin' a couple o' pore +boys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent knife, why, then, the cook can +take hold fer all o' me. I mistrust furriners, livin' or dead." + +Next morning all, except the cook, were rather ashamed of the +ceremonies, and went to work double tides, speaking gruffly to one +another. + +The _We're Here_ was racing neck and neck for her last few loads +against the Parry Norman; and so close was the struggle that the Fleet +took side and betted tobacco. All hands worked at the lines or +dressing-down till they fell asleep where they stood--beginning before +dawn and ending when it was too dark to see. They even used the cook as +pitcher, and turned Harvey into the hold to pass salt, while Dan helped +to dress down. Luckily a Parry Norman man sprained his ankle falling +down the foc'sle, and the _We're Heres_ gained. Harvey could not see +how one more fish could be crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Platt +stowed and stowed, and planked the mass down with big stones from the +ballast, and there was always "jest another day's work." Disko did not +tell them when all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft +the cabin and began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten in +the morning. The riding-sail was down and the main- and topsail were up +by noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home, envying their +good fortune. At last she cleared decks, hoisted her flag,--as is the +right of the first boat off the Banks,--up-anchored, and began to move. +Disko pretended that he wished to accomodate folk who had not sent in +their mail, and so worked her gracefully in and out among the +schooners. In reality, that was his little triumphant procession, and +for the fifth year running it showed what kind of mariner he was. Dan's +accordion and Tom Platt's fiddle supplied the music of the magic verse +you must not sing till all the salt is wet: + + "Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound! + All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound! + Bend, oh, bend your mains'l, we're back to Yankeeland-- + With fifteen hunder' quintal, + An' fifteen hunder' quintal, + 'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal, + 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand." + + +The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and the +Gloucester men shouted messages to their wives and womenfolks and +owners, while the _We're Here_ finished the musical ride through the +Fleet, her headsails quivering like a man's hand when he raises it to +say good-by. + +Harvey very soon discovered that the _We're Here_, with her +riding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the _We're Here_ headed +west by south under home canvas, were two very different boats. There +was a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" weather; he could feel +the dead weight in the hold flung forward mightily across the surges, +and the streaming line of bubbles overside made his eyes dizzy. + +Disko kept them busy fiddling with the sails; and when those were +flattened like a racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big topsail, +which was put over by hand every time she went about. In spare moments +they pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine, which does not improve +a cargo. But since there was no fishing, Harvey had time to look at the +sea from another point of view. The low-sided schooner was naturally on +most intimate terms with her surroundings. They saw little of the +horizon save when she topped a swell; and usually she was elbowing, +fidgeting, and coasting her steadfast way through gray, gray-blue, or +black hollows laced across and across with streaks of shivering foam; +or rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of some bigger +water-hill. It was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? I'm +only the little _We're Here_." Then she would slide away chuckling +softly to herself till she was brought up by some fresh obstacle. The +dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing hour after hour through +long days without noticing it; and Harvey, being anything but dull, +began to comprehend and enjoy the dry chorus of wave-tops turning over +with a sound of incessant tearing; the hurry of the winds working +across open spaces and herding the purple-blue cloud-shadows; the +splendid upheaval of the red sunrise; the folding and packing away of +the morning mists, wall after wall withdrawn across the white floors; +the salty glare and blaze of noon; the kiss of rain falling over +thousands of dead, flat square miles; the chilly blackening of +everything at the day's end; and the million wrinkles of the sea under +the moonlight, when the jib-boom solemnly poked at the low stars, and +Harvey went down to get a doughnut from the cook. + +But the best fun was when the boys were put on the wheel together, Tom +Platt within hail, and she cuddled her lee-rail down to the crashing +blue, and kept a little home-made rainbow arching unbroken over her +windlass. Then the jaws of the booms whined against the masts, and the +sheets creaked, and the sails filled with roaring; and when she slid +into a hollow she trampled like a woman tripped in her own silk dress, +and came out, her jib wet half-way up, yearning and peering for the +tall twin-lights of Thatcher's Island. + +They left the cold gray of the Bank sea, saw the lumber-ships making +for Quebec by the Straits of St. Lawrence, with the Jersey salt-brigs +from Spain and Sicily; found a friendly northeaster off Artimon Bank +that drove them within view of the East light of Sable Island,--a sight +Disko did not linger over,--and stayed with them past Western and Le +Have, to the northern fringe of George's. From there they picked up the +deeper water, and let her go merrily. + +"Hattie's pulling on the string," Dan confided to Harvey. "Hattie an' +Ma. Next Sunday you'll be hirin' a boy to throw water on the windows to +make ye go to sleep. 'Guess you'll keep with us till your folks come. +Do you know the best of gettin' ashore again?" + +"Hot bath?" said Harvey. His eyebrows were all white with dried spray. + +"That's good, but a night-shirt's better. I've been dreamin' o' +night-shirts ever since we bent our mainsail. Ye can wiggle your toes +then. Ma'll hev a new one fer me, all washed soft. It's home, Harve. +It's home! Ye can sense it in the air. We're runnin' into the aidge of +a hot wave naow, an' I can smell the bayberries. Wonder if we'll get in +fer supper. Port a trifle." + +The hesitating sails flapped and lurched in the close air as the deep +smoothed out, blue and oily, round them. When they whistled for a wind +only the rain came in spiky rods, bubbling and drumming, and behind the +rain the thunder and the lightning of mid-August. They lay on the deck +with bare feet and arms, telling one another what they would order at +their first meal ashore; for now the land was in plain sight. A +Gloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, a man in the little pulpit +on the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, his bare head plastered down +with the wet. "And all's well!" he sang cheerily, as though he were +watch on a big liner. "Wouverman's waiting fer you, Disko. What's the +news o' the Fleet?" + +Disko shouted it and passed on, while the wild summer storm pounded +overhead and the lightning flickered along the capes from four +different quarters at once. It gave the low circle of hills round +Gloucester Harbor, Ten Pound Island, the fish-sheds, with the broken +line of house-roofs, and each spar and buoy on the water, in blinding +photographs that came and went a dozen times to the minute as the +_We're Here_ crawled in on half-flood, and the whistling-buoy moaned +and mourned behind her. Then the storm died out in long, separated, +vicious dags of blue-white flame, followed by a single roar like the +roar of a mortar-battery, and the shaken air tingled under the stars as +it got back to silence. + +"The flag, the flag!" said Disko, suddenly, pointing upward. + +"What is ut?" said Long Jack. + +"Otto! Ha'af mast. They can see us frum shore now." + +"I'd clean forgot. He's no folk to Gloucester, has he?" + +"Girl he was goin' to be married to this fall." + +"Mary pity her!" said Long Jack, and lowered the little flag half-mast +for the sake of Otto, swept overboard in a gale off Le Have three +months before. + +Disko wiped the wet from his eyes and led the _We're Here_ to +Wouverman's wharf, giving his orders in whispers, while she swung round +moored tugs and night-watchmen hailed her from the ends of inky-black +piers. Over and above the darkness and the mystery of the procession, +Harvey could feel the land close round him once more, with all its +thousands of people asleep, and the smell of earth after rain, and the +familiar noise of a switching-engine coughing to herself in a +freight-yard; and all those things made his heart beat and his throat +dry up as he stood by the foresheet. They heard the anchor-watch +snoring on a lighthouse-tug, nosed into a pocket of darkness where a +lantern glimmered on either side; somebody waked with a grunt, threw +them a rope, and they made fast to a silent wharf flanked with great +iron-roofed sheds fall of warm emptiness, and lay there without a sound. + +Then Harvey sat down by the wheel, and sobbed and sobbed as though his +heart would break, and a tall woman who had been sitting on a +weigh-scale dropped down into the schooner and kissed Dan once on the +cheek; for she was his mother, and she had seen the _We're Here_ by the +lightning flashes. She took no notice of Harvey till he had recovered +himself a little and Disko had told her his story. Then they went to +Disko's house together as the dawn was breaking; and until the +telegraph office was open and he could wire his folk, Harvey Cheyne was +perhaps the loneliest boy in all America. But the curious thing was +that Disko and Dan seemed to think none the worse of him for crying. + +Wouverman was not ready for Disko's prices till Disko, sure that the +_We're Here_ was at least a week ahead of any other Gloucester boat, +had given him a few days to swallow them; so all hands played about the +streets, and Long Jack stopped the Rocky Neck trolley, on principle, as +he said, till the conductor let him ride free. But Dan went about with +his freckled nose in the air, bung-full of mystery and most haughty to +his family. + +"Dan, I'll hev to lay inter you ef you act this way," said Troop, +pensively. "Sence we've come ashore this time you've bin a heap too +fresh." + +"I'd lay into him naow ef he was mine," said Uncle Salters, sourly. He +and Penn boarded with the Troops. + +"Oho!" said Dan, shuffling with the accordion round the backyard, ready +to leap the fence if the enemy advanced. "Dad, you're welcome to your +own judgment, but remember I've warned ye. Your own flesh an' blood ha' +warned ye! 'Tain't any o' my fault ef you're mistook, but I'll be on +deck to watch ye. An' ez fer yeou, Uncle Salters, Pharaoh's chief +butler ain't in it 'longside o' you! You watch aout an' wait. You'll be +plowed under like your own blamed clover; but me--Dan Troop--I'll +flourish like a green bay-tree because I warn't stuck on my own +opinion." + +Disko was smoking in all his shore dignity and a pair of beautiful +carpet-slippers. "You're gettin' ez crazy as poor Harve. You two go +araound gigglin' an' squinchin' an' kickin' each other under the table +till there's no peace in the haouse," said he. + +"There's goin' to be a heap less--fer some folks," Dan replied. "You +wait an' see." + +He and Harvey went out on the trolley to East Gloucester, where they +tramped through the bayberry bushes to the lighthouse, and lay down on +the big red boulders and laughed themselves hungry. Harvey had shown +Dan a telegram, and the two swore to keep silence till the shell burst. + +"Harve's folk?" said Dan, with an unruffled face after supper. "Well, I +guess they don't amount to much of anything, or we'd ha' heard from 'em +by naow. His pop keeps a kind o' store out West. Maybe he'll give you +'s much as five dollars, Dad." + +"What did I tell ye?" said Salters. "Don't sputter over your vittles, +Dan." + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Whatever his private sorrows may be, a multimillionaire, like any other +workingman, should keep abreast of his business. Harvey Cheyne, senior, +had gone East late in June to meet a woman broken down, half mad, who +dreamed day and night of her son drowning in the gray seas. He had +surrounded her with doctors, trained nurses, massage-women, and even +faith-cure companions, but they were useless. Mrs. Cheyne lay still and +moaned, or talked of her boy by the hour together to any one who would +listen. Hope she had none, and who could offer it? All she needed was +assurance that drowning did not hurt; and her husband watched to guard +lest she should make the experiment. Of his own sorrow he spoke +little--hardly realized the depth of it till he caught himself asking +the calendar on his writing-desk, "What's the use of going on?" + +There had always lain a pleasant notion at the back of his head that, +some day, when he had rounded off everything and the boy had left +college, he would take his son to his heart and lead him into his +possessions. Then that boy, he argued, as busy fathers do, would +instantly become his companion, partner, and ally, and there would +follow splendid years of great works carried out together--the old head +backing the young fire. Now his boy was dead--lost at sea, as it might +have been a Swede sailor from one of Cheyne's big teaships; the wife +dying, or worse; he himself was trodden down by platoons of women and +doctors and maids and attendants; worried almost beyond endurance by +the shift and change of her poor restless whims; hopeless, with no +heart to meet his many enemies. + +He had taken the wife to his raw new palace in San Diego, where she and +her people occupied a wing of great price, and Cheyne, in a +veranda-room, between a secretary and a typewriter, who was also a +telegraphist, toiled along wearily from day to day. There was a war of +rates among four Western railroads in which he was supposed to be +interested; a devastating strike had developed in his lumber camps in +Oregon, and the legislature of the State of California, which has no +love for its makers, was preparing open war against him. + +Ordinarily he would have accepted battle ere it was offered, and have +waged a pleasant and unscrupulous campaign. But now he sat limply, his +soft black hat pushed forward on to his nose, his big body shrunk +inside his loose clothes, staring at his boots or the Chinese junks in +the bay, and assenting absently to the secretary's questions as he +opened the Saturday mail. + +Cheyne was wondering how much it would cost to drop everything and pull +out. He carried huge insurances, could buy himself royal annuities, and +between one of his places in Colorado and a little society (that would +do the wife good), say in Washington and the South Carolina islands, a +man might forget plans that had come to nothing. On the other hand-- + +The click of the typewriter stopped; the girl was looking at the +secretary, who had turned white. + +He passed Cheyne a telegram repeated from San Francisco: + +Picked up by fishing schooner _We're Here_ having fallen off boat great +times on Banks fishing all well waiting Gloucester Mass care Disko +Troop for money or orders wire what shall do and how is Mama Harvey N. +Cheyne. + +The father let it fall, laid his head down on the roller-top of the +shut desk, and breathed heavily. The secretary ran for Mrs. Cheyne's +doctor who found Cheyne pacing to and fro. + +"What--what d' you think of it? Is it possible? Is there any meaning to +it? I can't quite make it out," he cried. + +"I can," said the doctor. "I lose seven thousand a year--that's all." +He thought of the struggling New York practice he had dropped at +Cheyne's imperious bidding, and returned the telegram with a sigh. + +"You mean you'd tell her? 'May be a fraud?" + +"What's the motive?" said the doctor, coolly. "Detection's too certain. +It's the boy sure enough." + +Enter a French maid, impudently, as an indispensable one who is kept on +only by large wages. + +"Mrs. Cheyne she say you must come at once. She think you are seek." + +The master of thirty millions bowed his head meekly and followed +Suzanne; and a thin, high voice on the upper landing of the great +white-wood square staircase cried: "What is it? What has happened?" + +No doors could keep out the shriek that rang through the echoing house +a moment later, when her husband blurted out the news. + +"And that's all right," said the doctor, serenely, to the typewriter. +"About the only medical statement in novels with any truth to it is +that joy don't kill, Miss Kinzey." + +"I know it; but we've a heap to do first." Miss Kinzey was from +Milwaukee, somewhat direct of speech; and as her fancy leaned towards +the secretary, she divined there was work in hand. He was looking +earnestly at the vast roller-map of America on the wall. + +"Milsom, we're going right across. Private car--straight +through--Boston. Fix the connections," shouted Cheyne down the +staircase. + +"I thought so." + +The secretary turned to the typewriter, and their eyes met (out of that +was born a story--nothing to do with this story). She looked +inquiringly, doubtful of his resources. He signed to her to move to the +Morse as a general brings brigades into action. Then he swept his hand +musician-wise through his hair, regarded the ceiling, and set to work, +while Miss Kinzey's white fingers called up the Continent of America. + +"_K. H. Wade, Los Angeles--_ The 'Constance' is at Los Angeles, isn't she, +Miss Kinzey?" + +"Yep." Miss Kinzey nodded between clicks as the secretary looked at his +watch. + +"Ready? _Send 'Constance,' private car, here, and arrange for special to +leave here Sunday in time to connect with New York Limited at Sixteenth +Street, Chicago, Tuesday next_." + +Click-click-click! "Couldn't you better that?" + +"Not on those grades. That gives 'em sixty hours from here to Chicago. +They won't gain anything by taking a special east of that. Ready? _Also +arrange with Lake Shore and Michigan Southern to take 'Constance' on +New York Central and Hudson River Buffalo to Albany, and B. and A. the +same Albany to Boston. Indispensable I should reach Boston Wednesday +evening. Be sure nothing prevents. Have also wired Canniff, Toucey, and +Barnes._--Sign, Cheyne." + +Miss Kinzey nodded, and the secretary went on. + +"Now then. Canniff, Toucey, and Barnes, of course. Ready? _Canniff, +Chicago. Please take my private car 'Constance' from Santa Fe at +Sixteenth Street next Tuesday p. m. on N. Y. Limited through to Buffalo +and deliver N. Y. C. for Albany._--Ever bin to N' York, Miss Kinzey? +We'll go some day.--Ready? _Take car Buffalo to Albany on Limited +Tuesday p. m._ That's for Toucey." + +"Haven't bin to Noo York, but I know that!" with a toss of the head. + +"Beg pardon. Now, Boston and Albany, Barnes, same instructions from +Albany through to Boston. Leave three-five P. M. (you needn't wire +that); arrive nine-five P. M. Wednesday. That covers everything Wade +will do, but it pays to shake up the managers." + +"It's great," said Miss Kinzey, with a look of admiration. This was the +kind of man she understood and appreciated. + +"'Tisn't bad," said Milsom, modestly. "Now, any one but me would have +lost thirty hours and spent a week working out the run, instead of +handing him over to the Santa Fe straight through to Chicago." + +"But see here, about that Noo York Limited. Chauncey Depew himself +couldn't hitch his car to her," Miss Kinzey suggested, recovering +herself. + +"Yes, but this isn't Chauncey. It's Cheyne--lightning. It goes." + +"Even so. Guess we'd better wire the boy. You've forgotten that, +anyhow." + +"I'll ask." + +When he returned with the father's message bidding Harvey meet them in +Boston at an appointed hour, he found Miss Kinzey laughing over the +keys. Then Milsom laughed too, for the frantic clicks from Los Angeles +ran: "We want to know why-why-why? General uneasiness developed and +spreading." + +Ten minutes later Chicago appealed to Miss Kinzey in these words: "If +crime of century is maturing please warn friends in time. We are all +getting to cover here." + +This was capped by a message from Topeka (and wherein Topeka was +concerned even Milsom could not guess): "Don't shoot, Colonel. We'll +come down." + +Cheyne smiled grimly at the consternation of his enemies when the +telegrams were laid before him. "They think we're on the warpath. Tell +'em we don't feel like fighting just now, Milsom. Tell 'em what we're +going for. I guess you and Miss Kinsey had better come along, though it +isn't likely I shall do any business on the road. Tell 'em the +truth--for once." + +So the truth was told. Miss Kinzey clicked in the sentiment while the +secretary added the memorable quotation, "Let us have peace," and in +board rooms two thousand miles away the representatives of sixty-three +million dollars' worth of variously manipulated railroad interests +breathed more freely. Cheyne was flying to meet the only son, so +miraculously restored to him. The bear was seeking his cub, not the +bulls. Hard men who had their knives drawn to fight for their financial +lives put away the weapons and wished him God-speed, while half a dozen +panic-smitten tin-pot toads perked up their heads and spoke of the +wonderful things they would have done had not Cheyne buried the hatchet. + +It was a busy week-end among the wires; for now that their anxiety was +removed, men and cities hastened to accommodate. Los Angeles called to +San Diego and Barstow that the Southern California engineers might know +and be ready in their lonely roundhouses; Barstow passed the word to +the Atlantic and Pacific; and Albuquerque flung it the whole length of +the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe management, even into Chicago. An +engine, combination-car with crew, and the great and gilded "Constance" +private car were to be "expedited" over those two thousand three +hundred and fifty miles. The train would take precedence of one hundred +and seventy-seven others meeting and passing; despatchers and crews of +every one of those said trains must be notified. Sixteen locomotives, +sixteen engineers, and sixteen firemen would be needed--each and every +one the best available. Two and one half minutes would be allowed for +changing engines, three for watering, and two for coaling. "Warn the +men, and arrange tanks and chutes accordingly; for Harvey Cheyne is in +a hurry, a hurry, a hurry," sang the wires. "Forty miles an hour will +be expected, and division superintendents will accompany this special +over their respective divisions. From San Diego to Sixteenth Street, +Chicago, let the magic carpet be laid down. Hurry! Oh, hurry!" + +"It will be hot," said Cheyne, as they rolled out of San Diego in the +dawn of Sunday. "We're going to hurry, Mama, just as fast as ever we +can; but I really don't think there's any good of your putting on your +bonnet and gloves yet. You'd much better lie down and take your +medicine. I'd play you a game of dominoes, but it's Sunday." + +"I'll be good. Oh, I will be good. Only--taking off my bonnet makes me +feel as if we'd never get there." + +"Try to sleep a little, Mama, and we'll be in Chicago before you know." + +"But it's Boston, Father. Tell them to hurry." + +The six-foot drivers were hammering their way to San Bernardino and the +Mohave wastes, but this was no grade for speed. That would come later. +The heat of the desert followed the heat of the hills as they turned +east to the Needles and the Colorado River. The car cracked in the +utter drouth and glare, and they put crushed ice to Mrs. Cheyne's neck, +and toiled up the long, long grades, past Ash Fork, towards Flagstaff, +where the forests and quarries are, under the dry, remote skies. The +needle of the speed-indicator flicked and wagged to and fro; the +cinders rattled on the roof, and a whirl of dust sucked after the +whirling wheels. The crew of the combination sat on their bunks, +panting in their shirtsleeves, and Cheyne found himself among them +shouting old, old stories of the railroad that every trainman knows, +above the roar of the car. He told them about his son, and how the sea +had given up its dead, and they nodded and spat and rejoiced with him; +asked after "her, back there," and whether she could stand it if the +engineer "let her out a piece," and Cheyne thought she could. +Accordingly, the great fire-horse was "let 'ut" from Flagstaff to +Winslow, till a division superintendent protested. + +But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, where the French maid, +sallow-white with fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only moaned a +little and begged her husband to bid them "hurry." And so they dropped +the dry sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona behind them, and grilled +on till the crash of the couplings and the wheeze of the brake-hose +told them they were at Coolidge by the Continental Divide. + +Three bold and experienced men--cool, confident, and dry when they +began; white, quivering, and wet when they finished their trick at +those terrible wheels--swung her over the great lift from Albuquerque +to Glorietta and beyond Springer, up and up to the Raton Tunnel on the +State line, whence they dropped rocking into La Junta, had sight of the +Arkansaw, and tore down the long slope to Dodge City, where Cheyne took +comfort once again from setting his watch an hour ahead. + +There was very little talk in the car. The secretary and typewriter sat +together on the stamped Spanish-leather cushions by the plate-glass +observation-window at the rear end, watching the surge and ripple of +the ties crowded back behind them, and, it is believed, making notes of +the scenery. Cheyne moved nervously between his own extravagant +gorgeousness and the naked necessity of the combination, an unlit cigar +in his teeth, till the pitying crews forgot that he was their tribal +enemy, and did their best to entertain him. + +At night the bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of all +the luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through the +emptiness of abject desolation. + +Now they heard the swish of a water-tank, and the guttural voice of a +Chinaman, the click-clink of hammers that tested the Krupp steel +wheels, and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear-platform; now the +solid crash of coal shot into the tender; and now a beating back of +noises as they flew past a waiting train. Now they looked out into +great abysses, a trestle purring beneath their tread, or up to rocks +that barred out half the stars. Now scour and ravine changed and rolled +back to jagged mountains on the horizon's edge, and now broke into +hills lower and lower, till at last came the true plains. + +At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in a copy of a Kansas paper +containing some sort of an interview with Harvey, who had evidently +fallen in with an enterprising reporter, telegraphed on from Boston. +The joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond question their boy, +and it soothed Mrs. Cheyne for a while. Her one word "hurry" was +conveyed by the crews to the engineers at Nickerson, Topeka, and +Marceline, where the grades are easy, and they brushed the Continent +behind them. Towns and villages were close together now, and a man +could feel here that he moved among people. + +"I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. What are we doing?" + +"The very best we can, Mama. There's no sense in getting in before the +Limited. We'd only have to wait." + +"I don't care. I want to feel we're moving. Sit down and tell me the +miles." + +Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her (there were some miles which +stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changed +its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of a +giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat, +the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-hands +would not move, and when, oh, when would they be in Chicago? + +It is not true that, as they changed engines at Fort Madison, Cheyne +passed over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers an +endowment sufficient to enable them to fight him and his fellows on +equal terms for evermore. He paid his obligations to engineers and +firemen as he believed they deserved, and only his bank knows what he +gave the crews who had sympathized with him. It is on record that the +last crew took entire charge of switching operations at Sixteenth +Street, because "she" was in a doze at last, and Heaven was to help any +one who bumped her. + +Now the highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore and Michigan +Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of an autocrat, +and he does not approve of being told how to back up to a car. None the +less he handled the "Constance" as if she might have been a load of +dynamite, and when the crew rebuked him, they did it in whispers and +dumb show. + +"Pshaw!" said the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe men, discussing life +later, "we weren't runnin' for a record. Harvey Cheyne's wife, she were +sick back, an' we didn't want to jounce her. 'Come to think of it, our +runnin' time from San Diego to Chicago was 57.54. You can tell that to +them Eastern way-trains. When we're tryin' for a record, we'll let you +know." + +To the Western man (though this would not please either city) Chicago +and Boston are cheek by jowl, and some railroads encourage the +delusion. The Limited whirled the "Constance" into Buffalo and the arms +of the New York Central and Hudson River (illustrious magnates with +white whiskers and gold charms on their watch-chains boarded her here +to talk a little business to Cheyne), who slid her gracefully into +Albany, where the Boston and Albany completed the run from tide-water +to tide-water--total time, eighty-seven hours and thirty-five minutes, +or three days, fifteen hours and one half. Harvey was waiting for them. + +After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food. They +feasted the returned prodigal behind drawn curtains, cut off in their +great happiness, while the trains roared in and out around them. Harvey +ate, drank, and enlarged on his adventures all in one breath, and when +he had a hand free his mother fondled it. His voice was thickened with +living in the open, salt air; his palms were rough and hard, his wrists +dotted with marks of gurrysores; and a fine full flavour of codfish +hung round rubber boots and blue jersey. + +The father, well used to judging men, looked at him keenly. He did not +know what enduring harm the boy might have taken. Indeed, he caught +himself thinking that he knew very little whatever of his son; but he +distinctly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced youth who took +delight in "calling down the old man," and reducing his mother to +tears--such a person as adds to the gaiety of public rooms and hotel +piazzas, where the ingenuous young of the wealthy play with or revile +the bell-boys. But this well set-up fisher-youth did not wriggle, +looked at him with eyes steady, clear, and unflinching, and spoke in a +tone distinctly, even startlingly, respectful. There was that in his +voice, too, which seemed to promise that the change might be permanent, +and that the new Harvey had come to stay. + +"Some one's been coercing him," thought Cheyne. "Now Constance would +never have allowed that. Don't see as Europe could have done it any +better." + +"But why didn't you tell this man, Troop, who you were?" the mother +repeated, when Harvey had expanded his story at least twice. + +"Disko Troop, dear. The best man that ever walked a deck. I don't care +who the next is." + +"Why didn't you tell him to put you ashore? You know Papa would have +made it up to him ten times over." + +"I know it; but he thought I was crazy. I'm afraid I called him a thief +because I couldn't find the bills in my pocket." + +"A sailor found them by the flagstaff that--that night," sobbed Mrs. +Cheyne. + +"That explains it, then. I don't blame Troop any. I just said I +wouldn't work--on a Banker, too--and of course he hit me on the nose, +and oh! I bled like a stuck hog." + +"My poor darling! They must have abused you horribly." + +"Dunno quite. Well, after that, I saw a light." + +Cheyne slapped his leg and chuckled. This was going to be a boy after +his own hungry heart. He had never seen precisely that twinkle in +Harvey's eye before. + +"And the old man gave me ten and a half a month; he's paid me half now; +and I took hold with Dan and pitched right in. I can't do a man's work +yet. But I can handle a dory 'most as well as Dan, and I don't get +rattled in a fog--much; and I can take my trick in light winds--that's +steering, dear--and I can 'most bait up a trawl, and I know my ropes, +of course; and I can pitch fish till the cows come home, and I'm great +on old Josephus, and I'll show you how I can clear coffee with a piece +of fish-skin, and--I think I'll have another cup, please. Say, you've +no notion what a heap of work there is in ten and a half a month!" + +"I began with eight and a half, my son," said Cheyne. + +"That so? You never told me, sir." + +"You never asked, Harve. I'll tell you about it some day, if you care +to listen. Try a stuffed olive." + +"Troop says the most interesting thing in the world is to find out how +the next man gets his vittles. It's great to have a trimmed-up meal +again. We were well fed, though. But mug on the Banks. Disko fed us +first-class. He's a great man. And Dan--that's his son--Dan's my +partner. And there's Uncle Salters and his manures, an' he reads +Josephus. He's sure I'm crazy yet. And there's poor little Penn, and he +is crazy. You mustn't talk to him about Johnstown, because-- + +"And, oh, you must know Tom Platt and Long Jack and Manuel. Manuel +saved my life. I'm sorry he's a Portuguee. He can't talk much, but he's +an everlasting musician. He found me struck adrift and drifting, and +hauled me in." + +"I wonder your nervous system isn't completely wrecked," said Mrs. +Cheyne. + +"What for, Mama? I worked like a horse and I ate like a hog and I slept +like a dead man." + +That was too much for Mrs. Cheyne, who began to think of her visions of +a corpse rocking on the salty seas. She went to her stateroom, and +Harvey curled up beside his father, explaining his indebtedness. + +"You can depend upon me to do everything I can for the crowd, Harve. +They seem to be good men on your showing." + +"Best in the Fleet, sir. Ask at Gloucester," said Harvey. "But Disko +believes still he's cured me of being crazy. Dan's the only one I've +let on to about you, and our private cars and all the rest of it, and +I'm not quite sure Dan believes. I want to paralyze 'em to-morrow. Say, +can't they run the 'Constance' over to Gloucester? Mama don't look fit +to be moved, anyway, and we're bound to finish cleaning out by +tomorrow. Wouverman takes our fish. You see, we're the first off the +Banks this season, and it's four twenty-five a quintal. We held out +till he paid it. They want it quick." + +"You mean you'll have to work to-morrow, then?" + +"I told Troop I would. I'm on the scales. I've brought the tallies with +me." He looked at the greasy notebook with an air of importance that +made his father choke. "There isn't but three--no--two ninety-four or +five quintal more by my reckoning." + +"Hire a substitute," suggested Cheyne, to see what Harvey would say. + +"Can't, sir. I'm tally-man for the schooner. Troop says I've a better +head for figures than Dan. Troop's a mighty just man." + +"Well, suppose I don't move the 'Constance' to-night, how'll you fix +it?" + +Harvey looked at the clock, which marked twenty past eleven. + +"Then I'll sleep here till three and catch the four o'clock freight. +They let us men from the Fleet ride free as a rule." + +"That's a notion. But I think we can get the 'Constance' around about +as soon as your men's freight. Better go to bed now." + +Harvey spread himself on the sofa, kicked off his boots, and was asleep +before his father could shade the electrics. Cheyne sat watching the +young face under the shadow of the arm thrown over the forehead, and +among many things that occurred to him was the notion that he might +perhaps have been neglectful as a father. + +"One never knows when one's taking one's biggest risks," he said. "It +might have been worse than drowning; but I don't think it has--I don't +think it has. If it hasn't, I haven't enough to pay Troop, that's all; +and I don't think it has." + +Morning brought a fresh sea breeze through the windows, the "Constance" +was side-tracked among freight-cars at Gloucester, and Harvey had gone +to his business. + +"Then he'll fall overboard again and be drowned," the mother said +bitterly. + +"We'll go and look, ready to throw him a rope in case. You've never +seen him working for his bread," said the father. + +"What nonsense! As if any one expected--" + +"Well, the man that hired him did. He's about right, too." + +They went down between the stores full of fishermen's oilskins to +Wouverman's wharf where the _We're Here_ rode high, her Bank flag still +flying, all hands busy as beavers in the glorious morning light. Disko +stood by the main hatch superintending Manuel, Penn, and Uncle Salters +at the tackle. Dan was swinging the loaded baskets inboard as Long Jack +and Tom Platt filled them, and Harvey, with a notebook, represented the +skipper's interests before the clerk of the scales on the +salt-sprinkled wharf-edge. + +"Ready!" cried the voices below. "Haul!" cried Disko. "Hi!" said +Manuel. "Here!" said Dan, swinging the basket. Then they heard Harvey's +voice, clear and fresh, checking the weights. + +The last of the fish had been whipped out, and Harvey leaped from the +string-piece six feet to a ratline, as the shortest way to hand Disko +the tally, shouting, "Two ninety-seven, and an empty hold!" + +"What's the total, Harve?" said Disko. + +"Eight sixty-five. Three thousand six hundred and seventy-six dollars +and a quarter. 'Wish I'd share as well as wage." + +"Well, I won't go so far as to say you hevn't deserved it, Harve. Don't +you want to slip up to Wouverman's office and take him our tallies?" + +"Who's that boy?" said Cheyne to Dan, well used to all manner of +questions from those idle imbeciles called summer boarders. + +"Well, he's kind o' supercargo," was the answer. "We picked him up +struck adrift on the Banks. Fell overboard from a liner, he sez. He was +a passenger. He's by way o' hem' a fisherman now." + +"Is he worth his keep?" + +"Ye-ep. Dad, this man wants to know ef Harve's worth his keep. Say, +would you like to go aboard? We'll fix up a ladder for her." + +"I should very much, indeed. 'Twon't hurt you, Mama, and you'll be able +to see for yourself." + +The woman who could not lift her head a week ago scrambled down the +ladder, and stood aghast amid the mess and tangle aft. + +"Be you anyways interested in Harve?" said Disko. + +"Well, ye-es." + +"He's a good boy, an' ketches right hold jest as he's bid. You've heard +haow we found him? He was sufferin' from nervous prostration, I guess, +'r else his head had hit somethin', when we hauled him aboard. He's all +over that naow. Yes, this is the cabin. 'Tain't in order, but you're +quite welcome to look araound. Those are his figures on the stove-pipe, +where we keep the reckonin' mostly." + +"Did he sleep here?" said Mrs. Cheyne, sitting on a yellow locker and +surveying the disorderly bunks. + +"No. He berthed forward, madam, an' only fer him an' my boy hookin' +fried pies an muggin' up when they ought to ha' been asleep, I dunno as +I've any special fault to find with him." + +"There weren't nothin' wrong with Harve," said Uncle Salters, +descending the steps. "He hung my boots on the main-truck, and he ain't +over an' above respectful to such as knows more'n he do, specially +about farmin'; but he were mostly misled by Dan." + +Dan in the meantime, profiting by dark hints from Harvey early that +morning, was executing a war-dance on deck. "Tom, Tom!" he whispered +down the hatch. "His folks has come, an' Dad hain't caught on yet, an' +they're pow-wowin' in the cabin. She's a daisy, an' he's all Harve +claimed he was, by the looks of him." + +"Howly Smoke!" said Long Jack, climbing out covered with salt and +fish-skin. "D'ye belave his tale av the kid an' the little four-horse +rig was thrue?" + +"I knew it all along," said Dan. "Come an' see Dad mistook in his +judgments." + +They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say: "I'm glad he +has a good character, because--he's my son." + +Disko's jaw fell,--Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click of +it,--and he stared alternately at the man and the woman. + +"I got his telegram in San Diego four days ago, and we came over." + +"In a private car?" said Dan. "He said ye might." + +"In a private car, of course." + +Dan looked at his father with a hurricane of irreverent winks. + +"There was a tale he told us av drivin' four little ponies in a rig av +his own," said Long Jack. "Was that thrue now?" + +"Very likely," said Cheyne. "Was it, Mama?" + +"He had a little drag when we were in Toledo, I think," said the mother. + +Long Jack whistled. "Oh, Disko!" said he, and that was all. + +"I wuz--I am mistook in my jedgments--worse'n the men o' Marblehead," +said Disko, as though the words were being windlassed out of him. "I +don't mind ownin' to you, Mr. Cheyne, as I mistrusted the boy to be +crazy. He talked kinder odd about money." + +"So he told me." + +"Did he tell ye anything else? 'Cause I pounded him once." This with a +somewhat anxious glance at Mrs. Cheyne. + +"Oh, yes," Cheyne replied. "I should say it probably did him more good +than anything else in the world." + +"I jedged 'twuz necessary, er I wouldn't ha' done it. I don't want you +to think we abuse our boys any on this packet." + +"I don't think you do, Mr. Troop." + +Mrs. Cheyne had been looking at the faces--Disko's ivory-yellow, +hairless, iron countenance; Uncle Salters's, with its rim of +agricultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; Manuel's quiet smile; +Long Jack's grin of delight, and Tom Platt's scar. Rough, by her +standards, they certainly were; but she had a mother's wits in her +eyes, and she rose with out-stretched hands. + +"Oh, tell me, which is who?" said she, half sobbing. "I want to thank +you and bless you--all of you." + +"Faith, that pays me a hunder time," said Long Jack. + +Disko introduced them all in due form. The captain of an old-time +Chinaman could have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne babbled +incoherently. She nearly threw herself into Manuel's arms when she +understood that he had first found Harvey. + +"But how shall I leave him dreeft?" said poor Manuel. "What do you +yourself if you find him so? Eh, wha-at? We are in one good boy, and I +am ever so pleased he come to be your son." + +"And he told me Dan was his partner!" she cried. Dan was already +sufficiently pink, but he turned a rich crimson when Mrs. Cheyne kissed +him on both cheeks before the assembly. Then they led her forward to +show her the foc'sle, at which she wept again, and must needs go down +to see Harvey's identical bunk, and there she found the nigger cook +cleaning up the stove, and he nodded as though she were some one he had +expected to meet for years. They tried, two at a time, to explain the +boat's daily life to her, and she sat by the pawl-post, her gloved +hands on the greasy table, laughing with trembling lips and crying with +dancing eyes. + +"And who's ever to use the _We're Here_ after this?" said Long Jack to +Tom Platt. "I feel as if she'd made a cathedral av ut all." + +"Cathedral!" sneered Tom Platt. "Oh, if it had bin even the Fish +C'mmission boat instid of this bally-hoo o' blazes. If we only hed some +decency an' order an' side-boys when she goes over! She'll have to +climb that ladder like a hen, an' we--we ought to be mannin' the yards!" + +"Then Harvey was not mad," said Penn, slowly, to Cheyne. + +"No, indeed--thank God," the big millionaire replied, stooping down +tenderly. + +"It must be terrible to be mad. Except to lose your child, I do not +know anything more terrible. But your child has come back? Let us thank +God for that." + +"Hello!" cried Harvey, looking down upon them benignly from the wharf. + +"I wuz mistook, Harve. I wuz mistook," said Disko, swiftly, holding up +a hand. "I wuz mistook in my jedgments. Ye needn't rub in any more." + +"Guess I'll take care o' that," said Dan, under his breath. + +"You'll be goin' off naow, won't ye?" + +"Well, not without the balance of my wages, 'less you want to have the +_We're Here_ attached." + +"Thet's so; I'd clean forgot"; and he counted out the remaining +dollars. "You done all you contracted to do, Harve; and you done it +'baout's well as if you'd been brought up--" Here Disko brought himself +up. He did not quite see where the sentence was going to end. + +"Outside of a private car?" suggested Dan, wickedly. + +"Come on, and I'll show her to you," said Harvey. + +Cheyne stayed to talk with Disko, but the others made a procession to +the depot, with Mrs. Cheyne at the head. The French maid shrieked at +the invasion; and Harvey laid the glories of the "Constance" before +them without a word. They took them in in equal silence--stamped +leather, silver door-handles and rails, cut velvet, plate-glass, +nickel, bronze, hammered iron, and the rare woods of the continent +inlaid. + +"I told you," said Harvey; "I told you." This was his crowning revenge, +and a most ample one. + +Mrs. Cheyne decreed a meal, and that nothing might be lacking to the +tale Long Jack told afterwards in his boarding-house, she waited on +them herself. Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny tables in howling +gales have curiously neat and finished manners; but Mrs. Cheyne, who +did not know this, was surprised. She longed to have Manuel for a +butler; so silently and easily did he comport himself among the frail +glassware and dainty silver. Tom Platt remembered the great days on the +Ohio and the manners of foreign potentates who dined with the officers; +and Long Jack, being Irish, supplied the small talk till all were at +their ease. + +In the _We're Here's_ cabin the fathers took stock of each other behind +their cigars. Cheyne knew well enough when he dealt with a man to whom +he could not offer money; equally well he knew that no money could pay +for what Disko had done. He kept his own counsel and waited for an +opening. + +"I hevn't done anything to your boy or fer your boy excep' make him +work a piece an' learn him how to handle the hog-yoke," said Disko. "He +has twice my boy's head for figgers." + +"By the way," Cheyne answered casually, "what d'you calculate to make +of your boy?" + +Disko removed his cigar and waved it comprehensively round the cabin. +"Dan's jest plain boy, an' he don't allow me to do any of his thinkin'. +He'll hev this able little packet when I'm laid by. He ain't noways +anxious to quit the business. I know that." + +"Mmm! 'Ever been West, Mr. Troop?" + +"'Bin's fer ez Noo York once in a boat. I've no use for railroads. No +more hez Dan. Salt water's good enough fer the Troops. I've been 'most +everywhere--in the nat'ral way, o' course." + +"I can give him all the salt water he's likely to need--till he's a +skipper." + +"Haow's that? I thought you wuz a kinder railroad king. Harve told me +so when--I was mistook in my jedgments." + +"We're all apt to be mistaken. I fancied perhaps you might know I own a +line of tea-clippers--San Francisco to Yokohama--six of +'em--iron-built, about seventeen hundred and eighty tons apiece. + +"Blame that boy! He never told. I'd ha' listened to that, instid o' his +truck abaout railroads an' pony-carriages." + +"He didn't know." + +"'Little thing like that slipped his mind, I guess." + +"No, I only capt--took hold of the 'Blue M.' freighters--Morgan and +McQuade's old line--this summer." Disko collapsed where he sat, beside +the stove. + +"Great Caesar Almighty! I mistrust I've been fooled from one end to the +other. Why, Phil Airheart he went from this very town six year +back--no, seven--an' he's mate on the San Jose--now--twenty-six days +was her time out. His sister she's livin' here yet, an' she reads his +letters to my woman. An' you own the 'Blue M.' freighters?" + +Cheyne nodded. + +"If I'd known that I'd ha' jerked the _We're Here_ back to port all +standin', on the word." + +"Perhaps that wouldn't have been so good for Harvey." + +"If I'd only known! If he'd only said about the cussed Line, I'd ha' +understood! I'll never stand on my own jedgments again--never. They're +well-found packets. Phil Airheart he says so." + +"I'm glad to have a recommend from that quarter. Airheart's skipper of +the San Jose now. What I was getting at is to know whether you'd lend +me Dan for a year or two, and we'll see if we can't make a mate of him. +Would you trust him to Airheart?" + +"It's a resk taking a raw boy--" + +"I know a man who did more for me." + +"That's diff'runt. Look at here naow, I ain't recommendin' Dan special +because he's my own flesh an' blood. I know Bank ways ain't clipper +ways, but he hain't much to learn. Steer he can--no boy better, if I +say it--an' the rest's in our blood an' get; but I could wish he warn't +so cussed weak on navigation." + +"Airheart will attend to that. He'll ship as boy for a voyage or two, +and then we can put him in the way of doing better. Suppose you take +him in hand this winter, and I'll send for him early in the spring. I +know the Pacific's a long ways off--" + +"Pshaw! We Troops, livin' an' dead, are all around the earth an' the +seas thereof." + +"But I want you to understand--and I mean this--any time you think +you'd like to see him, tell me, and I'll attend to the transportation. +'Twon't cost you a cent." + +"If you'll walk a piece with me, we'll go to my house an' talk this to +my woman. I've bin so crazy mistook in all my jedgments, it don't seem +to me this was like to be real." + +They went blue-trimmed of nasturtiums over to Troop's +eighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in the +front yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of oversea +plunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with the dim eyes +of those who look long to sea for the return of their beloved. Cheyne +addressed himself to her, and she gave consent wearily. + +"We lose one hundred a year from Gloucester only, Mr. Cheyne," she +said--"one hundred boys an' men; and I've come so's to hate the sea as +if 'twuz alive an' listenin'. God never made it fer humans to anchor +on. These packets o' yours they go straight out, I take it' and +straight home again?" + +"As straight as the winds let 'em, and I give a bonus for record +passages. Tea don't improve by being at sea." + +"When he wuz little he used to play at keeping store, an' I had hopes +he might follow that up. But soon's he could paddle a dory I knew that +were goin' to be denied me." + +"They're square-riggers, Mother; iron-built an' well found. Remember +what Phil's sister reads you when she gits his letters." + +"I've never known as Phil told lies, but he's too venturesome (like +most of 'em that use the sea). If Dan sees fit, Mr. Cheyne, he can +go--fer all o' me." + +"She jest despises the ocean," Disko explained, "an' I--I dunno haow to +act polite, I guess, er I'd thank you better." + +"My father--my own eldest brother--two nephews--an' my second sister's +man," she said, dropping her head on her hand. "Would you care fer any +one that took all those?" + +Cheyne was relieved when Dan turned up and accepted with more delight +than he was able to put into words. Indeed, the offer meant a plain and +sure road to all desirable things; but Dan thought most of commanding +watch on broad decks, and looking into far-away harbours. + +Mrs. Cheyne had spoken privately to the unaccountable Manuel in the +matter of Harvey's rescue. He seemed to have no desire for money. +Pressed hard, he said that he would take five dollars, because he +wanted to buy something for a girl. Otherwise--"How shall I take money +when I make so easy my eats and smokes? You will giva some if I like or +no? Eh, wha-at? Then you shall giva me money, but not that way. You +shall giva all you can think." He introduced her to a snuffy Portuguese +priest with a list of semi-destitute widows as long as his cassock. As +a strict Unitarian, Mrs. Cheyne could not sympathize with the creed, +but she ended by respecting the brown, voluble little man. + +Manuel, faithful son of the Church, appropriated all the blessings +showered on her for her charity. "That letta me out," said he. "I have +now ver' good absolutions for six months"; and he strolled forth to get +a handkerchief for the girl of the hour and to break the hearts of all +the others. + +Salters went West for a season with Penn, and left no address behind. +He had a dread that these millionary people, with wasteful private +cars, might take undue interest in his companion. It was better to +visit inland relatives till the coast was clear. "Never you be adopted +by rich folk, Penn," he said in the cars, "or I'll take 'n' break this +checker-board over your head. Ef you forgit your name agin--which is +Pratt--you remember you belong with Salters Troop, an' set down right +where you are till I come fer you. Don't go taggin' araound after them +whose eyes bung out with fatness, accordin' to Scripcher." + + + +CHAPTER X + +But it was otherwise with the _We're Here's_ silent cook, for he came +up, his kit in a handkerchief, and boarded the "Constance." Pay was no +particular object, and he did not in the least care where he slept. His +business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to follow Harvey for the +rest of his days. They tried argument and, at last, persuasion; but +there is a difference between one Cape Breton and two Alabama negroes, +and the matter was referred to Cheyne by the cook and porter. The +millionaire only laughed. He presumed Harvey might need a body-servant +some day or other, and was sure that one volunteer was worth five +hirelings. Let the man stay, therefore; even though he called himself +MacDonald and swore in Gaelic. The car could go back to Boston, where, +if he were still of the same mind, they would take him West. + +With the "Constance," which in his heart of hearts he loathed, departed +the last remnant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave himself up to +an energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new town in a new land, +and he purposed to "take it in," as of old he had taken in all the +cities from Snohomish to San Diego of that world whence he hailed. They +made money along the crooked street which was half wharf and half +ship's store: as a leading professional he wished to learn how the +noble game was played. Men said that four out of every five fish-balls +served at New England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and +overwhelmed him with figures in proof--statistics of boats, gear, +wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories, +insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners of +the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, and +whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he conferred +with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and compared notes in +his vast head. He coiled himself away on chain-cables in marine +junk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, unslaked Western curiosity, +till all the water-front wanted to know "what in thunder that man was +after, anyhow." He prowled into the Mutual Insurance rooms, and +demanded explanations of the mysterious remarks chalked up on the +blackboard day by day; and that brought down upon him secretaries of +every Fisherman's Widow and Orphan Aid Society within the city limits. +They begged shamelessly, each man anxious to beat the other +institution's record, and Cheyne tugged at his beard and handed them +all over to Mrs. Cheyne. + +She was resting in a boarding-house near Eastern Point--a strange +establishment, managed, apparently, by the boarders, where the +table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered and the population, who +seemed to have known one another intimately for years, rose up at +midnight to make Welsh rarebits if it felt hungry. On the second +morning of her stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond solitaires before +she came down to breakfast. + +"They're most delightful people," she confided to her husband; "so +friendly and simple, too, though they are all Boston, nearly." + +"That isn't simpleness, Mama," he said, looking across the boulders +behind the apple-trees where the hammocks were slung. "It's the other +thing, that what I haven't got." + +"It can't be," said Mrs. Cheyne quietly. "There isn't a woman here owns +a dress that cost a hundred dollars. Why, we--" + +"I know it, dear. We have--of course we have. I guess it's only the +style they wear East. Are you having a good time?" + +"I don't see very much of Harvey; he's always with you; but I ain't +near as nervous as I was." + +"I haven't had such a good time since Willie died. I never rightly +understood that I had a son before this. Harve's got to be a great boy. +'Anything I can fetch you, dear? 'Cushion under your head? Well, we'll +go down to the wharf again and look around." + +Harvey was his father's shadow in those days, and the two strolled +along side by side, Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for laying his +hand on the boy's square shoulder. It was then that Harvey noticed and +admired what had never struck him before--his father's curious power of +getting at the heart of new matters as learned from men in the street. + +"How d'you make 'em tell you everything without opening your head?" +demanded the son, as they came out of a rigger's loft. + +"I've dealt with quite a few men in my time, Harve, and one sizes 'em +up somehow, I guess. I know something about myself, too." Then, after a +pause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: "Men can 'most always tell +when a man has handled things for himself, and then they treat him as +one of themselves." + +"Same as they treat me down at Wouverman's wharf. I'm one of the crowd +now. Disko has told every one I've earned my pay." Harvey spread out +his hands and rubbed the palms together. "They're all soft again," he +said dolefully. + +"Keep 'em that way for the next few years, while you're getting your +education. You can harden 'em up after." + +"Ye-es, I suppose so," was the reply, in no delighted voice. + +"It rests with you, Harve. You can take cover behind your mama, of +course, and put her on to fussing about your nerves and your +high-strungness and all that kind of poppycock." + +"Have I ever done that?" said Harvey, uneasily. + +His father turned where he sat and thrust out a long hand. "You know as +well as I do that I can't make anything of you if you don't act +straight by me. I can handle you alone if you'll stay alone, but I +don't pretend to manage both you and Mama. Life's too short, anyway." + +"Don't make me out much of a fellow, does it?" + +"I guess it was my fault a good deal; but if you want the truth, you +haven't been much of anything up to date. Now, have you?" + +"Umm! Disko thinks . . . Say, what d'you reckon it's cost you to raise +me from the start--first, last and all over?" + +Cheyne smiled. "I've never kept track, but I should estimate, in +dollars and cents, nearer fifty than forty thousand; maybe sixty. The +young generation comes high. It has to have things, and it tires of +'em, and--the old man foots the bill." + +Harvey whistled, but at heart he was rather pleased to think that his +upbringing had cost so much. "And all that's sunk capital, isn't it?" + +"Invested, Harve. Invested, I hope." + +"Making it only thirty thousand, the thirty I've earned is about ten +cents on the hundred. That's a mighty poor catch." Harvey wagged his +head solemnly. + +Cheyne laughed till he nearly fell off the pile into the water. + +"Disko has got a heap more than that out of Dan since he was ten; and +Dan's at school half the year, too." + +"Oh, that's what you're after, is it?" + +"No. I'm not after anything. I'm not stuck on myself any just +now--that's all. . . . I ought to be kicked." + +"I can't do it, old man; or I would, I presume, if I'd been made that +way." + +"Then I'd have remembered it to the last day I lived--and never +forgiven you," said Harvey, his chin on his doubled fists. + +"Exactly. That's about what I'd do. You see?" + +"I see. The fault's with me and no one else. All the same, something's +got to be done about it." + +Cheyne drew a cigar from his vest-pocket, bit off the end, and fell to +smoking. Father and son were very much alike; for the beard hid +Cheyne's mouth, and Harvey had his father's slightly aquiline nose, +close-set black eyes, and narrow, high cheek-bones. With a touch of +brown paint he would have made up very picturesquely as a Red Indian of +the story-books. + +"Now you can go on from here," said Cheyne, slowly, "costing me between +six or eight thousand a year till you're a voter. Well, we'll call you +a man then. You can go right on from that, living on me to the tune of +forty or fifty thousand, besides what your mother will give you, with a +valet and a yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can pretend to raise +trotting-stock and play cards with your own crowd." + +"Like Lorry Tuck?" Harvey put in. + +"Yep; or the two De Vitre boys or old man McQuade's son. California's +full of 'em, and here's an Eastern sample while we're talking." + +A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany deck-house, nickel-plated +binnacles, and pink-and-white-striped awnings puffed up the harbour, +flying the burgee of some New York club. Two young men in what they +conceived to be sea costumes were playing cards by the saloon skylight; +and a couple of women with red and blue parasols looked on and laughed +noisily. + +"Shouldn't care to be caught out in her in any sort of a breeze. No +beam," said Harvey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up her +mooring-buoy. + +"They're having what stands them for a good time. I can give you that, +and twice as much as that, Harve. How'd you like it?" + +"Caesar! That's no way to get a dinghy overside," said Harvey, still +intent on the yacht. "If I couldn't slip a tackle better than that I'd +stay ashore. . . . What if I don't?" + +"Stay ashore--or what?" + +"Yacht and ranch and live on 'the old man,' and--get behind Mama where +there's trouble," said Harvey, with a twinkle in his eye. + +"Why, in that case, you come right in with me, my son." + +"Ten dollars a month?" Another twinkle. + +"Not a cent more until you're worth it, and you won't begin to touch +that for a few years." + +"I'd sooner begin sweeping out the office--isn't that how the big bugs +start?--and touch something now than--" + +"I know it; we all feel that way. But I guess we can hire any sweeping +we need. I made the same mistake myself of starting in too soon." + +"Thirty million dollars' worth o' mistake, wasn't it? I'd risk it for +that." + +"I lost some; and I gained some. I'll tell you." + +Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he looked over the still water, +and spoke away from Harvey, who presently began to be aware that his +father was telling the story of his life. He talked in a low, even +voice, without gesture and without expression; and it was a history for +which a dozen leading journals would cheerfully have paid many +dollars--the story of forty years that was at the same time the story +of the New West, whose story is yet to be written. + +It began with a kinless boy turned loose in Texas, and went on +fantastically through a hundred changes and chops of life, the scenes +shifting from State after Western State, from cities that sprang up in +a month and--in a season utterly withered away, to wild ventures in +wilder camps that are now laborious, paved municipalities. It covered +the building of three railroads and the deliberate wreck of a fourth. +It told of steamers, townships, forests, and mines, and the men of +every nation under heaven, manning, creating, hewing, and digging +these. It touched on chances of gigantic wealth flung before eyes that +could not see, or missed by the merest accident of time and travel; and +through the mad shift of things, sometimes on horseback, more often +afoot, now rich, now poor, in and out, and back and forth, deck-hand, +train-hand, contractor, boarding-house keeper, journalist, engineer, +drummer, real-estate agent, politician, dead-beat, rum-seller, +mine-owner, speculator, cattle-man, or tramp, moved Harvey Cheyne, +alert and quiet, seeking his own ends, and, so he said, the glory and +advancement of his country. + +He told of the faith that never deserted him even when he hung on the +ragged edge of despair--the faith that comes of knowing men and things. +He enlarged, as though he were talking to himself, on his very great +courage and resource at all times. The thing was so evident in the +man's mind that he never even changed his tone. He described how he had +bested his enemies, or forgiven them, exactly as they had bested or +forgiven him in those careless days; how he had entreated, cajoled, and +bullied towns, companies, and syndicates, all for their enduring good; +crawled round, through, or under mountains and ravines, dragging a +string and hoop-iron railroad after him, and in the end, how he had sat +still while promiscuous communities tore the last fragments of his +character to shreds. + +The tale held Harvey almost breathless, his head a little cocked to one +side, his eyes fixed on his father's face, as the twilight deepened and +the red cigar-end lit up the furrowed cheeks and heavy eyebrows. It +seemed to him like watching a locomotive storming across country in the +dark--a mile between each glare of the open fire-door: but this +locomotive could talk, and the words shook and stirred the boy to the +core of his soul. At last Cheyne pitched away the cigar-butt, and the +two sat in the dark over the lapping water. + +"I've never told that to any one before," said the father. + +Harvey gasped. "It's just the greatest thing that ever was!" said he. + +"That's what I got. Now I'm coming to what I didn't get. It won't sound +much of anything to you, but I don't wish you to be as old as I am +before you find out. I can handle men, of course, and I'm no fool along +my own lines, but--but--I can't compete with the man who has been +taught! I've picked up as I went along, and I guess it sticks out all +over me." + +"I've never seen it," said the son, indignantly. + +"You will, though, Harve. You will--just as soon as you're through +college. Don't I know it? Don't I know the look on men's faces when +they think me a--a 'mucker,' as they call it out here? I can break them +to little pieces--yes--but I can't get back at 'em to hurt 'em where +they live. I don't say they're 'way 'way up, but I feel I'm 'way, 'way, +'way off, somehow. Now you've got your chance. You've got to soak up +all the learning that's around, and you'll live with a crowd that are +doing the same thing. They'll be doing it for a few thousand dollars a +year at most; but remember you'll be doing it for millions. You'll +learn law enough to look after your own property when I'm out o' the +light, and you'll have to be solid with the best men in the market +(they are useful later); and above all, you'll have to stow away the +plain, common, sit-down-with-your chin-on your-elbows book-learning. +Nothing pays like that, Harve, and it's bound to pay more and more each +year in our country--in business and in politics. You'll see." + +"There's no sugar in my end of the deal," said Harvey. "Four years at +college! 'Wish I'd chosen the valet and the yacht!" + +"Never mind, my son," Cheyne insisted. "You're investing your capital +where it'll bring in the best returns; and I guess you won't find our +property shrunk any when you're ready to take hold. Think it over, and +let me know in the morning. Hurry! We'll be late for supper!" + +As this was a business talk, there was no need for Harvey to tell his +mother about it; and Cheyne naturally took the same point of view. But +Mrs. Cheyne saw and feared, and was a little jealous. Her boy, who rode +rough-shod over her, was gone, and in his stead reigned a keen-faced +youth, abnormally silent, who addressed most of his conversation to his +father. She understood it was business, and therefore a matter beyond +her premises. If she had any doubts, they were resolved when Cheyne +went to Boston and brought back a new diamond marquise ring. + +"What have you two been doing now?" she said, with a weak little smile, +as she turned it in the light. + +"Talking--just talking, Mama; there's nothing mean about Harvey." + +There was not. The boy had made a treaty on his own account. Railroads, +he explained gravely, interested him as little as lumber, real estate, +or mining. What his soul yearned after was control of his father's +newly purchased sailing-ship. If that could be promised him within what +he conceived to be a reasonable time, he, for his part, guaranteed +diligence and sobriety at college for four or five years. In vacation +he was to be allowed full access to all details connected with the +line--he had not asked more than two thousand questions about it,--from +his father's most private papers in the safe to the tug in San +Francisco harbour. + +"It's a deal," said Cheyne at the last. "You'll alter your mind twenty +times before you leave college, o' course; but if you take hold of it +in proper shape, and if you don't tie it up before you're twenty-three, +I'll make the thing over to you. How's that, Harve?" + +"Nope; never pays to split up a going concern. There's too much +competition in the world anyway, and Disko says 'blood-kin hev to stick +together.' His crowd never go back on him. That's one reason, he says, +why they make such big fares. Say, the _We're Here_ goes off to the +Georges on Monday. They don't stay long ashore, do they?" + +"Well, we ought to be going, too, I guess. I've left my business hung +up at loose ends between two oceans, and it's time to connect again. I +just hate to do it, though; haven't had a holiday like this for twenty +years." + +"We can't go without seeing Disko off," said Harvey; "and Monday's +Memorial Day. Let's stay over that, anyway." + +"What is this memorial business? They were talking about it at the +boarding-house," said Cheyne weakly. He, too, was not anxious to spoil +the golden days. + +"Well, as far as I can make out, this business is a sort of +song-and-dance act, whacked up for the summer boarders. Disko don't +think much of it, he says, because they take up a collection for the +widows and orphans. Disko's independent. Haven't you noticed that?" + +"Well--yes. A little. In spots. Is it a town show, then?" + +"The summer convention is. They read out the names of the fellows +drowned or gone astray since last time, and they make speeches, and +recite, and all. Then, Disko says, the secretaries of the Aid Societies +go into the back yard and fight over the catch. The real show, he says, +is in the spring. The ministers all take a hand then, and there aren't +any summer boarders around." + +"I see," said Cheyne, with the brilliant and perfect comprehension of +one born into and bred up to city pride. "We'll stay over for Memorial +Day, and get off in the afternoon." + +"Guess I'll go down to Disko's and make him bring his crowd up before +they sail. I'll have to stand with them, of course." + +"Oh, that's it, is it," said Cheyne. "I'm only a poor summer boarder, +and you're--" + +"A Banker--full-blooded Banker," Harvey called back as he boarded a +trolley, and Cheyne went on with his blissful dreams for the future. + +Disko had no use for public functions where appeals were made for +charity, but Harvey pleaded that the glory of the day would be lost, so +far as he was concerned, if the _We're Heres_ absented themselves. Then +Disko made conditions. He had heard--it was astonishing how all the +world knew all the world's business along the water-front--he had heard +that a "Philadelphia actress-woman" was going to take part in the +exercises; and he mistrusted that she would deliver "Skipper Ireson's +Ride." Personally, he had as little use for actresses as for summer +boarders; but justice was justice, and though he himself (here Dan +giggled) had once slipped up on a matter of judgment, this thing must +not be. So Harvey came back to East Gloucester, and spent half a day +explaining to an amused actress with a royal reputation on two +seaboards the inwardness of the mistake she contemplated; and she +admitted that it was justice, even as Disko had said. + +Cheyne knew by old experience what would happen; but anything of the +nature of a public palaver was meat and drink to the man's soul. He saw +the trolleys hurrying west, in the hot, hazy morning, full of women in +light summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted men fresh from +Boston desks; the stack of bicycles outside the post office; the +come-and-go of busy officials, greeting one another; the slow flick and +swash of bunting in the heavy air; and the important man with a hose +sluicing the brick sidewalk. + +"Mother," he said suddenly, "don't you remember--after Seattle was +burned out--and they got her going again?" + +Mrs. Cheyne nodded, and looked critically down the crooked street. Like +her husband, she understood these gatherings, all the West over, and +compared them one against another. The fishermen began to mingle with +the crowd about the town-hall doors--blue-jowled Portuguese, their +women bare-headed or shawled for the most part; clear-eyed Nova +Scotians, and men of the Maritime Provinces; French, Italians, Swedes, +and Danes, with outside crews of coasting schooners; and everywhere +women in black, who saluted one another with gloomy pride, for this was +their day of great days. And there were ministers of many +creeds,--pastors of great, gilt-edged congregations, at the seaside for +a rest, with shepherds of the regular work,--from the priests of the +Church on the Hill to bush-bearded ex-sailor Lutherans, hail-fellow +with the men of a score of boats. There were owners of lines of +schooners, large contributors to the societies, and small men, their +few craft pawned to the mastheads, with bankers and marine-insurance +agents, captains of tugs and water-boats, riggers, fitters, lumpers, +salters, boat-builders, and coopers, and all the mixed population of +the water-front. + +They drifted along the line of seats made gay with the dresses of the +summer boarders, and one of the town officials patrolled and perspired +till he shone all over with pure civic pride. Cheyne had met him for +five minutes a few days before, and between the two there was entire +understanding. + +"Well, Mr. Cheyne, and what d'you think of our city?--Yes, madam, you +can sit anywhere you please.--You have this kind of thing out West, I +presume?" + +"Yes, but we aren't as old as you." + +"That's so, of course. You ought to have been at the exercises when we +celebrated our two hundred and fiftieth birthday. I tell you, Mr. +Cheyne, the old city did herself credit." + +"So I heard. It pays, too. What's the matter with the town that it +don't have a first-class hotel, though?" + +"--Right over there to the left, Pedro. Heaps o' room for you and your +crowd.--Why, that's what I tell 'em all the time, Mr. Cheyne. There's +big money in it, but I presume that don't affect you any. What we want +is--" + +A heavy hand fell on his broadcloth shoulder, and the flushed skipper +of a Portland coal-and-ice coaster spun him half round. "What in +thunder do you fellows mean by clappin' the law on the town when all +decent men are at sea this way? Heh? Town's dry as a bone, an' smells a +sight worse sence I quit. 'Might ha' left us one saloon for soft +drinks, anyway." + +"Don't seem to have hindered your nourishment this morning, Carsen. +I'll go into the politics of it later. Sit down by the door and think +over your arguments till I come back." + +"What good is arguments to me? In Miquelon champagne's eighteen dollars +a case and--" The skipper lurched into his seat as an organ-prelude +silenced him. + +"Our new organ," said the official proudly to Cheyne. "Cost us four +thousand dollars, too. We'll have to get back to high-license next year +to pay for it. I wasn't going to let the ministers have all the +religion at their convention. Those are some of our orphans standing up +to sing. My wife taught 'em. See you again later, Mr. Cheyne. I'm +wanted on the platform." + +High, clear, and true, children's voices bore down the last noise of +those settling into their places. + +"O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify +him for ever!" + +The women throughout the hall leaned forward to look as the reiterated +cadences filled the air. Mrs. Cheyne, with some others, began to +breathe short; she had hardly imagined there were so many widows in the +world; and instinctively searched for Harvey. He had found the _We're +Heres_ at the back of the audience, and was standing, as by right, +between Dan and Disko. Uncle Salters, returned the night before with +Penn, from Pamlico Sound, received him suspiciously. + +"Hain't your folk gone yet?" he grunted. "What are you doin' here, +young feller?" + +"O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him +for ever!" + +"Hain't he good right?" said Dan. "He's bin there, same as the rest of +us." + +"Not in them clothes," Salters snarled. + +"Shut your head, Salters," said Disko. "Your bile's gone back on you. +Stay right where ye are, Harve." + +Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of the +municipality, bidding the world welcome to Gloucester, and incidentally +pointing out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of the world. Then he +turned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke of the price that must +be paid for the yearly harvest. They would hear later the names of +their lost dead one hundred and seventeen of them. (The widows stared a +little, and looked at one another here.) Gloucester could not boast any +overwhelming mills or factories. Her sons worked for such wage as the +sea gave; and they all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were +cow-pastures. The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to help +the widows and the orphans, and after a few general remarks he took +this opportunity of thanking, in the name of the city, those who had so +public-spiritedly consented to participate in the exercises of the +occasion. + +"I jest despise the beggin' pieces in it," growled Disko. "It don't +give folk a fair notion of us." + +"Ef folk won't be fore-handed an' put by when they've the chance," +returned Salters, "it stands in the nature o' things they hev to be +'shamed. You take warnin' by that, young feller. Riches endureth but +for a season, ef you scatter them araound on lugsuries--" + +"But to lose everything, everything," said Penn. "What can you do then? +Once I"--the watery blue eyes stared up and down as if looking for +something to steady them--"once I read--in a book, I think--of a boat +where every one was run down--except some one--and he said to me--" + +"Shucks!" said Salters, cutting in. "You read a little less an' take +more int'rust in your vittles, and you'll come nearer earnin' your +keep, Penn." + +Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt a creepy, crawly, tingling +thrill that began in the back of his neck and ended at his boots. He +was cold, too, though it was a stifling day. + +"That the actress from Philadelphia?" said Disko Troop, scowling at the +platform. "You've fixed it about old man Ireson, hain't ye, Harve? Ye +know why naow." + +It was not "Ireson's Ride" that the woman delivered, but some sort of +poem about a fishing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlers +beating in against storm by night, while the women made a guiding fire +at the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands on. + + "They took the grandma's blanket, + Who shivered and bade them go; + They took the baby's cradle, + Who could not say them no." + +"Whew!" said Dan, peering over Long Jack's shoulder. "That's great! +Must ha' bin expensive, though." + +"Ground-hog case," said the Galway man. "Badly lighted port, Danny." + + * * * * * * + "And knew not all the while + If they were lighting a bonfire + Or only a funeral pile." + +The wonderful voice took hold of people by their heartstrings; and when +she told how the drenched crews were flung ashore, living and dead, and +they carried the bodies to the glare of the fires, asking: "Child, is +this your father?" or "Wife, is this your man?" you could hear hard +breathing all over the benches. + + + "And when the boats of Brixham + Go out to face the gales, + Think of the love that travels + Like light upon their sails!" + +There was very little applause when she finished. The women were +looking for their handkerchiefs, and many of the men stared at the +ceiling with shiny eyes. + +"H'm," said Salters; "that 'u'd cost ye a dollar to hear at any +theatre--maybe two. Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. 'Seems +downright waste to me. . . . Naow, how in Jerusalem did Cap. Bart +Edwardes strike adrift here?" + +"No keepin' him under," said an Eastport man behind. "He's a poet, an' +he's baound to say his piece. 'Comes from daown aour way, too." + +He did not say that Captain B. Edwardes had striven for five +consecutive years to be allowed to recite a piece of his own +composition on Gloucester Memorial Day. An amused and exhausted +committee had at last given him his desire. The simplicity and utter +happiness of the old man, as he stood up in his very best Sunday +clothes, won the audience ere he opened his mouth. They sat unmurmuring +through seven-and-thirty hatchet-made verses describing at fullest +length the loss of the schooner _Joan Hasken_ off the Georges in the gale +of 1867, and when he came to an end they shouted with one kindly throat. + +A far-sighted Boston reporter slid away for a full copy of the epic and +an interview with the author; so that earth had nothing more to offer +Captain Bart Edwardes, ex-whaler, shipwright, master-fisherman, and +poet, in the seventy-third year of his age. + +"Naow, I call that sensible," said the Eastport man. "I've bin over +that graound with his writin', jest as he read it, in my two hands, and +I can testify that he's got it all in." + +"If Dan here couldn't do better'n that with one hand before breakfast, +he ought to be switched," said Salters, upholding the honor of +Massachusetts on general principles. "Not but what I'm free to own he's +considerable litt'ery--fer Maine. Still--" + +"Guess Uncle Salters's goin' to die this trip. Fust compliment he's +ever paid me," Dan sniggered. "What's wrong with you, Harve? You act +all quiet and you look greenish. Feelin' sick?" + +"Don't know what's the matter with me," Harvey implied. "Seems if my +insides were too big for my outsides. I'm all crowded up and shivery." + +"Dispepsy? Pshaw--too bad. We'll wait for the readin', an' then we'll +quit, an' catch the tide." + +The widows--they were nearly all of that season's making--braced +themselves rigidly like people going to be shot in cold blood, for they +knew what was coming. The summer-boarder girls in pink and blue +shirt-waists stopped tittering over Captain Edwardes's wonderful poem, +and looked back to see why all was silent. The fishermen pressed +forward as that town official who had talked to Cheyne bobbed up on the +platform and began to read the year's list of losses, dividing them +into months. Last September's casualties were mostly single men and +strangers, but his voice rang very loud in the stillness of the hall. + +"September 9th. Schooner _Florrie Anderson_ lost, with all aboard, off +the Georges. + +"Reuben Pitman, master, 50, single, Main Street, City. + +"Emil Olsen, 19, single, 329 Hammond Street, City. Denmark. + +"Oscar Standberg, single, 25. Sweden. + +"Carl Stanberg, single, 28, Main Street. City. + +"Pedro, supposed Madeira, single, Keene's boardinghouse. City. + +"Joseph Welsh, alias Joseph Wright, 30, St. John's, Newfoundland." + +"No--Augusty, Maine," a voice cried from the body of the hall. + +"He shipped from St. John's," said the reader, looking to see. + +"I know it. He belongs in Augusty. My nevvy." + +The reader made a pencilled correction on the margin of the list, and +resumed. + +"Same schooner, Charlie Ritchie, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 33, single. + +"Albert May, 267 Rogers Street, City, 27, single. + +"September 27th.--Orvin Dollard, 30, married, drowned in dory off +Eastern Point." + +That shot went home, for one of the widows flinched where she sat, +clasping and unclasping her hands. Mrs. Cheyne, who had been listening +with wide-opened eyes, threw up her head and choked. Dan's mother, a +few seats to the right, saw and heard and quickly moved to her side. +The reading went on. By the time they reached the January and February +wrecks the shots were falling thick and fast, and the widows drew +breath between their teeth. + +"February 14th.--Schooner _Harry Randolph_ dismasted on the way home from +Newfoundland; Asa Musie, married, 32, Main Street, City, lost overboard. + +"February 23d.--Schooner _Gilbert Hope_; went astray in dory, Robert +Beavon, 29, married, native of Pubnico, Nova Scotia." + +But his wife was in the hall. They heard a low cry, as though a little +animal had been hit. It was stifled at once, and a girl staggered out +of the hall. She had been hoping against hope for months, because some +who have gone adrift in dories have been miraculously picked up by +deep-sea sailing-ships. Now she had her certainty, and Harvey could see +the policeman on the sidewalk hailing a hack for her. "It's fifty cents +to the depot"--the driver began, but the policeman held up his +hand--"but I'm goin' there anyway. Jump right in. Look at here, Al; you +don't pull me next time my lamps ain't lit. See?" + +The side-door closed on the patch of bright sunshine, and Harvey's eyes +turned again to the reader and his endless list. + +"April 19th.--Schooner _Mamie Douglas_ lost on the Banks with all hands. + +"Edward Canton, 43, master, married, City. + +"D. Hawkins, alias Williams, 34, married, Shelbourne, Nova Scotia. + +"G. W. Clay, coloured, 28, married, City." + +And so on, and so on. Great lumps were rising in Harvey's throat, and +his stomach reminded him of the day when he fell from the liner. + +"May 10th.--Schooner _We're Here_ [the blood tingled all over him] Otto +Svendson, 20, single, City, lost overboard." + +Once more a low, tearing cry from somewhere at the back of the hall. + +"She shouldn't ha' come. She shouldn't ha' come," said Long Jack, with +a cluck of pity. + +"Don't scrowge, Harve," grunted Dan. Harvey heard that much, but the +rest was all darkness spotted with fiery wheels. Disko leaned forward +and spoke to his wife, where she sat with one arm round Mrs. Cheyne, +and the other holding down the snatching, catching, ringed hands. + +"Lean your head daown--right daown!" he whispered. "It'll go off in a +minute." + +"I ca-an't! I do-don't! Oh, let me--" Mrs. Cheyne did not at all know +what she said. + +"You must," Mrs. Troop repeated. "Your boy's jest fainted dead away. +They do that some when they're gettin' their growth. 'Wish to tend to +him? We can git aout this side. Quite quiet. You come right along with +me. Psha', my dear, we're both women, I guess. We must tend to aour +men-folk. Come!" + +The _We're Heres_ promptly went through the crowd as a body-guard, and +it was a very white and shaken Harvey that they propped up on a bench +in an anteroom. + +"Favours his ma," was Mrs. Troop's only comment, as the mother bent +over her boy. + +"How d'you suppose he could ever stand it?" she cried indignantly to +Cheyne, who had said nothing at all. "It was horrible--horrible! We +shouldn't have come. It's wrong and wicked! It--it isn't right! +Why--why couldn't they put these things in the papers, where they +belong? Are you better, darling?" + +That made Harvey very properly ashamed. "Oh, I'm all right, I guess," +he said, struggling to his feet, with a broken giggle. "Must ha' been +something I ate for breakfast." + +"Coffee, perhaps," said Cheyne, whose face was all in hard lines, as +though it had been cut out of bronze. "We won't go back again." + +"Guess 'twould be 'baout's well to git daown to the wharf," said Disko. +"It's close in along with them Dagoes, an' the fresh air will fresh +Mrs. Cheyne up." + +Harvey announced that he never felt better in his life; but it was not +till he saw the _We're Here_, fresh from the lumper's hands, at +Wouverman's wharf, that he lost his all-overish feelings in a queer +mixture of pride and sorrowfulness. Other people--summer boarders and +such-like--played about in cat-boats or looked at the sea from +pier-heads; but he understood things from the inside--more things than +he could begin to think about. None the less, he could have sat down +and howled because the little schooner was going off. Mrs. Cheyne +simply cried and cried every step of the way and said most +extraordinary things to Mrs. Troop, who "babied" her till Dan, who had +not been "babied" since he was six, whistled aloud. + +And so the old crowd--Harvey felt like the most ancient of mariners +dropped into the old schooner among the battered dories, while Harvey +slipped the stern-fast from the pier-head, and they slid her along the +wharf-side with their hands. Every one wanted to say so much that no +one said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan take care of Uncle +Salters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and Long Jack entreated +Harvey to remember his lessons in seamanship; but the jokes fell flat +in the presence of the two women, and it is hard to be funny with green +harbour-water widening between good friends. + +"Up jib and fores'l!" shouted Disko, getting to the wheel, as the wind +took her. "See you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near thinkin' a heap +o' you an' your folks." + +Then she glided beyond ear-shot, and they sat down to watch her up the +harbour, And still Mrs. Cheyne wept. + +"Pshaw, my dear," said Mrs. Troop: "we're both women, I guess. Like's +not it'll ease your heart to hev your cry aout. God He knows it never +done me a mite o' good, but then He knows I've had something to cry +fer!" + + +Now it was a few years later, and upon the other edge of America, that +a young man came through the clammy sea fog up a windy street which is +flanked with most expensive houses built of wood to imitate stone. To +him, as he was standing by a hammered iron gate, entered on +horseback--and the horse would have been cheap at a thousand +dollars--another young man. And this is what they said: + +"Hello, Dan!" + +"Hello, Harve!" + +"What's the best with you?" + +"Well, I'm so's to be that kind o' animal called second mate this trip. +Ain't you most through with that triple invoiced college of yours?" + +"Getting that way. I tell you, the Leland Stanford Junior, isn't a +circumstance to the old _We're Here_; but I'm coming into the business +for keeps next fall." + +"Meanin' aour packets?" + +"Nothing else. You just wait till I get my knife into you, Dan. I'm +going to make the old line lie down and cry when I take hold." + +"I'll resk it," said Dan, with a brotherly grin, as Harvey dismounted +and asked whether he were coming in. + +"That's what I took the cable fer; but, say, is the doctor anywheres +araound? I'll draown that crazy nigger some day, his one cussed joke +an' all." + +There was a low, triumphant chuckle, as the ex-cook of the _We're Here_ +came out of the fog to take the horse's bridle. He allowed no one but +himself to attend to any of Harvey's wants. + +"Thick as the Banks, ain't it, doctor?" said Dan, propitiatingly. + +But the coal-black Celt with the second-sight did not see fit to reply +till he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth time +croaked the old, old prophecy in his ear. + +"Master--man. Man--master," said he. "You remember, Dan Troop, what I +said? On the _We're Here_?" + +"Well, I won't go so far as to deny that it do look like it as things +stand at present," said Dan. "She was a noble packet, and one way an' +another I owe her a heap--her and Dad." + +"Me too," quoth Harvey Cheyne. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's "Captains Courageous", by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" *** + +***** This file should be named 2186.txt or 2186.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/8/2186/ + +Produced by David Reed and Bill Stoddard. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Please cc: hart@pobox.com] + + + + +"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" + +A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS + +by Rudyard Kipling + + + + +TO +JAMES CONLAND, M.D., +Brattleboro, Vermont + +I ploughed the land with horses, +But my heart was ill at ease, +For the old sea-faring men +Came to me now and then, +With their sagas of the seas. +Longfellow. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the +North Atlantic fog, as the big liner rolled and lifted, whistling to +warn the fishing-fleet. + +"That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard," said a man in a +frieze overcoat, shutting the door with a bang. "He isn't wanted +here. He's too fresh." + +A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and grunted +between bites: "I know der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell +you you should imbort ropes' ends free under your dariff." + +"Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied +than anything," a man from New York drawled, as he lay at full +length along the cushions under the wet skylight. "They've dragged +him around from hotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was +talking to his mother this morning. She's a lovely lady, but she +don't pretend to manage him. He's going to Europe to finish his +education." + +"Education isn't begun yet." This was a Philadelphian, curled up in +a corner. "That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money, he +told me. He isn't sixteen either." + +"Railroads, his father, aind't it?" said the German. + +"Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at +San Diego, the old man has; another at Los Angeles; owns half a +dozen railroads, half the lumber on the Pacific slope, and lets his +wife spend the money," the Philadelphian went on lazily. "The +West don't suit her, she says. She just tracks around with the boy +and her nerves, trying to find out what'll amuse him, I guess. +Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York, and +round again. He isn't much more than a second-hand hotel clerk +now. When he's finished in Europe he'll be a holy terror." + +"What's the matter with the old man attending to him personally?" +said a voice from the frieze ulster. + +"Old man's piling up the rocks. 'Don't want to be disturbed, I guess. +He'll find out his error a few years from now. 'Pity, because there's +a heap of good in the boy if you could get at it." + +"Mit a rope's end; mit a rope's end!" growled the German. + +Once more the door banged, and a slight, slim-built boy perhaps +fifteen years old, a hall-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner +of his mouth, leaned in over the high footway. His pasty yellow +complexion did not show well on a person of his years, and his +look was a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very cheap +smart-ness. He was dressed in a cherry--coloured blazer, +knickerbockers, red stockings, and bicycle shoes, with a red +flannel cap at the back of the head. After whistling between his +teeth, as he eyed the company, he said in a loud, high voice: "Say, +it's thick outside. You can hear the fish-boats squawking all around +us. Say, wouldn't it be great if we ran down one?" + +"Shut the door, Harvey," said the New Yorker. "Shut the door and +stay outside. You're not wanted here." + +"Who'll stop me?" he answered, deliberately. "Did you pay for my +passage, Mister Martin? 'Guess I've as good right here as the next +man." + +He picked up some dice from a checkerboard and began throwing, +right hand against left. + +"Say, gen'elmen, this is deader'n mud. Can't we make a game of +poker between us?" + +There was no answer, and he puffed his cigarette, swung his legs, +and drummed on the table with rather dirty fingers. Then he pulled +out a roll of bills as if to count them. + +"How's your mama this afternoon?" a man said. "I didn't see her at +lunch." + +"In her state-room, I guess. She's 'most always sick on the ocean. +I'm going to give the stewardess fifteen dollars for looking after +her. I don't go down more 'n I can avoid. It makes me feel +mysterious to pass that butler's-pantry place. Say, this is the first +time I've been on the ocean." + +"Oh, don't apologize, Harvey." + +"Who's apologizing? This is the first time I've crossed the ocean, +gen'elmen, and, except the first day, I haven't been sick one little +bit. No, sir!" He brought down his fist with a triumphant bang, +wetted his finger, and went on counting the bills. + +"Oh, you're a high-grade machine, with the writing in plain sight," +the Philadelphian yawned. "You'll blossom into a credit to your +country if you don't take care." + +"I know it. I'm an American-first, last, and all the time. I'll show +'em that when I strike Europe. Piff! My cig's out. I can't smoke the +truck the steward sells. Any gen'elman got a real Turkish cig on +him?" + +The chief engineer entered for a moment, red, smiling, and wet. +"Say, Mac," cried Harvey cheerfully, "how are we hitting it?" + +"Vara much in the ordinary way," was the grave reply. "The young +are as polite as ever to their elders, an' their elders are e'en tryin' to +appreciate it." + +A low chuckle came from a corner. The German opened his +cigar-case and handed a shiny black cigar to Harvey. + +"Dot is der broper apparatus to smoke, my young friendt," he said. +"You vill dry it? Yes? Den you vill be efer so happy." + +Harvey lit the unlovely thing with a flourish: he felt that he was +getting on in grownup society. + +"It would take more 'n this to keel me over," he said, ignorant that +he was lighting that terrible article, a Wheeling "stogie'." + +"Dot we shall bresently see," said the German. "Where are we +now, Mr. Mactonal'?" + +"Just there or thereabouts, Mr. Schaefer," said the engineer. "We'll +be on the Grand Bank to-night; but in a general way o' speaking', +we're all among the fishing-fleet now. We've shaved three dories +an' near scalped the boom off a Frenchman since noon, an' that's +close sailing', ye may say." + +"You like my cigar, eh?" the German asked, for Harvey's eyes were +full of tears. + +"Fine, full flavor," he answered through shut teeth. + +"Guess we've slowed down a little, haven't we? I'll skip out and see +what the log says." + +"I might if I has you," said the German. + +Harvey staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail. He was +very unhappy; but he saw the deck-steward lashing chairs together, +and, since he had boasted before the man that he was never +seasick, his pride made him go aft to the second-saloon deck at the +stern, which was finished in a turtle-back. The deck was deserted, +and he crawled to the extreme end of it, near the flag-pole. There +he doubled up in limp agony, for the Wheeling "stag" joined with +the surge and jar of the screw to sieve out his soul. His head +swelled; sparks of fire danced before his eyes; his body seemed to +lose weight, while his heels wavered in the breeze. He was fainting +from seasickness, and a roll of the ship tilted him over the rail on +to the smooth lip of the turtle-back. Then a low, gray mother-wave +swung out of the fog, tucked Harvey under one arm, so to speak, +and pulled him off and away to leeward; the great green closed +over him, and he went quietly to sleep. + +He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used to +blow at a summer-school he had once attended in the Adirondacks. +Slowly he remembered that he was Harvey Cheyne, drowned and +dead in mid-ocean, but was too weak to fit things together. A new +smell filled his nostrils; wet and clammy chills ran down his back, +and he was helplessly full of salt water. When he opened his eyes, +he perceived that he was still on the top of the sea, for it was +running round him in silver-coloured hills, and he was lying on a +pile of half-dead fish, looking at a broad human back clothed in a +blue jersey. + +"It's no good," thought the boy. "I'm dead, sure enough, and this +thing is in charge." + +He groaned, and the figure turned its head, showing a pair of little +gold rings half hidden in curly black hair. + +"Aha! You feel some pretty well now?" it said. "Lie still so: we +trim better." + +With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a +foamless sea that lifted her twenty full feet, only to slide her into a +glassy pit beyond. But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt +blue-jersey's talk. "Fine good job, I say, that I catch you. Eh, +wha-at? Better good job, I say, your boat not catch me. How you +come to fall out?" + +"I was sick," said Harvey; "sick, and couldn't help it." + +"Just in time I blow my horn, and your boat she yaw a little. Then I +see you come all down. Eh, wha-at? I think you are cut into baits +by the screw, but you dreeft-dreeft to me, and I make a big fish of +you. So you shall not die this time." + +"Where am I?" said Harvey, who could not see that life was +particularly safe where he lay. + +"You are with me in the dory-Manuel my name, and I come from +schooner We're Here of Gloucester. I live to Gloucester. By-and-by +we get supper. Eh, wha-at?" + +He seemed to have two pairs of bands and a head of cast-iron, for, +not content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs +stand up to it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, +and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long +this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay +back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he +heard a gun and a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the +dory, but quite as lively, loomed alongside. Several voices talked +at once; he was dropped into a dark, heaving hole, where men in +oilskins gave him a hot drink and took off his clothes, and he fell +asleep. + +When he waked he listened for the first breakfast-bell on the +steamer, wondering why his state-room had grown so small. +Turning, he looked into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp +hung against a huge square beam. A three-cornered table within +arm's reach ran from the angle of the bows to the foremast. At the +after end, behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his +own age, with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling gray eyes. He +was dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots. Several pairs of +the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, and some worn-out woollen +socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow oilskins swayed to and +fro beside the bunks. The place was packed as full of smells as a +bale is of cotton. The oilskins had a peculiarly thick flavor of their +own which made a sort of background to the smells of fried fish, +burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; but these, again, +were all hooped together by one encircling smell of ship and salt +water. Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets on his +bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps +and nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not that of a +steamer. She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather wriggling +herself about in a silly, aimless way, like a colt at the end of a +halter. Water-noises ran by close to his ear, and beams creaked and +whined about him. All these things made him grunt despairingly +and think of his mother. + +"Feelin' better?" said the boy, with a grin. ".Hev some coffee?" He +brought a tin cup full and sweetened it with molasses. + +"Isn't there milk?" said Harvey, looking round the dark double tier +of bunks as if he expected to find a cow there. + +"Well, no," said the boy. "Ner there ain't likely to be till 'baout +mid-September. 'Tain't bad coffee. I made it.', + +Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of +pieces of crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously. + +"I've dried your clothes. Guess they've shrunk some," said the boy. +"They ain't our style much-none of 'em. Twist round an' see if +you're hurt any." + +Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report +any injuries. + +"That's good," the boy said heartily. "Fix yerself an' go on deck. +Dad wants to see you. I'm his son,-Dan, they call me,-an' I'm cook's +helper an' everything else aboard that's too dirty for the men. There +ain't no boy here 'cep' me sence Otto went overboard-an' he was +only a Dutchy, an' twenty year old at that. How d'you come to fall +off in a dead flat ca'am?" + +"'Twasn't a calm," said Harvey, sulkily. "It was a gale, and I was +seasick. Guess I must have rolled over the rail." + +"There was a little common swell yes'day an' last night," said the +boy. "But ef thet's your notion of a gale----" He whistled. "You'll +know more 'fore you're through. Hurry! Dad's waitin'." + +Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all +his life received a direct order-never, at least, without long, and +sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of. obedience +and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of +breaking his spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself +walked on the edge of nervous prostration. He could not see why +he should be expected to hurry for any man's pleasure, and said so. +"Your dad can come down here. if he's so anxious to talk to me. I +want him to take me to New York right away. It'll pay him." + +Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on +him. "Say, Dad!" he shouted up the foc'sle hatch, "he says you kin +slip down an' see him ef you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?" + +The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard +from a human chest: "Quit foolin', Dan, and send him to me." + +Dan sniggered, and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes. There +was something in the tones on the deck that made the boy +dissemble his extreme rage and console himself with the thought +of gradually unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth +on the voyage home. This rescue would certainly make him a hero +among his friends for life. He hoisted himself on deck up a +perpendicular ladder, and stumbled aft, over a score of +obstructions, to where a small, thick-set, clean-shaven man with +gray eyebrows sat on a step that led up to the quarter-deck. The +swell had passed in the night, leaving a long, oily sea, dotted round +the horizon with the sails of a dozen fishing-boats. Between them +lay little black specks, showing where the dories were out fishing. +The schooner, with a triangular riding-sail on the mainmast, played +easily at anchor, and except for the man by the cabin-roof -"house" +they call. it-she was deserted. + +"Mornin'--Good afternoon, I should say. You've nigh slep' the +clock round, young feller," was the greeting. + +"Mornin'," said Harvey. He did not like being called "young feller"; +and, as one rescued from drowning, expected sympathy. His +mother suffered agonies whenever he got his feet wet; but this +mariner did not seem excited. + +"Naow let's hear all abaout it. It's quite providential, first an' last, +fer all concerned. What might be your name? Where from (we +mistrust it's Noo York), an' where baound (we mistrust it's +Europe)?" + +Harvey gave his name, the name of the steamer, and a short history +of the accident, winding up with a demand to be taken back +immediately to New York, where his father would pay anything +any one chose to name. + +"H'm," said the shaven man, quite unmoved by the end of Harvey's +speech. "I can't say we think special of any man, or boy even, that +falls overboard from that kind o' packet in a flat ca'am. Least of all +when his excuse is that he's seasick." + +"Excuse!" cried Harvey. "D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into +your dirty little boat for fun?" + +"Not knowin' what your notions o' fun may be, I can't rightly say, +young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn't call the boat which, under +Providence, was the means o' savin' ye, names. In the first place, +it's blame irreligious. In the second, it's annoyin' to my feelin's-an' +I'm Disko Troop o' the We're Here o' Gloucester, which you don't +seem rightly to know." + +"I don't know and I don't care," said Harvey. "I'm grateful enough +for being saved and all that, of course! but I want you to +understand that the sooner you take me back to New York the +better it'll pay you." + +"Meanin'-haow?" Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a +suspiciously mild blue eye. + +"Dollars and cents," said Harvey, delighted to think that he was +making an impression. "Cold dollars and cents." He thrust a hand +into a pocket, and threw out his stomach a little, which was his +way of being grand. "You've done the best day's work you ever did +in your life when you pulled me in. I'm all the son Harvey Cheyne +has." + +"He's bin favoured," said Disko, dryly. + +"And if you don't know who Harvey Cheyne is, you don't know +much-that's all. Now turn her around and let's hurry." + +Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled +with people discussing and envying his father's dollars. + +"Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't. Take a reef in your stummick, +young feller. It's full o' my vittles." + +Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy +by the stump-foremast, and blood rushed to his face. "We'll pay for +that too," he said. "When do you suppose we shall get to New +York?" + +"I don't use Noo York any. Ner Boston. We may see Eastern Point +about September; an' your pa-I'm real sorry I hain't heerd tell of +him-may give me ten dollars efter all your talk. Then o' course he +mayn't." + +"Ten dollars! Why, see here, I-" Harvey dived into his pocket for +the wad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of +cigarettes. + +"Not lawful currency; an' bad for the lungs. Heave 'em overboard, +young feller, and try agin." + +"It's been stolen!" cried Harvey, hotly. + +"You'll hev to wait till you see your pa to reward me, then?" + +"A hundred and thirty-four dollars-all stolen," said Harvey, hunting +wildly through his pockets. "Give them back." + +A curious change flitted across old Troop's hard face. "What might +you have been doin' at your time o' life with one hundred an' thirty- +four dollars, young feller?" + +"It was part of my pocket-money-for a month." This Harvey +thought would be a knock-down blow, and it was--indirectly. + +"Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his pocket- +money--for one month only! You don't remember hittin' anything +when you fell over, do you? Crack agin a stanchion, le's say. Old +man Hasken o' the East Wind"--Troop seemed to be talking to +himself--"he tripped on a hatch an' butted the mainmast with his +head--hardish. 'Baout three weeks afterwards, old man Hasken he +would hev it that the East Wind was a commerce-destroyin' man- +o'-war, an' so he declared war on Sable Island because it was +Bridish, an' the shoals run aout too far. They sewed him up in a +bed-bag, his head an' feet appearin', fer the rest o' the trip, an, now +he's to home in Essex playin' with little rag dolls." + +Harvey choked with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: "We're +sorry fer you. We're very sorry fer you-an' so young. We won't say +no more abaout the money, I guess." + +"'Course you won't. You stole it." + +"Suit yourself. We stole it ef it's any comfort to you. Naow, abaout +goin' back. Allowin' we could do it, which we can't, you ain't in no +fit state to go back to your home, an' we've jest come on to the +Banks, workin' fer our bread. We don't see the ha'af of a hundred +dollars a month, let alone pocket-money; an' with good luck we'll +be ashore again somewheres abaout the first weeks o' September." + +"But-but it's May now, and I can't stay here doin' nothing just +because you want to fish. I can't, I tell you!" + +"Right an' jest; jest an' right. No one asks you to do nothin'. There's +a heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I +mistrust he lost his grip in a gale we fund there. Anyways, he never +come back to deny it. You've turned up, plain, plumb providential +for all concerned. I mistrust, though, there's ruther few things you +kin do. Ain't thet so?" + +"I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore," +said Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about +"piracy," at which Troop almost -not quit--smiled. + +"Excep' talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more'n you've a +mind to aboard the We're Here. Keep your eyes open, an' help Dan +to do ez he's bid, an' sechlike, an' I'll give you-you ain't wuth it, but +I'll give--ten an' a ha'af a month; say thirty-five at the end o' the +trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us all +abaout your dad an' your ma an' your money afterwards." + +"She's on the steamer," said Harvey, his eyes flling with tears. +"Take me to New York at once." + +"Poor woman--poor woman! When she has you back she'll forgit it +all, though. There's eight of us on the! We're Here, an' ef we went +back naow-it's more'n a thousand mile-we'd lose the season. The +men they wouldn't hev it, allowin' I was agreeable." + +"But my father would make it all right." + +"He'd try. I don't doubt he'd try," said Troop; "but a whole season's +catch is eight men's bread; an' you'll be better in your health when +you see him in the fall. Go forward an' help Dan. It's ten an' a ha'af +a month, e I said, an' o' course, all fund, same e the rest o' us." + +"Do you mean I'm to clean pots and pans and things?" said Harvey. + +"An' other things. You've no call to shout, young feeler." + +"I won't! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little +fish-kettle"-Harvey stamped on the deck-"ten times over, if you +take me to New York safe; and-and-you're in a hundred and thirty +by me, anyhow." + +"Ha<,w?" said Troop, the iron face darkening. + +"How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want +me to do menial work"-Harvey was very proud of that +adjective"till the Fall. I tell you I will not. You hear?" + +Troop regarded the top of the mainmast with deep interest for a +while, as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him. + +"Hsh!" he said at last. "I'm figurin' out my responsibilities in my +own mind. It's a matter o' jedgment." + +Dan stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. "Don't go to +tamperin' with Dad any more," he pleaded. "You've called him a +thief two or three times over, an' he don't take that from any livin' +bein'." + +"I won't!" Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and +still Troop meditated. + +"Seems kinder unneighbourly," he said at last, his eye travelling +down to Harvey. "I - don't blame you, not a mite, young feeler, nor +you won't blame me when the bile's out o' your systim. Be sure you +sense what I say? Ten an' a ha'af fer second boy on the +schooner-an' all found-fer to teach you an' fer the sake o' your +health. Yes or no?" + +"No!" said Harvey. "Take me back to New York or I'll see you " + +He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in the +scuppers, holding on to a nose that bled while Troop looked down +on him serenely. + +"Dan," he said to his son, "I was sot agin this young feeler when I +first saw him on account o' hasty jedgments. Never you be led +astray by hasty jedgments, Dan. Naow I'm sorry for him, because +he's clear distracted in his upper works. He ain't responsible fer the +names he's give me, nor fer his other statements--nor fer jumpin' +overboard, which I'm abaout ha'af convinced he did. You he gentle +with him, Dan, 'r I'll give you twice what I've give him. Them +hemmeridges clears the head. Let him sluice it off!" + +Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older +men bunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless heir to thirty +millions. + +CHAPTER II + +"I warned ye," said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the +dark, oiled planking. "Dad ain't noways hasty, but you fair earned +it. Pshaw! there's no sense takin' on so." Harvey's shoulders were +rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing. "I know the feelin'. +First time Dad laid me out was the last-and that was my first trip. +Makes ye feel sickish an' lonesome. I know." + +"It does," moaned Harvey. "That man's either crazy or drunk, +and-and I can't do anything." + +"Don't say that to Dad," whispered Dan. "He's set agin all liquor, +an'-well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made +you call him a thief? He's my dad." + +Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing +wad of bills. "I'm not crazy," he wound up. "Only-your father has +never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father +could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it." + +"You don't know what the We're Here's worth. Your dad must hev +a pile o' money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out +a straight yarn. Go ahead" + +"In gold mines and things, West." + +"I've read o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go +around with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call +that the Wild West, and I've heard that their spurs an' bridles was +solid silver." + +"You are a chump!" said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. "My +father hasn't any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his +car." + +"Haow? Lobster-car?" + +"No. His own private car, of course. You've seen a private car +some time in your life?" + +"Slatin Beeman he hez one," said Dan, cautiously. "I saw her at the +Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin' her run.', (Dan +meant cleaning the windows.) "But Slatin Beeman he owns 'baout +every railroad on Long Island, they say, an' they say he's bought +'baout ha'af Noo Hampshire an' run a line fence around her, an' +filled her up with lions an' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an' crocodiles +an' such all. Slatin Beeman he's a millionaire. I've seen his car. +Yes?" + +"Well, my father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has +two private cars. One's named for me, the Harvey, and one for my +mother, the Constance." + +"Hold on," said Dan. "Dad don't ever let me swear, but I guess you +can. 'Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if +you're lyin'." + +"Of course," said Harvey. + +"The ain't 'niff. Say, 'Hope I may die if I ain't speaking' truth."' + +"Hope I may die right here," said Harvey, "if every word I've +spoken isn't the cold truth." + +"Hundred an' thirty-four dollars an' all?" said Dan. "I heard ye +talkin' to Dad, an' I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up, same's +Jonah." + +Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young +person along his own lines, and ten minutes' questioning convinced +him that Harvey was not lying-much. Besides, he had hound +himself by the most terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he +sat, alive, with a red-ended nose, in the scuppers, recounting +marvels upon marvels. + +"Gosh!" said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when +Harvey had completed an inventory of the car named in his +honour. Then a grin of mischievous delight overspread his broad +face. "I believe you, Harvey. Dad's made a mistake fer once in his +life." + +"He has, sure," said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge. + +"He'll be mad clear through. Dad jest hates to be mistook in his +jedgments." Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Harvey, don't +you spile the catch by lettin' on." do with it. "That's all right," he +said. Then he looked down confusedly. "Seems to me that for a +fellow just saved from drowning I haven't been over and above +grateful, Dan." + +"Well, you was shook up and silly," said Dan. "Anyway there was +only Dad an' me aboard to see it. The cook he don't count." + +"I might have thought about losing the bills that way," Harvey said, +half to himself, "instead of calling everybody in sight a thief. +Where's your father?" + +"In the cabin. What d' you want o' him again?" + +"You'll see," said Harvey, and he stepped, rather groggily, for his +head was still singing, to the cabin steps where the little ship's +clock hung in plain sight of the wheel. Troop, in the +chocolate-and-yellow painted cabin, was busy with a note-book +and an enormous black pencil which he sucked hard from time to +time. + +"I haven't acted quite right," said Harvey, surprised at his own +meekness. + +"What's wrong naow?" said the skipper. "Walked into Dan, hev +ye?" + +"No; it's about you." + +"I'm here to listen." + +"Well, I-I'm here to take things back," said Harvey very quickly. +"When a man's saved from drowning---" he gulped. + +"Eye? You'll make a man yet ef you go on this way." + +"He oughtn't begin by calling people names." + +"Jest an' right-right an' jest," said Troop, with the ghost of a dry +smile. + +"So I'm here to say I'm sorry." Another big gulp. + +Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and +held out an eleven-inch hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' +good; an' this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments." A +smothered chuckle on deck caught his ear. "I am very seldom +mistook in my jedgments." The eleven-inch hand closed on +Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "We'll put a little more gristle to +that 'fore we've done with you, young feller; an' I don't think any +worse of ye fer anythin' the's gone by. You wasn't fairly +responsible. Go right abaout your business an' you won't take no +hurt." + +"You're white," said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to +the tips of his ears. + +"I don't feel it," said he. + +"I didn't mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows +he don't think the worse of any man, Dad's give himself away. He +hates to be mistook in his jedgments too. Ho! ho! Onct Dad has a +jedgment, he'd sooner dip his colours to the British than change it. +I'm glad it's settled right eend up. Dad's right when he says he can't +take you back. It's all the livin' we make here-fishin'. The men'll be +back like sharks after a dead whale in ha'af an hour." + +"What for?" said Harvey. + +"Supper, o' course. Don't your stummick tell you? You've a heap to +learn." + +"Guess I have," said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of +ropes and blocks overhead. + +"She's a daisy," said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the +look. "Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her +salt wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into +the darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts. + +"What's that for? It's all empty," said Harvey. + +"You an' me an' a few more hev got to fill it," said Dan. "That's +where the fish goes." + +"Alive?" said Harvey. + +"Well, no. They're so's to be ruther dead-an' flat-an' salt. There's a +hundred hogshead o' salt in the bins, an' we hain't more'n covered +our dunnage to now." + +"Where are the fish, though?" + +"In the sea they say, in the boats we pray," said Dan, quoting a +fisherman's proverb. "You come in last night with 'baout forty of +'em." + +He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the +quarter-deck. + +"You an' me we'll sluice that out when they're through. 'Send we'll +hev full pens to-night! I've seen her down ha'af a foot with fish +waitin' to clean, an' we stood to the tables till we was splittin' +ourselves instid o' them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they're comm' in +naow." Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories +rowing towards them over the shining, silky sea. + +"I've never seen the sea from so low down," said Harvey. "It's fine." + +The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden +lights on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green +mackerel shades in the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to +be pulling her dories towards her by invisible strings, and the little +black figures in the tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys. "They've +struck on good," said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. "Manuel +hain't room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, +Aeneid he?" + +"Which is Manuel? I don't see how you can tell 'em 'way off, as +you do." + +"Last boat to the south'ard. He fund you last night," said Dan, +pointing. "Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can't mistake him. East o' +him-he's a heap better'n he rows-is Pennsylvania. Loaded with +saleratus, by the looks of him. East o' him-see how pretty they +string out all along-with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He's a +Galway man inhabitin' South Boston, where they all live mostly, +an' mostly them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away +yonder-you'll hear him tune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man- +o'-war's man he was on the old Ohio first of our navy, he says, to +go araound the Horn. He never talks of much else, 'cept when he +sings, but he has fair fishin' luck. There! What did I tell you?" + +A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. +Harvey heard something about somebody's hands and feet being +cold, and then: + +"Bring forth the chart, the doleful chart, +See where them mountings meet! +The clouds are thick around their heads, +The mists around their feet." + +"Full boat," said Dan, with a chuckle. "II he give us '0 Captain' it's +topping' too!" + +The bellow continued: + +"And naow to thee, 0 Capting, +Most earnestly I pray, +That they shall never bury me +In church or cloister gray." + +"Double game for Tom Platt. He'll tell you all about the old Ohio +tomorrow. 'See that blue dory behind him? He's my uncle,-Dad's +own brother,-an' ef there's any bad luck loose on the Banks she'll +fetch up agin Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he's rowin'. I'll +lay my wage and share he's the only man stung up to-day-an' he's +stung up good." + +"What'll sting him?" said Harvey, getting interested. + +"Strawberries, mostly. Pumpkins, sometimes, an' sometimes +lemons an' cucumbers. Yes, he's stung up from his elbows down. +That man's luck's perfectly paralyzin'. Naow we'll take a-bolt o' the +tackles an' hist 'em in. Is it true what you told me jest now, that you +never done a hand's turn o' work in all your born life? Must feel +kinder awful, don't it?" + +"I'm going to try to work, anyway," Harvey replied stoutly. "Only +it's all dead new." + +"Lay a-holt o' that tackle, then. Behind ye!" + +Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of +the stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran +from something he called a 'topping-lift," as Manuel drew +alongside in his loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant +smile that Harvey learned to know well later, and with a +short-handled fork began to throw fish into the pen on deck. "Two +hundred and thirty-one," he shouted. + +"Give him the hook," said Dan, and Harvey ran it into Manuel's +hands. He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory's bow, +caught Dan's tackle, hooked it to the stern-becket, and clambered +into the schooner. + +"Pull!" shouted Dan, and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how +easily the dory rose. + +"Hold on, she don't nest in the crosstrees!" Dan laughed; and +Harvey held on, for the boat lay in the air above his head. + +"Lower away," Dan shouted, and as Harvey lowered, Dan swayed +the light boat with one hand till it landed softly just behind the +mainmast. "They don't weigh nothin' empty. The was right smart +fer a passenger. + +There's more trick to it in a sea-way." + +"Ah ha!" said Manuel, holding out a brown hand. "You are some +pretty well now? This time last night the fish they fish for you. +Now you fish for fish.. Eh, wha-at?" + +"I'm-I'm ever so grateful," Harvey stammered, and his unfortunate +hand stole to his pocket once more, but he remembered that he had +no money to offer. When he knew Manuel better the mere thought +of the mistake he might have made would cover him with hot, +uneasy blushes in his bunk. + +"There is no to be thankful for to me!" said Manuel. "How shall I +leave you dreeft, dreeft all around the Banks? Now you are a +fisherman eh, wha-at? Ouh! Auh!" He bent backward and forward +stiffly from the hips to get the kinks out of himself. + +"I have not cleaned boat to-day. Too busy. They struck on queek. +Danny, my son, clean for me." + +Harvey moved forward at once. Here was something he could do +for the man who had saved his life. + +Dan threw him a swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up +the slime clumsily, but with great good-will. "Hike out the +foot-boards; they slide in them grooves," said Dan. "Swab 'em an' +lay 'em down. Never let a foot-board jam. Ye may want her bad +some day. Here's Long Jack." + +A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside. + +"Manuel, you take the tackle. I'll fix the tables. Harvey, clear +Manuel's boat. Long Jack's nestin' on the top of her." + +Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory +just above his head. + +"Jest like the Injian puzzle-boxes, ain't they?" said Dan, as the one +boat dropped into the other. + +"Takes to ut like a duck to water," said Long Jack, a +grizzly-chinned, long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro +exactly as Manuel had done. Disko in the cabin growled up the +hatchway, and they could hear him suck his pencil. + +"Wan hunder an' forty-nine an' a half-bad luck to ye, Discobolus!" +said Long Jack. "I'm murderin' meself to fill your pockuts. Slate ut +for a bad catch. The Portugee has bate me." + +Whack came another dory alongside, and more fish shot into the +pen. + +"Two hundred and three. let's look at the passenger!" The speaker +was even larger than the Galway man, and his face was made +curious by a purple Cut running slant-ways from his left eye to the +right corner of his mouth. + +Not knowing what else to do, Harvey swabbed each dory as it +came down, pulled out the foot-boards, and laid them in the +bottom of the boat. + +"He's caught on good," said the scarred man, who was Toni Platt, +watching him critically. "There are two ways o' doin' everything. +One's fisher-fashion-any end first an, a slippery hitch over all-an' +the other's + +"What we did on the old Ohio!" Dan interrupted, brushing into the +knot of men with a long board on legs. "Get out o' here, Tom Platt, +an' leave me fix the tables." + +He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, +kicked out the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging +blow from the man-o'-war's man. + +"An' they did that on the Ohio, too, Danny. See?" said Tom Platt, +laughing. + +"Guess they was swivel-eyed, then, fer it didn't git home, and I +know who'll find his boots on the main-truck ef he don't leave us +alone. Haul ahead! I'm busy, can't ye see?" + +"Danny, ye lie on the cable an' sleep all day," said Long Jack. +"You're the hoight av impidence, an' I'm persuaded ye'll corrupt +our supercargo in a week." + +"His name's Harvey," said Dan, waving two strangely shaped +knives, "an' he'll be worth five of any Sou' Boston clam-digger 'fore +long." He laid the knives tastefully on the table, cocked his head +on one side, and admired the effect + +"I think it's forty-two," said a small voice overside, and there was a +roar of laughter as another voice answered, "Then my luck's turned +fer onct, 'caze I'm forty-five, though I be stung outer all shape." + +"Forty-two or forty-five. I've lost count," the small voice said. + +"It's Penn an' Uncle Salters caountin' catch. This beats the circus +any day," said Dan. "Jest look at 'em!" + +"Come in--come in!" roared Long Jack. "It's. wet out yondher, +children." + +"Forty-two, ye said." This was Uncle Salters. + +"I'll count again, then," the voice replied meekly. The two dories +swung together and bunted into the schooner's side. + +"Patience o' Jerusalem!" snapped Uncle Salters, backing water +with a splash. "What possest a farmer like you to set foot in a boat +beats me. You've nigh stove me all up." + +"I am sorry, Mr. Salters. I came to sea on account of nervous +dyspepsia. You advised me, I think." + +"You an' your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole," +roared Uncle Salters, a fat and tubby little man. "You're comin' +down on me agin. Did ye say forty-two or forty-five?" + +"I've forgotten, Mr. Salters. let's count." + +"Don't see as it could be forty-five. I'm forty-five," said Uncle +Salters. "You count keerful, Penn." + +Disko Troop came out of the cabin. "Salters, you pitch your fish in +naow at once," he said in the tone of authority. + +"Don't spile the catch, Dad," Dan murmured. "Them two are on'y +jest beginnin'." + +"Mother av delight! He's forkin' them wan by wan," howled Long +Jack, as Uncle Salters got to work laboriously; the little man in the +other dory counting a line of notches on the gunwale. + +"That was last week's catch," he said, looking up plaintively, his +forefinger where he had left off. + +Manuel nudged Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and, leaning +far overside, slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made +her fast forward. The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat +in-man, fish, and all. + +"One, two, four-nine," said Tom Platt, counting with a practised +eye. "Forty-seven. Penn, you're it!" Dan let the after-tackle run, and +slid him out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own +fish. + +"Hold on!" roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist. "Hold on, +I'm a bit mixed in my caount." + +He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like +"Pennsylvania." + +"Forty-one," said Tom Platt. "Beat by a farmer, Salters. An' you +sech a sailor, too!" + +"'Tweren't fair caount," said he, stumbling out of the pen; "an' I'm +stung up all to pieces." + +His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white. + +"Some folks will find strawberry-bottom," said Dan, addressing the +newly risen moon, "ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me." + +"An' others," said Uncle Salters, "eats the fat o' the land in sloth, +an' mocks their own blood-kin." + +"Seat ye! Seat ye!" a voice Harvey had not heard called from the +foc'sle. Disko Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went +forward on the word. Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea +reel and the tangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down full length on the +deck, and Dan dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him +banging casks with a hammer. + +"Salt," he said, returning. "Soon as we're through supper we git to +dressing-down. You'll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt an' Dad they stow +together, an' you'll hear 'em arguin'. We're second ha'af, you an' me +an' Manuel an' Penn-the youth an' beauty o' the boat." + +"What's the good of that?" said Harvey. "I'm hungry." + +"They'll be through in a minute. Suff! She smells good to-night. +Dad ships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It's a full +catch today, Aeneid it?" He pointed at the pens piled high with +cod. "What water did ye hev, Manuel?" + +"Twenty-fife father," said the Portuguese, sleepily. "They strike on +good an' queek. Some day I show you, Harvey." + +The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder +men came aft. The cook had no need to cry "second half." Dan and +Manuel were down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt, last and +most deliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with +the back of his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down before a +tin pan of cod's tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and +fried potato, a loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful +coffee. Hungry as they were, they waited while "Pennsylvania" +solemnly asked a blessing. Then they stoked in silence till Dan +drew a breath over his tin cup and demanded of Harvey how he +felt. + +"'Most full, but there's just room for another piece." + +The cook was a huge, jet-black negro, and, unlike all the negroes +Harvey had met, did not talk, contenting himself with smiles and +dumb-show invitations to eat more. + +"See, Harvey," said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, "it's +jest as I said. The young an' handsome men-like me an' Pennsy an' +you an' Manuel-we're second ha'af, an' we eats when the first ha'af +are through. They're the old fish; an' they're mean an' humpy, an' +their stummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which +they don't deserve. Aeneid that so, doctor?" + +The cook nodded. + +"Can't he talk?" said Harvey in a whisper. + +"'Nough to get along. Not much o' anything we know. His natural +tongue's kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, +he does, where the farmers speak homemade Scotch. Cape +Breton's full o' niggers whose folk run in there durin' aour war, an' +they talk like farmers-all huffy-chuffy." + +"That is not Scotch," said "Pennsylvania." "That is Gaelic. So I +read in a book." + +"Penn reads a heap. Most of what he says is so-'cep' when it comes +to a caount o' fish-eh?" + +"Does your father just let them say how many they've caught +without checking them?" said Harvey. + +"Why, yes. Where's the sense of a man lyin' fer a few old cod?" + +"Was a man once lied for his catch," Manuel put in. "Lied every +day. Fife, ten, twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was." + +"Where was that?" said Dan. "None o' aour folk." + +"Frenchman of Anguille." + +"Ah! Them West Shore Frenchmen don't caount anyway. Stands to +reason they can't caount Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks, +Harvey, you'll know why," said Dan, with an awful contempt. + +"Always more and never less, +Every time we come to dress," + +Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the "second ha'af" +scrambled up at once. + +The shadow of the masts and rigging, with the never-furled +riding-sail, rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; +and the pile of fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. +In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disko +Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins. Dan passed +Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the inboard end of the rough +table, where Uncle Salters was drumming impatiently with a +knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at his feet. + +"You pitch to Dan an' Tom Platt down the hatch, an' take keer +Uncle Salters don't cut yer eye out," said Dan, swinging himself +into the hold. "I'll pass salt below." + +Penn and Manuel stood knee deep among cod in the pen, +flourishing drawn knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and +mittens on his hands, faced Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey +stared at the pitchfork and the tub. + +"Hi!" shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up +with a finger under- its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on +the edge of the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of +tearing, and the fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either +side of the neck, dropped at Long Jack's feet. + +"Hi!" said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod's +liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the +head and offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle +Salters, who snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, +the backbone flew over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, +gutted, and open, splashed in the tub, sending the salt water into +Harvey's astonished mouth. After the first yell, the men were +silent. The cod moved along as though they were alive, and long +ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the miraculous dexterity of it +all, his tub was full. + +"Pitch!" grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and +Harvey pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch. + +"Hi! Pitch 'em bunchy," shouted Dan. "Don't scatter! + +Uncle Salters is the best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his +book!" + +Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting +magazine pages against time. Manuel's body, cramped over from +the hips, stayed like a statue; but his long arms grabbed the fish +without ceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was easy to see +he was weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him +without breaking the chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled +because he had caught his finger in a Frenchman's hook. These +hooks are made of soft metal, to be rebent after use; but the cod +very often get away with them and are hooked again elsewhere; +and that is one of the many reasons why the Gloucester boats +despise the Frenchmen. + +Down below, the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough +flesh sounded like the whirring of a grindstone--steady undertune +to the "click-nick" of knives in the pen; the wrench and shloop of +torn heads, dropped liver, and flying offal; the "caraaah" of Uncle +Salters's knife scooping away backbones; and the flap of wet, open +bodies falling into the tub. + +At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; +for fresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back +ached with the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his +life that he was one of the working gang of men, took pride in the +thought, and held on sullenly. + +"Knife oh!" shouted Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, +gasping among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple +himself, and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook +appeared, noiseless as a black shadow, collected a mass of +backbones and heads, and retreated. + +"Blood-ends for breakfast an' head-chowder," said Long Jack, +smacking his lips. + +"Knife oh!" repeated Uncle Salters, waving the flat, curved +splitter's weapon. + +"Look by your foot, Harve," cried Dan below. + +Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch +combing. He dealt these around, taking over the dulled ones. + +"Water!" said Disko Troop. + +"Scuffle-butt's for'ard an' the dipper's alongside. Hurry, Harve," +said Dan. + +He was back in a minute with a big dipperful of stale brown water +which tasted like nectar, and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom +Platt. + +"These are cod," said Disko. "They ain't Damarskus figs, Tom +Platt, nor yet silver bars. I've told you that ever single time since +we've sailed together." + +"A matter o' seven seasons," returned Tom Platt coolly. "Good +stowin's good stowin' all the same, an' there's a right an' a wrong +way o' stowin' ballast even. If you'd ever seen four hundred ton o' +iron set into the~" + +"Hi!" With a yell from Manuel the work began again, and never +stopped till the pen was empty. The instant the last fish was down, +Disko Troop rolled alt to the cabin with his brother; Manuel and +Long Jack went forward; Tom Platt only waited long enough to +slide home the hatch ere he too disappeared. In half a minute +Harvey heard deep snores in the cabin, and he was staring blankly +at Dan and Penn. + +"I did a little better that time, Danny," said Penn, whose eyelids +were heavy with sleep. "But I think it is my duty to help clean." + +"'Wouldn't hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal," said Dan. +"Turn in, Penn. You've no call to do boy's work. Draw a bucket, +Harvey. Oh, Penn, dump these in the gurry-butt 'fore you sleep. +Kin you keep awake that long?" + +Penn took up the heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a +cask with a hinged top lashed by the foc'sle; then he too dropped +out of sight in the cabin. + +"Boys clean up after dressin' down an' first watch in ca'am weather +is boy's watch on the We're Here." Dan sluiced the pen +energetically, unshipped the table, set it up to dry in the moonlight, +ran the red knife-blades through a wad of oakum, and began to +sharpen them on a tiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offal and +backbones overboard under his direction. + +At the first splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from the +oily water and sighed a weird whistling sigh. Harvey started back +with a shout, but Dan only laughed. + +"Grampus," said he. "Beggin' fer fish-heads. They up-eend the way +when they're hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, hain't +he?" A horrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of +white sank, and the water bubbled oilily. "Hain't ye never seen a +grampus up-eend before? You'll see 'em by hundreds 'fore ye're +through. Say, it's good to hev a boy aboard again. Otto was too old, +an' a Dutchy at that. Him an' me we fought consid'ble. 'Wouldn't +ha' keered fer that ef he'd hed a Christian tongue in his head. +Sleepy?" + +"Dead sleepy," said Harvey, nodding forward. + +"Mustn't sleep on watch. Rouse up an' see ef our anchor-light's +bright an' shinin'. You're on watch now, Harve." + +"Pshaw! What's to hurt us? 'Bright's day. Sn-orrr!" + +"Jest when things happen, Dad says. Fine weather's good sleepin', +an' 'fore you know, mebbe, you're cut in two by a liner, an' +seventeen brass-bound officers, all gen'elmen, lift their hand to it +that your lights was aout an' there was a thick fog. Harve, I've +kinder took to you, but ef you nod onet more I'll lay into you with a +rope's end." + +The moon, who sees many strange things on the Banks, looked +down on a slim youth in knickerbockers and a red jersey, +staggering around the cluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner, +while behind him, waving a knotted rope, walked, after the manner +of an executioner, a boy who yawned and nodded between the +blows he dealt. + +The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted +a little in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the +miserable procession continued. Harvey expostulated, threatened, +whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words +clotting on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and +slashed away with the rope's end, punishing the dories as often as +he hit Harvey. At last the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon +the tenth stroke little Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in +two tumbled heaps side by side on the main hatch, so deeply +asleep that he actually rolled them to their berths. + +CHAPTER III + +It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and +heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin +dish of juicy fragments of fish-the blood-ends the cook had +collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the +elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, +swabbed down the foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water +for the cook, and investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores +were stacked. It was another perfect day-soft, mild, and clear; and +Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs. + +More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas +were full of sails and dories. Far away on the horizon, the smoke of +some liner, her hull invisible, smudged the blue, and to eastward a +big ship's top-gallant sails, just lifting, made a square nick in it. +Disko Troop was smoking by the roof of the cabin~ne eye on the +craft around, and the other on the little fly at the main-mast-head. + +"When Dad kerfiummoxes that way," said Dan in a whisper, "he's +doin' some high-line thinkin' fer all hands. I'll lay my wage an' +share we'll make berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, an' the Fleet +they know Dad knows. 'See 'em comm' up one by one, lookin' fer +nothin' in particular, o' course, but scrowgin' on us all the time? +There's the Prince Leboo; she's a Chat-ham boat. She's crep' up +sence last night. An' see that big one with a patch in her foresail an' +a new jib? She's the Carrie Pitman from West Chat-ham. She won't +keep her canvas long onless her luck's changed since last season. +She don't do much 'cep' drift. There ain't an anchor made 'II hold +her. . . . When the smoke puffs up in little rings like that, Dad's +studyin' the fish. Ef we speak to him now, he'll git mad. Las' time I +did, he jest took an' hove a boot at me." + +Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes +that saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fish-pitting +his knowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod +in his own sea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive +schooners on the horizon as a compliment to his powers. But now +that it was paid, he wished to draw away and make his berth alone, +till it was time to go up to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that +roaring town upon the waters. So Disko Troop thought of recent +weather, and gales, currents, food-supplies, and other domestic +arrangements, from the point of view of a twenty-pound cod; was, +in fact, for an hour a cod himself, and looked remarkably like one. +Then he removed the pipe from his teeth. + +"Dad," said Dan, "we've done our chores. Can't we go overside a +piece? It's good catchin' weather." + +"Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them ha'af baked brown shoes. +Give him suthin' fit to wear." + +"Dad's pleased-that settles it," said Dan, delightedly, dragging +Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. +"Dad keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, 'cause Ma sez +I'm keerless." He rummaged through a locker, and in less than +three minutes Harvey was adorned with fisherman's rubber boots +that came half up his thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the +elbows, a pair of nippers, and a sou'wester. + +"Naow ye look somethin' like," said Dan. "Hurry!" + +"Keep nigh an' handy," said Troop "an' don't go visitin' racund the +Fleet. If any one asks you what I'm cal'latin' to do, speak the +truth-fer ye don't know." + +A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay astern of the schooner. Dan +hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, +while Harvey tumbled clumsily after. + +"That's no way o' gettin' into a boat," said Dan. "Ef there was any +sea you'd go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet her." + +Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart and watched +Harvey's work. The boy had rowed, in a lady-like fashion, on the +Adirondack ponds; but there is a difference between squeaking +pins and well-balanced ruflocks-light sculls and stubby, eight-foot +sea-oars. They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted. + +"Short! Row short!" said Dan. "Ef you cramp your oar in any kind +o' sea you're liable to turn her over. Ain't she a daisy? Mine, too." + +The little dory was specklessly clean. In her bows lay a tiny +anchor, two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, +brown dory-roding. A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under +Harvey's right hand, beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and +a shorter wooden stick. A couple of lin~, with very heavy leads +and double cod-hooks, all neatly coiled on square reels, were stuck +in their place by the gunwale. + +"Where's the sail and mast?" said Harvey, for his hands were +beginning to blister. + +Dan chuckled. "Ye don't sail fishin'-dories much. Ye pull; but ye +needn't pull so hard. Don't you wish you owned her?" + +"Well, I gtiess my father might give me one or two if I asked 'em," +Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family +till then. + +"That's so. I forgot your dad's a millionaire. You don't act +rnillionary any, naow. But a dory an' craft an' gear"-Dan spoke as +though she were a whaleboat -"costs a heap. Think your dad 'u'd +give you one fer-fer a pet like?" + +"Shouldn't wonder. It would be 'most the ouly thing I haven't stuck +him for yet." + +'Must be an expensive kinder kid to home. Don't slitheroo thet +way, Harve. Short's the trick, because no sea's ever dead still, an' +the swells 'il~" + +Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and +knocked him backwards. + +"That was what I was goin' to say. I hed to learn too, but I wasn't +more than eight years old when I got my schoolin'." + +Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown. + +"No good gettin' mad at things, Dad says. It's our own fault ef we +can't handle 'em, he says. Le's try here. Manuel 'll give us the +water." + +The "Portugee" was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan +up-ended an oar he waved his left arm three times. + +"Thirty fathom," said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. +"Over with the doughboys. Bait same's I do, Harvey, an' don't snarl +your reel." + +Dan's line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of +baiting and heaving out the leads. The dory drifted along easily. It +was not worth while to anchor till they were sure of good ground. + +"Here we come!" Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on +Harvey's shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. +"Muckie, Harvey, muckle! Under your hand! Onick!" + +Evidently "muckle" could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed +over the maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he +pulled it inboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short +wooden stick he called a "go~stick." Then Harvey felt a tug, and +pulled up zealously. + +"Why, these are strawberries!" he shouted. "Look!" + +The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one +side and white on the other-perfect reproductions of the land fruit, +except that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and +slimy. + +"Don't tech 'em. Slat 'em off. Don't + +The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the +hook, and was admiring them. + +"Ouch!" he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had +grasped many nettles. + +"Nnow ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothin' 'cep' fish +should be teched with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat 'em off +agin the guunel, an' bait up, Harve. Lookin' won't help any. It's all +in the wages." + +Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, +and wondered what his mother would say if she could see him +hanging over the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered +agonies whenever he went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way, +Harvey remembered distinctly that he used to laugh at her +annieties. Suddenly the line flashed through his hand, stinging +even through the "nippers," the woolen cirdets supposed to protect +it. + +"He's a logy. Give him room accordin' to his strength," cried Dan. +"I'll help ye." + +"No, you won't," Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. "It's +my first fish. I~is it a whale?" + +"Halibut, mebbe." Dan peered down into the water alongside, and +flourished the big "muckle," ready for all chances. Something +white and oval flickered and fluttered through the green. "I'll lay +my wage an' share he's over a hundred. Are you so everlastin' +anxious to land him alone?" + +Harvey's knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been +hanged against the gunwale; his face was purple-blue between +excitement and exertion; he dripped with sweat, and was +half-blinded from staring at the circling sunlit ripples about the +swiftly moving line. The boys were tired long ere the halibut, who +took charge of them and the dory for the next twenty minutes. But +the big flat fish was gaffed and hauled in at last. + +"Beginner's luck," said Dan, wiping his forehead. "He'~ all of a +hundred." + +Harvey looked at the huge gray-and-mottled creature with +unspeakable pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble +slabs ashore, but it had never occurred to him to ask how they +came inland. Now he knew; and every inch of his body ached with +fatigue. + +"Ef Dad was along," said Dan, hauling up, "he'd read the signs +plain's print. The fish are runnin' smaller an' smaller, an' you've +took 'baout as logy a halibut's we're apt to find this trip. Yesterday's +catch-did ye notice it?-was all big fish an' no halibut. Dad he'd read +them signs right off. Dad says everythin' on the Banks is signs, an' +can be read wrong er right. Dad's deeper'n the Whale-hole." + +Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the We're Here, and a +potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging. + +"What did I say, naow? That's the call fer the whole crowd. Dad's +onter something, er he'd never break fishin' this time o' day. Reel +up, Harve, an' we'll pull back." + +They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the dory +over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them to +Penn, who was careering around a fixed point for all the world like +a gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down +again with enormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his +dory swung round and snubbed herself on her rope. + +"We'll hev to help him, else he'll root an' seed here," said Dan. + +"What's the matter?" said Harvey. This was a new world, where he +could not lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions +humbly. And the sea was horribly big and unexcited. + +"Anchor's fouled. Penn's always losing 'em. Lost two this trip +a'ready-on sandy bottom too-an' Dad says next one he loses, sure's +fishin', he'll give him the kelleg. That 'u'd break Penn's heart." + +"What's a 'kelleg'?" said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be +some kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the storybooks. + +"Big stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridin' in the +bows fur's you can see a dory, an' all the fleet knows what it +means. They'd guy him dreadful. Penn couldn't stand that no +more'n a dog with a dipper to his tail. He's so everlastin' sensitive. +Hello, Penn! Stuck again? Don't try any more o' your patents. +Come up on her, and keep your rodin' straight up an' down." + +"It doesn't move," said the little man, panting. "It doesn't move at +all, and instead I tried everything." + +"What's all this hurrah's-nest for'ard?" said Dan, pointing to a wild +tangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by the +hand of inexperience. + +"Oh, that," said Penn proudly, "is a Spanish windlass. Mr. Salters +showed me how to make it; but even that doesn't move her." + +Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or +twice on the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once. + +"Haul up, Penn," he said laughing, "er she'll git stuck again. + +They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor +with big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely. + + "Oh, say, while I think of it, Harve," said Dan when they were out +of ear-shot, "Penn ain't quite all caulked. + +He ain't nowise dangerous, but his mind's give out. + +See?" + + "Is that so, or is it one of your father's judgments?" + +Harvey asked as he bent to his oars. He felt he was learning to +handle them more easily. + + "Dad ain't mistook this time. Penn's a sure 'nuff loony. + +No, he ain't thet exactly, so much ez a harmless ijut. It was this +way (you're rowin' quite so, Harve), an' I tell you 'cause it's right +you orter know. He was a Moravian preacher once. Jacob Boiler +wuz his name, Dad told me, an' he lived with his wife an' four +children somewheres out Pennsylvania way. Well, Penn he took +his folks along to a Moravian meetin'camp-meetin' most like-an' +they stayed over jest one night in Johns- town. You've heered talk +o' Johnstown?" + + Harvey considered. "Yes, I have. But I don't know why. It sticks in +my head same as Ashtabula." + + "Both was big accidents-thet's why, Harve. Well, that one single +night Penn and his folks was to the hotel Johnstown was wiped +out. 'Dam bust an' flooded her, an' the houses struck adrift an' +bumped into each other an' sunk. I've seen the pictures, an' they're +dretful.Penn he saw his folk drowned all'n a heap 'fore he rightly +knew what was comin'. His mind give out from that on. He +mistrusted somethin' hed happened up to Johnstown, but for the +poor life of him he couldn't remember what, an' he jest drifted araound +smilin' an' wonderin'. He didn't know what he was, nor yit what +he hed bin, an' thet way he run agin Uncle Salters, who was visitin' +'n Allegheny City. Ha'af my mother's folks they live scattered +inside o' Pennsylvania, an' Uncle Salters he visits araound winters. +Uncle Salters he kinder adopted Penn, well knowin' what his +trouble wuz; an' he brought him East, an' he give him work on his +farm.', "Why, I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when +the boats bumped. Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?" + + "Farmer!" shouted Dan. "There ain't water enough 'tween here an' +Hatt'rus to wash the furrer-mold off'n his boots. He's jest everlastin' +farmer. Why, Harve, I've seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long +towards sundown, an' set twiddlin' the spigot to the scuttle-butt +same's ef 'twas a cow's bag. He's thet much farmer. Well, Penn an' +he they ran the farm-up Exeter way 'twur. Uncle Salters he sold it +this spring to a jay from Boston as wanted to build a +summer-haouse, an' he got a heap for it. Well, them two loonies +scratched along till, one day, Penn's church he'd belonged t~the +Moravians -found out where he wuz drifted an' layin', an' wrote to +Uncle Salters. 'Never heerd what they said exactly; but Uncle +Salters was mad. He's a 'piscopolian mostly-but he jest let 'em hev +it both sides o' the bow, 's if he was a Baptist; an' sez he warn't +goin' to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection in +Pennsylvania or anywheres else. Then he come to Dad, towin' +Penn,-thet was two trips back,-an' sez he an' Penn must fish a trip +fer their health. 'Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn't hunt the +Banks fer Jacob Boiler. Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he'd +been fishin' off an' on fer thirty years, when he warn't inventin' +patent manures, an' he took quarter-share in the We're Here; an' the +trip done Penn so much good, Dad made a habit o' takin' him. +Some day, Dad sez, he'll remember his wife an' kids an' +Johnstown, an' then, like as not, he'll die, Dad sez. Don't ye talk +abaout Johnstown ner such things to Penn, 'r Uncle Salters he'll +heave ye overboard." + +"Poor Penn!" murmured Harvey. "I shouldn't ever have thought +Uncle Salters cared for him by the look of 'em together." + +"I like Penn, though; we all do," said Dan. "We ought to ha' give +him a tow, but I wanted to tell ye first." + +They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little +behind them. + +"You needn't heave in the dories till after dinner," said Troop from +the deck. "We'll dress daown right off. Fix table, boys!" + +"Deeper'n the Whale-deep," said Dan, with a wink, as he set the +gear for dressing down. "Look at them boats that hev edged up +sence mornin'. They're all waitin' on Dad. See 'em, Harve?" + +"They are all alike to me." And indeed to a landsman, the nodding +schooners around seemed run from the same mold. + +"They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit +steeved that way, she's the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her +skipper, the meanest man on the Banks. We'll tell him so when we +strike the Main Ledge. 'Way off yonder's the Day's Eye. The two +Jeraulds own her. She's from Harwich; fastish, too, an' hez good +luck; but Dad he'd find fish in a graveyard. Them other three, side +along, they're the Margie Smith, Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all +from home. 'Guess we'll see the Abbie M. Deering to-morrer, Dad, +won't we? They're all slippin' over from the shaol o' 'Oueereau." + +"You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny." When Troop +called his son Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. +"Boys, we're too crowded," he went on, addressing the crew as they +clambered inboard. "We'll leave 'em to bait big an' catch small." +He looked at the catch in the pen, and it was curious to see how +little and level the fish ran. Save for Harvey's halibut, there was +nothing over fifteen pounds on dec~ + +"I'm waitin' on the weather," he added. + +"Ye'll have to make it yourself, Disko, for there's no sign I can +see," said Long Jack, sweeping the clear horizon. + +And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the Bank +fog dropped on them, "between fish and fish," as they say. It drove +steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourless +water. The men stopped dressing-down without a word. Long Jack +and Uncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets, +and began to heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet +hempen cable strained on the barrel. Manuel and Tom Platt gave a +hand at the last. The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail +bellied as Troop steadied her at the wheel. "Up jib and foresail," +said he. + +"Slip 'em in the smother," shouted Long Jack, making fast the +jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the +foresail; and the for~boom creaked as the We're Here looked up +into the wind and dived off into blank, whirling white. + +"There's wind behind this fog," said Troop. + +It was wonderful beyond words to Harvey; and the most wonderful +part was that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from +Troop, ending with, "That's good, my son!" + +'Never seen anchor weighed before?" said Tom Platt, to Harvey +gaping at the damp canvas of the foresail. + +"No. Where are we going?" + +"Fish and make berth, as you'll find out 'fore you've been a week +aboard. It's all new to you, but we never know what may come to +us. Now, take m~Tom Platt -I'd never ha' thought~" + +"It's better than fourteen dollars a month an' a bullet in your belly," +said Troop, from the wheel. "Ease your jumbo a grind." + +"Dollars an' cents better," returned the man~ -war S man, doing +something to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. "But we didn't +think o' that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the Miss +Jim Buck, 1 outside Beau-fort Harbor, with Fort Macon heavin' +hot shot at our stern, an' a livin' gale atop of all. Where was you +then, Disko?" + +"Jest here, or hereabouts," Disko replied, "earnin' my bread on the +deep waters, an' dodgin' Reb privateers. Sorry I can't accommodate +you with red-hot shot, Tom Platt; but I guess we'll come aout all +right on wind 'fore we see Eastern Point." + +There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the bows now, +varied by a solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered +down on the foc'sle. The rigging dripped clammy drops, and the +men lounged along the lee of the house-all save Uncle Salters, who +sat stiffly on the main-hatch nursing his stung hands. + +'Guess she'd carry stays'l," said Disko, rolling one eye at his +brother. + +'Guess she wouldn't to any sorter profit. What's the sense o' wastin' +canvas?" the farmer-sailor replied. + +1 The Gemsbok, U.S.N.? + +The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands. A few +seconds later a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the +boat, smote Uncle Salters between the shoulders, and drenched +him from head to foot. He rose sputtering, and went forward only +to catch another. + +"See Dad chase him all around the deck," said Dan. "Uncle Salters +he thinks his quarter share's our canvas. Dad's put this duckin' act +up on him two trips runnin'. Hi! That found him where he feeds." +Uncle Salters had taken refuge by the foremast, but a wave +slapped him over the knees. Disko's face was as blank as the circle +of the wheel. + +"Guess she'd lie easier under stays'l, Salters," said Disko, as though +he had seen nothing. + +"Set your old kite, then," roared the victim through a cloud of +spray; "only don't lay it to me lf anything happens. Penn, you go +below right off an' git your coffee. You ought to hev more sense +than to bum araound on deck this weather." + +"Now they'll swill coffee an' play checkers till the cows come +home," said Dan, as Uncle Salters hustled Penn into the fore-cabin. +" 'Looks to me like's if we'd all be doin' so fer a spell. There's +nothin' in creation deader-limpsey-idler'n a Banker when she ain't +on fish." + +"I'm glad ye spoke, Danny," cried Long Jack, who had been casting +round in search of amusement. "I'd dean forgot we'd a passenger +under that T-wharf hat. There's no idleness for thim that don't +know their ropes. Pass him along, Tom Platt, an' we'll larn him." + +"'Tain't my trick this time," grinned Dan. "You've got to go it alone. +Dad learned me with a rope's end." + +For an hour Long Jack walked his prey up and down, teaching, as +he said, "things at the sea that ivry man must know, blind, dhrunk, +or asleep." There is not much gear to a seventy-ton schooner with a +stump-foremast, but Long Jack had a gift of expression. When he +wished to draw Harvey's attention to the peak-halyards, he dug his +knuckles into the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze for +half a minute. He emphasized the difference between fore and aft +generally by rubbing Harvey's nose along a few feet of the boom, +and the lead of each rope was fixed in Harvey's mind by the end of +the rope itself. + +The lesson would have been easier had the deck been at all free; +but there appeared to be a place on it for everything and anything +except a man. Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the +chain and hemp cables, all very unpleasant to trip over; the foc'sle +stovepipe, and the gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch to hold the +fish-livers. Aft of these the foreboom and booby of the main-hatch +took all the space that was not needed for the pumps and +dressing-pens. Then came the nests of dories lashed to ring-bolts +by the quarter-deck; the house, with tubs and oddments lashed all +around it; and, last, the sixty-foot main-boom in its crutch, splitting +things length-wise, to duck and dodge under every time. + +Tom Platt, of course, could not keep his oar out of the business, +but ranged alongside with enormous and unnecessary descriptions +of sails and spars on the old Ohio. + +"Niver mind fwhat he says; attind to me, Innocince. Tom Platt, this +bally-hoo's not the Ohio, an' you're mixing the bhoy bad." + +"He'll be ruined for life, beginnin' on a fore-an'-after this way," +Tom Platt pleaded. "Give him a chance to know a few leadin' +principles. Sailin's an art, Harvey, as I'd show you if I had ye in the +fore-top o' the-" + +"I know ut. Ye'd talk him dead an' cowld. Silince, Tom Platt! Now, +after all I've said, how'd you reef the foresail, Harve? Take your +time answerin'." + +"Haul that in," said Harvey, pointing to leeward. + +"Fwhat? The North Atlantuc?" + +"No, the boom. Then run that rope you showed me back there-" + +"That's no way," Tom Platt burst in. + +"Quiet! He's larnin', an' has not the names good yet. Go on, Harve." + +"Oh, it's the reef-pennant. I'd hook the tackle on to the +reef-pennant, and then let down-" + +"Lower the sail, child! Lower!" said Tom Platt, in a professional +agony. + +"Lower the throat and peak halyards," Harvey went on. Those +names stuck in his head. + +"Lay your hand on thim," said Long Jack. + +Harvey obeyed. "Lower till that rope-loop-on the after-leach-kris-no, +it's cringle-till the cringle was down on the boom. Then I'd tie her +up the way you said, and then I'd hoist up the peak and throat +halyards again." + +"You've forgot to pass the tack-earing, but wid time and help ye'll +larn. There's good and just reason for ivry rope aboard, or else +'twould be overboard. D'ye follow me? 'Tis dollars an' cents rm +puttin' into your pocket, ye skinny little supercargo, so that fwhin +ye've filled out ye can ship from Boston to Cuba an' tell thim Long +Jack larned you. Now I'll chase ye around a piece, callin' the ropes, +an' you'll lay your hand on thim as I call." + +He began, and Harvey, who was feeling rather tired, walked slowly +to the rope named. A rope's end licked round his ribs, and nearly +knocked the breath out of him. + +"When you own a boat," said Tom Platt, with severe. eyes, "you +can walk. Till then, take all orders at the run. Once more-to make +sure!" + +Harvey was in a glow with the exercise, and this last cut warmed +him thoroughly. Now he was a singularly smart boy, the son of a +very clever man and a very sensitive woman, with a fine resolute +temper that systematic spoiling had nearly turned to mulish +obstinacy. He looked at the other men, and saw that even Dan did +not smile. It was evidently all in the day's work, though it hurt +abominably; so he swallowed the hint with a gulp and a gasp and a +grin. The same smartness that led him to take such advantage of +his mother made him very sure that no one on the boat, except, +maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One learns a great +deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over half a dozen ropes, +and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide, one eye on +Tom Platt. + +"Ver' good. Ver' good don," said Manuel. "After supper I show you +a little schooner I make, with all her ropes. So we shall learn." + +"Fust-class fer-a passenger," said Dan. "Dad he's jest allowed you'll +be wuth your salt maybe 'fore you're draownded. Thet's a heap fer +Dad. I'll learn you more our next watch together." + +"Taller!" grunted Disko, peering through the fog as it smoked over +the bows. There was nothing to be seen ten feet beyond the surging +jib-boom, while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn, +pale waves whispering and lipping one to the other. + +"Now I'll learn you something Long Jack can't," shouted Tom +Platt, as from a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea +lead hollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of +mutton tallow, and went forward. "I'll learn you how to fly the +Blue Pigeon. Shooo!" + +Disko did something to the wheel that checked the schooner's way, +while Manuel, with Harvey to help (and a proud boy was Harvey), +let down the jib in a lump on the boom. The lead sung a deep +droning song as Tom Platt whirled it round and round. + +"Go ahead, man," said Long Jack, impatiently. "We're not drawin' +twenty-five fut off Fire Island in a fog. There's no trick to ut." + +"Don't be jealous, Galway." The released lead plopped into the sea +far ahead as the schooner surged slowly forward. + +"Soundin' is a trick, though," said Dan, "when your dipsey lead's all +the eye you're like to hev for a week. What d'you make it, Dad?" + +Disko's face relaxed. His skill and honour were involved in the +march he had stolen on the rest of the Fleet, and he had his +reputation as a master artist who knew the Banks blindfold. "Sixty, +mebbe-ef I'm any judge," he replied, with a glance at the tiny +compass in the window of the house. + +"Sixty," sung out Tom Platt, hauling in great wet coils. + +The schooner gathered way once more. "Heave!" said Disko, after +a quarter of an hour. + +"What d'you make it?" Dan whispered, and he looked at Harvey +proudly. But Harvey was too proud of his own performances to be +impressed just then. + +"Fifty," said the father. "I mistrust we're right over the nick o' +Green Bank on old Sixty-Fifty." + +"Fifty!" roared Tom Platt. They could scarcely see him through the +fog. "She's bust within a yard-like the shells at Fort Macon." + +"Bait up, Harve," said Dan, diving for a line on the reel. + +The schooner seemed to be straying promiscuously through the +smother, her headsail banging wildly. The men waited and looked +at the boys who began fishing. + +"Heugh!" Dan's lines twitched on the scored and scarred rail. "Now +haow in thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It's a big un. +Poke-hooked, too." They hauled together, and landed a +goggle-eyed twenty-pound cod. He had taken the bait right into his +stomach. + +"Why, he's all covered with little crabs," cried Harvey, turning him +over. + +"By the great hook-block, they're lousy already," said Long Jack. +"Disko, ye kape your spare eyes under the keel." + +Splash went the anchor, and they all heaved over the lines, each +man taking his own place at the bulwarks. + +"Are they good to eat?" Harvey panted, as he lugged in another +crab-covered cod. + +"Sure. When they're lousy it's a sign they've all been herdin' +together by the thousand, and when they take the bait that way +they're hungry. Never mind how the bait sets. They'll bite on the +bare hook." + +"Say, this is great!" Harvey cried, as the fish came in gasping and +splashing-nearly all poke-hooked, as Dan had said. "Why can't we +always fish from the boat instead of from the dories?" + +"Allus can, till we begin to dress daown. Efter thet, the heads and +offals 'u'd scare the fish to Fundy. Boatfishin' ain't reckoned +progressive, though, unless ye know as much as dad knows. Guess +we'll run aout aour trawl to-night. Harder on the back, this, than +frum the dory, ain't it?" + +It was rather back-breaking work, for in a dory the weight of a cod +is water-borne till the last minute, and you are, so to speak, abreast +of him; but the few feet of a schooner's freeboard make so much +extra dead-hauling, and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the +stomach. But it was wild and furious sport so long as it lasted; and +a big pile lay aboard when the fish ceased biting. + +"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters?" Harvey asked, slapping the +slime off his oilskins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation +of the others. + +"Git 's coffee and see." + +Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post, the foc'sle +table down and opened, utterly unconscious of fish or weather, sat +the two men, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters +snarling at Penn's every move. + +"What's the matter naow?" said the former, as Harvey, one hand in +the leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the +cook. + +"Big fish and lousy-heaps and heaps," Harvey replied, quoting +Long Jack. "How's the game?" + +Little Penn's jaw dropped. " 'Tweren't none o' his fault," snapped +Uncle Salters. "Penn's deef." + +"Checkers, weren't it?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with the +steaming coffee in a tin pail. "That lets us out o' cleanin' up +to-night. Dad's a jest man. They'll have to do it." + +"An' two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o' trawl, while +they're cleanin'," said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste. + +"Um! Guess I'd ruther clean up, Dad." + +"Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress daown! Dress daown! +Penn'll pitch while you two bait up." + +"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?" +said Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. "This knife '5 +gum-blunt, Dan." + +"Ef stickin' out cable don't wake ye, guess you'd better hire a boy +o' your own," said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs +full of trawl-line lashed to windward of the house. "Oh, Harve, +don't ye want to slip down an' git 's bait?" + +"Bait ez we are," said Disko. "I mistrust shag-fishin' will pay +better, ez things go." + +That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as +the fish were cleaned-an improvement on paddling bare-handed in +the little bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line +carrying a big hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of +every single hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it +should run clear when shot from the dory, was a scientific +business. Dan managed it in the dark, without looking, while +Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs and bewailed his fate. But +the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like tatting on an old maid's +lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore I could well walk," he said. +"But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh, Dad!" This shouted +towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom P1att were salting. "How +many skates you reckon we'll need?" + +"'Baout three. Hurry!" + +"There's three hundred fathom to each tub," Dan explained; +"more'n enough to lay out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I did." +He stuck his finger in his mouth. "I tell you, Harve, there ain't +money in Gloucester 'u'd hire me to ship on a reg'lar trawler. It may +be progressive, but, barrin' that, it's the putterin'est, slimjammest +business top of earth." + +"I don't know what this is, if 'tisn't regular trawling," said Harvey +sulkily. "My fingers are all cut to frazzles." + +"Pshaw! This is just one o' Dad's blame experirnents. He don't +trawl 'less there's mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet's why +he's baitin' ez he is. We'll hev her saggin' full when we take her up +er we won't see a fin." + +Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the +boys profited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom +Platt and Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory +with a lantern, snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some +small, painted trawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what +Harvey regarded as an exceedingly rough sea. "They'll be drowned. +Why, the dory's loaded like a freight-car," he cried. + +"We'll be back," said Long Jack, "an' in case you'll not be lookin' +for us, we'll lay into you both if the trawl's snarled." + +The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemed +impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's +side, slid over the ridge, and was swallowed up in the damp dusk. + +"Take ahold here, an' keep ringin' steady," said Dan, passing +Harvey the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass. + +Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But +Disko in the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a +murderer, and when he went to supper he even smiled dryly at the +anxious Harvey. + +"This ain't no weather," said Dan. "Why, you an' me could set thet +trawl! They've only gone out jest far 'nough so's not to foul our +cable. They don't need no bell reelly." + +"Clang! clang! clang!" Harvey kept it up, varied with occasional +rub-a-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bump +alongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory-tackle; +Long Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together, it seemed, one +half the North Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them +in the air, landing with a clatter. + +"Nary snarl," said Tom Platt as he dripped. "Danny, you'll do yet." + +"The pleasure av your comp'ny to the banquit," said Long Jack, +squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant +and stuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey's face. "We do be +condescending to honour the second half wid our presence." And +off they all four rolled to supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to +the brim on fish-chowder and fried pies, and fell fast asleep just as +Manuel produced from a locker a lovely two-foot model of the +Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and was going to show Harvey the +ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingers as Penn pushed him +into his bunk. + +"It must be a sad thing-a very sad thing," said Penn, watching the +boy's face, "for his mother and his father, who think he is dead. To +lose a child-to lose a man-child!" + +"Git out o' this, Penn," said Dan. "Go aft and finish your game +with Uncle Salters. Tell Dad I'll stand Harve's watch ef he don't +keer. He's played aout" + +"Ver' good boy," said Manuel, slipping out of his boots and +disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. "Expec' he +make good man, Danny. I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he +says. Eh, wha-at?" + +Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore. + +It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder men +stretched their watches. The hour struck clear in the cabin; the +nosing bows slapped and scuffed with the seas; the foc'sle +stove-pipe hissed and sputtered as the spray caught it; and the boys +slept on, while Disko, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, +each in turn, stumped alt to look at the wheel, forward to see that +the anchor held, or to veer out a little more cable against chafing, +with a glance at the dim anchor-light between each round. + +CHAPTER IV + +Harvey waked to find the "first half" at breakfast, the foc'sle door +drawn to a crack, and every square inch of the schooner singing its +own tune. The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny +galley over the glare of the stove, and the pots and pans in the +pierced wooden board before it jarred and racketed to each plunge. +Up and up the foc'sle climbed, yearning and surging and quivering, +and then, with a clear, sickle-like swoop, came down into the seas. +He could hear the flaring bows cut and squelch, and there was a +pause ere the divided waters came down on the deck above, like a +volley of buckshot. Followed the woolly sound of the cable in the +hawse-hole; and a grunt and squeal of the windlass; a yaw, a punt, +and a kick, and the We're Here gathered herself together to repeat +the motions. + +"Now, ashore," he heard Long Jack saying, "ye've chores, an' ye +must do thim in any weather. Here we're well clear of the fleet, an' +we've no chores-an' that's a blessin'. Good night, all." He passed +like a big snake from the table to his bunk, and began to smoke. +Tom Platt followed his example; Uncle Salters, with Penn, fought +his way up the ladder to stand his watch, and the cook set for the +"second half." + +It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs, with a +shake and a yawn. It ate till it could eat no more; and then Manuel +filled his pipe with some terrible tobacco, crotched himself +between the pawl-post and a forward bunk, cocked his feet up on +the table, and smiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke. Dan +lay at length in his bunk, wrestling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped +accordion, whose tunes went up and down with the pitching of the +We're Here. The cook, his shoulders against the locker where he +kept the fried pies ([)an was fond of fried pies), peeled potatoes, +with one eye on the stove in event of too much water finding its +way down the pipe; and the general smell and smother were past +all description. + +Harvey considered affairs, wondered that he was not deathly sick, +and crawled into his bunk again, as the softest and safest place, +while Dan struck up, "I don't want to play in your yard," as +accurately as the wild jerks allowed. + +"How long is this for?" Harvey asked of Manuel. + +"Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl. Perhaps +to-night. Perhaps two days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?" + +"I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn't seem to +upset me now-much." + +"That is because we make you fisherman, these days. If I was you, +when I come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for +my good luck." + +"Give who?" + +"To be sure-the Virgin of our Church on the Hill. She is very good +to fishermen all the time. That is why so few of us Portugee men +ever are drowned." + +"You're a Roman Catholic, then?" + +"I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist, +then? Eh, wha-at? I always give candles-two, three more when I +come to Gloucester. The good Virgin she never forgets me, +Manuel." + +"I don't sense it that way," Tom Platt put in from his bunk, his +scarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe. +"It stands to reason the sea's the sea; and you'll get jest about what's +goin', candles or kerosene, fer that matter." + +"'Tis a mighty good thing," said Long Jack, "to have a find at +coort, though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin' About tin years back +I was crew to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's +Ledge wid a northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. +The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez +to myself, 'If iver I stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show +the saints fwhat manner o' craft they saved me out av.' Now, I'm +here, as ye can well sec, an' the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, +that took me a month to make, I gave ut to the priest, an' he hung +ut up forninst the altar. There's more sense in givin' a model that's +by way o' bein' a work av art than any candle. Ye can buy candles +at store, but a model shows the good saints ye've tuk trouble an' are +grateful." + +"D'you believe that, Irish?" said Tom Platt, turning on his elbow. + +"Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?" + +"Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o' the old Ohio, and she's +to Calem museum now. Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess +Enoch he never done it fer no sacrifice; an' the way I take it is~" + +There were the makings of an hour-long discussion of the kind that +fishermen love, where the talk runs in shouting circles and no one +proves anything at the end, had not Dan struck up this cheerful +rhyme: + +"Up jumped the mackerel with his stripe'd back. +Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack; For it's windy +weather--" + + Here Long Jack joined in: + + And it's blowy weather; +When the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together!" + + Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom Platt, holding the +accordion low in the bunk: + +"Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head, +Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead; +For it's windy weather," etc. + +Tom Platt seemed to be hunting for sometliing. Dan crouched +lower, but sang louder: + +"Up jumped the flounder that swims to the ground. +Chuckle-head! Chuckle-head! Mind where ye sound!" + +Tom Platt's huge rubber boot whirled across the foc'sle and caught +Dan's uplifted arm. There was war between the man and the boy +ever since Dan had discovered that the mere whistling of that tune +would make him angry as he heaved the lead. + +"Thought I'd fetch yer," said Dan, returning the gift with precision. +"Ef you don't like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain't goin' to lie +here all day an' listen to you an' Long Jack arguin' 'baout candles. +Fiddle, Tom Platt; or I'll learn Harve here the tune!" + +Tom Platt leaned down to a locker and brought up an old white +fiddle. Manuel's eye glistened, and from somewhere behind the +pawl-post he drew out a tiny, guitar-like thing with wire strings, +which he called a machette. + +'Tis a concert," said Long Jack, beaming through the smoke. "A +reg'lar Boston concert." + +There was a burst of spray as the hatch opened, and Disko, in +yellow oilskins, descended. + +"Ye're just in time, Disko. Fwhat's she doin' outside?" + +"Jest this!" He dropped on to the lockers with the push and heave +of the We're Here. + +"We're singin' to kape our breakfasts down. Ye'll lead, av course, +Disko," said Long Jack. + +"Guess there ain't more'n 'baout two old songs I know, an' ye've +heerd them both." + +His excuses were cut short by Tom Platt launching into a most +dolorous tune, like unto the moaning of winds and the creaking of +masts. With his eyes fixed on the beams above, Disko began this +ancient, ancient ditty, Tom Platt flourishing all round him to make +the tune and words fit a little: + +"There is a crack packet-crack packet o' fame, +She hails from Noo York, an' the Dreadnought's her +name. + +Youmay talk o' your fliers-Swallowtail and Black +Ball- +But the Dreadnought's the packet that can beat them +all. + +"Now the Dreadnought she lies in the River Mersey, Because of +the tug-boat to take her to sea; + +But when she's off soundings you shortly will know + +(Chorus.) + +She's the Liverpool packet~ Lord, let her go! + +"Now the Dreadnought she's howlin' crost the Banks o' +Newfoundland, + +Where the water's all shallow and the bottom's all sand. +Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro: + +(Chorus.) + +'She's the Liverpool packet- Lord, let her go!'', + +There were scores of verses, for he worked the Dreadnought every +mile of the way between Liverpool and New York as +conscientiously as though he were on her deck, and the accordion +pumped and the fiddle squeaked beside him. Tom Platt followed +with something about "the rough and tough McGinn, who would +pilot the vessel in." Then they called on Harvey, who felt very +flattered, to contribute to the entertainment; but all that he could +remember were some pieces of "Skipper Ireson's Ride" that he had +been taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. It seemed that +they might be appropriate to the time and place, but he had no +more than mentioned the title when Disko brought down one foot +with a bang, and cried, "Don't go on, young feller. That's a +mistaken jedgment-one o' the worst kind, too, becaze it's catchin' to +the ear." + +"I orter ha' warned you," said Dan. "Thet allus fetches Dad." + +"What's wrong?" said Harvey, surprised and a little angry. + +"All you're goin' to say," said Disko. "All dead wrong from start to +finish, an' Whittier he's to blame. I have no special call to right any +Marblehead man, but 'tweren't no fault o' Ireson's. My father he +told me the tale time an' again, an' this is the way 'twuz." + +"For the wan hundredth time," put in Long Jack under his breath + +"Ben Ireson he was skipper o' the Betty, young feller, comin' home +frum the Banks-that was before the war of 1812, but jestice is +jestice at all times. They fund the Active o' Portland, an' Gibbons +o' that town he was her skipper; they fund her leakin' off Cape Cod +Light. There was a terr'ble gale on, an' they was gettin' the Betty +home's fast as they could craowd her. Well, Ireson he said there +warn't any sense to reskin' a boat in that sea; the men they wouldn't +hev it; and he laid it before them to stay by the Active till the sea +run daown a piece. They wouldn't hev that either, hangin' aracund +the Cape in any sech weather, leak or no leak. They jest up stays'l +an' quit, nat'rally takin' Ireson with 'em. Folks to Marblehead was +mad at him not runnin' the risk, and becaze nex' day, when the sea +was ca'am (they never stopped to think o' that), some of the +Active's folks was took off by a Truro man. They come into +Marblehead with their own tale to tell, sayin' how Ireson had +shamed his town, an' so forth an' so on, an' Ireson's men they was +scared, seein' public feelin' agin' 'em, an' they went back on Ireson, +an' swore he was respons'ble for the hull act. 'Tweren't the women +neither that tarred and feathered him-Marblehead women don't act +that way-'twas a passel o' men an' boys, an' they carted him +aranund town in an old dory till the bottom fell aout, and Ireson he +told 'em they'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the facts come aout +later, same's they usually do, too late to be any ways useful to an +honest man; an' Whittier he come along an' picked up the slack +eend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over +onct more after he was dead. 'Twas the only tune Whittier ever +slipped up, an' 'tweren't fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought +that piece back from school. You don't know no better, o' course; +but I've give you the facts, hereafter an' evermore to be +remembered. Ben Ireson weren't no sech kind o' man as Whittier +makes aout; my father he knew him well, before an' after that +business, an' you beware o' hasty jedgments, young feller. Next!" + +Harvey had never heard Disko talk so long, and collapsed with +burning cheeks; but, as Dan said promptly, a boy could ouly learn +what he was taught at school, and life was too short to keep track +of every lie along the coast. + +Then Manuel touched the jangling, jarring little machette to a +queer tune, and sang something in Portuguese about "Nina, +innocente!" ending with a full-handed sweep that brought the song +up with a jerk. Then Disko obliged with his second song, to an +old-fashioned creaky tune, and all joined in the chorus. This is one +stanza: + +"Now Aprile is over and melted the snow, +And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow; +Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear, +We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear.'t + +Here the fiddle went very softly for a while by itself, and then: + +"Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin, +Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea; +Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin, +When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!" + + That made Harvey almost weep, though he could not tell why. But +it was much worse when the cook dropped the potatoes and held +out his hands for the fiddle. Still leaning against the locker door, +he struck into a tune that was like something very bad but sure to +happen whatever you did. After a little he sang, in an unknown +tongue, his big chin down on the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs +glaring in the lam~light. Harvey swung out of his bunk to hear +better; and amid the straining of the timbers and the wash of the +waters the tune crooned and moaned on, like lee surf in a blind +fog, till it ended with a wail. + +"Jimmy Christmas! Thet gives me the blue creevles," said Dan. +"What in thunder is it?" + +"The song of Fin McCoul," said the cook, "when he wass going to +Norway." His English was not thick, but all clear-cut, as though it +came from a phonograph. + +"Faith, I've been to Norway, but I didn't make that unwholesim +noise. 'Tis like some of the old songs, though," said Long Jack, +sighing. + +"Don't let's hev another 'thout somethin' between," said Dan; and +the accordion struck up a rattling, catchy tune that ended: + +"It's six an' twenty Sundays sence las' we saw the land, +With fifteen hunder quintal, +An' fifteen hunder quintal, +'Teen hunder toppin' quintal, +'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand!" + +"Hold on!" roared Tom Platt. "D'ye want to nail the trip, Dan? +That's Jonah sure, 'less you sing it after all our salt's wet." + +"No, 'tain't Is it, Dad? Not unless you sing the very las' verse. You +can't learn me anything on Jonahs!" + +"What's that?" said Harvey. "What's a Jonah?" + +"A Jonah's anything that spoils the luck. Sometimes it's a +man-sometimes it's a boy-or a bucket. I've known a splittin'-knife +Jonah two trips till we was on to her," said Tom Platt. "There's all +sorts o' Jonahs. Jim Bourke was one till he was drowned on +Georges. I'd never ship with Jim Bourke, not if I was starin'. There +wuz a green dory on the Ezra Flood. Thet was a Jonah, too, the +worst sort o' Jonah. Drowned four men, she did, an' used to shine +fiery 0, nights in the nest" + +"And you believe that?" said Harvey, remembering what Tom Platt +had said about candles and models. "Haven't we all got to take +what's served?" + +A mutter of dissent ran round the bunks. "Outboard, yes; inboard, +things can happen," said Disko. "Don't you go makin' a mock of +Jonahs, young feller." + +"Well, Harve ain't no Jonah. Day after we catched him," Dan cut +in, "we had a toppin' good catch." + +The cook threw up his head and laughed suddenly-a queer, thin +laugh. He was a most disconcerting nigger. + +"Murder!" said Long Jack. "Don't do that again, doctor. We ain't +used to ut" + +"What's wrong?" said Dan. "Ain't he our mascot, and didn't they +strike on good after we'd struck him?" + +"Oh! yess," said the cook. "I know that, but the catch iss not finish +yet." + +"He ain't goin' to do us any harm," said Dan, hotly. "Where are ye +hintin' an' edgin' to? He's all right" + +"No harm. No. But one day he will be your master, Danny." + +"That all?" said Dan, placidly. "He wun't-not by a jugful." + +"Master!" said the cook, pointing to Harvey. "Man!" and he +pointed to Dan. + +"That's news. Haow soon?" said Dan, with a laugh. + +"In some years, and I shall see it. Master and man-man and +master." + +"How in thunder d'ye work that out?" said Tom Platt. + +"In my head, where I can see." + +"Haow?" This from all the others at once. + +"I do not know, but so it will be." He dropped his head, and went +on peeling the potatoes, and not another word could they get out of +him. + +"Well," said Dan, "a heap o' things'll hev to come abaout 'fore +Harve's any master o' mine; but I'm glad the doctor ain't choosen to +mark him for a Jonah. Now, I mistrust Uncle Salters fer the +Jonerest Jonah in the Fleet regardin' his own special luck. Dunno +ef it's spreadin' same's smallpox. He ought to be on the Carrie +Pitman. That boat's her own Jonah, sure-crews an' gear made no +differ to her driftin'. Jiminy Christmas! She'll etch loose in a flat +ca'am." + +"We're well clear o' the Fleet, anyway," said Disko. "Carrie +Pitman an' all." There was a rapping on the deck. + +"Uncle Salters has catched his luck," said Dan as his father +departed. + +"It's blown clear," Disko cried, and all the foc'sle tumbled up for a +bit of fresh air. The fog had gone, but a sullen sea ran in great +rollers behind it. The We're Here slid, as it were, into long, sunk +avenues and ditches which felt quite sheltered and homelike if they +would only stay still; but they changed without rest or mercy, and +flung up the schooner to crown one peak of a thousand gray hills, +while the wind hooted through her rigging as she zigzagged down +the slopes. Far away a sea would burst into a sheet of foam, and +the others would follow suit as at a signal, till Harvey's eyes swam +with the vision of interlacing whites and grays. Four or five Mother + +Carey's chickens stormed round in circles, shrieking as they swept +past the bows. A rain-squall or two strayed aimlessly over the +hopeless waste, ran down 'wind and back again, and melted away. + +"Seerns to me I saw somethin' flicker jest naow over yonder," said +Uncle Salters, pointing to the northeast. + +"Can't be any of the fleet," said Disko, peering under his eyebrows, +a hand on the foc'sle gangway as the solid bows hatcheted into the +troughs. "Sea's oilin' over dretful fast. Danny, don't you want to +skip up a piece an' see how aour trawl-buoy lays?" + +Danny, in his big boots, trotted rather than climbed up the main +rigging (this consumed Harvey with envy), hitched himself around +the reeling cross-trees, and let his eye rove till it caught the tiny +black buoy-flag on the shoulder of a mile-away swell. + +"She's all right," he hailed. "Sail 0! Dead to the no'th'ard, corain' +down like smoke! Schooner she be, too.',. + +They waited yet another half-hour, il~e sky clearing in patches, +with a flicker of sickly sun from time to time that made patches of +olive-green water. Then a stump-foremast lifted, ducked, and +disappeared, to. be followed on the next wave by a high stern with +old-fash-ioned wooden snail's-horn davits. The snails were +red-tanned. + +"Frenchmen!" shouted Dan. "No, 'tain't, neither. Daad!" + + +'That's no French," said Disko. "Salters, your blame luck holds +tighter'n a screw in a keg-head." + +"I've eyes. It's Uncle Abishai." + +"You can't nowise tell fer sure." + +"The head-king of all Jonahs," groaned Tom Platt. "Oh, Salters, +Salters, why wasn't you abed an' asleep?" + +"How could I tell?" said poor Salters, as the schooner swung up. + +She might have been the very Flying Dutchman, so foul, draggled, +and unkempt was every rope and stick aboard. Her old-style +quarterdeck was some or five feet high, and her rigging flew +knotted and tangled like weed at a wharf-end. She was running +before the wind-yawing frightfully-her staysail let down to act as a +sort of extra foresail,-"scandalized," they call it,-and her foreboom +guyed out over the side. Her bowsprit cocked up like an +old-fashioned frigate's; her jib-boom had been fished and s~iced +and nailed and clamped beyond further repair; and as she hove +herself forward, and sat down on her broad tail, she looked for all +the world like a blouzy, frouzy, bad old woman sneering at a +decent girl. + +"That's Abishal," said Salters. "Full o' gin an' Judique men, an' the +judgments o' Providence layin' fer him an' never takin' good holt +He's run in to bait, Miquelon way." + +"He'll run her under," said Long Jack. "That's no rig fer this +weather." + +"Not he, 'r he'd'a done it long ago," Disko replied. "Looks 's if he +cal'lated to run us under. Ain't she daown by the head more 'n +natural, Tom Platt?" + +"Ef it's his style o' loadin' her she ain't safe," said the sailor slowly. +"Ef she's spewed her oakum he'd better git to his pumps mighty +quick." + +The creature threshed up, wore round with a clatter and raffle, and +lay head to wind within ear-shot. + +A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, and a thick voice yelled +something Harvey could not understand. But Disko's face +darkened. "He'd resk every stick he hez to carry bad news. Says +we're in fer a shift o' wind. He's in fer worse. Abishai! Abi-shai!" +He waved his arm up and down with the gesture of a man at the +pumps, and pointed forward. The crew mocked him and laughed. + +"Jounce ye, an' strip ye an' trip ye!" yelled Uncle Abishal. "A livin' +gale-a livin' gale. Yab! Cast up fer your last trip, all you Gloucester +haddocks. You won't see Gloucester no more, no more!" + +"Crazy full-as usual," said Tom Platt. "Wish he hadn't spied us, +though." + +She drifted out of hearing while the gray-head yelled something +about a dance at the Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc'sle. +Harvey shuddered. He had seen the sloven tilled decks and the +savage-eyed crew. + +"An' that's a fine little floatin' hell fer her draught," said Long Jack. +"I wondher what mischief he's been at ashore." + +"He's a trawler," Dan explained to Harvey, "an' he runs in fer bait +all along the coast. Oh, no, not home, he don't go. He deals along +the south an' east shore up yonder." He nodded in the direction of +the pitiless Newfoundland beaches. "Dad won't never take me +ashore there. They're a mighty tough crowd-an' Abishal's the +toughest. You saw his boat? Well, she's nigh seventy year old, they +say; the last o' the old Marblehead heel-tappers. They don't make +them quarterdecks any more. Abishal don't use Marblehead, +though. He ain't wanted there. He jes' drif's araound, in debt, +trawlin' an' cussin' like you've heard. Bin a Jonah fer years an, +years, he hez. 'Gits liquor frum the Feecamp boats fer makin' spells +an' selling winds an' such truck. Crazy, I guess." + +'Twon't be any use underrunnin' the trawl to-night," said Tom Platt, +with quiet despair. "He come alongside special to cuss us. l'd give +my wage an' share to see him at the gangway o' the old Ohio 'fore +we quit fioggin'. Jest abaout six dozen, an' Sam Mocatta layin' 'em +on criss-cross!" + +The disheveled "heel-tapper" danced drunkenly down wind, and +all eyes followed her. Suddenly the cook cried in his phonograph +voice: "It wass his own death made him speak so! He iss fey-fey, I +tell you! Look!" She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine three or +four miles distant. The patch dulled and faded out, and even as the +light passed so did the schooner. She dropped into a hollow +and-was not. + +"Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!" shouted Disko, jumping +aft. "Drunk or sober, we've got to help 'em. Heave short and break +her out! Smart!" + +Harvey was thrown on the deck by the shock that followed the +setting of the jib and foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and +to save time, jerked the anchor bodily from the bottom, heaving +in~as they moved away. This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted +to except in matters of life and death, and the little We're Here +complained like a human. They ran down to where Abishal's craft +had vanished; found two or three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a +stove-in dory, but nothing more. "Let 'em go," said Disko, though +no one had hinted at picking them up. "I wouldn't hev a match that +belonged to Abishai aboard. Guess she run clear under. Must ha' +been spewin' her oakum fer a week, an' they never thought to pump +her. That's one more boat gone along o' leavin' port all hands +drunk." + +"Glory be!" said Long Jack. "We'd ha' been obliged to help 'em if +they was top o' water." + +"'Thinkin' o' that myself," said Tom Platt. + +"Fey! Fey!" said the cook, rolling his eyes. "He haas taken his own +luck with him." + +"Ver' good thing, I think, to tell the Fleet when we see. Eh, +wha-at?" said Manuel. "If you runna that way before the 'wind, and +she work open her seams-" He threw out his hands with an +indescribable gesture, while Penn sat down on the house and +sobbed at the sheer horror and pity of it all. Harvey could not +realize that he had seen death on the open waters, but he felt very +sick. p Then Dan went up the cross-trees, and Disko steered them +back to within sight of their own trawl-buoys just before the fog +blanketed the sea once again. + +"We go mighty quick hereabouts when we do go," was all he said +to Harvey. "You think on that fer a spell, young feller. That was +liquor." + +"After dinner it was calm enough to fish from the decks,-Penn and +Uncle Salters were very zealous this time,-and the catch was large +and large fish. + +"Abishal has shorely took his luck with him," said Salters. "The +wind hain't backed ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl? I +despise superstition, anyway." + +Tom Platt insisted that they had much better haul the thing and +make a new berth. But the cook said: "The luck iss in two pieces. +You will find it so when you look. I know." This so tickied Long +Jack that he overbore Tom Platt and the two went out together. + +Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in on one side of the dory, +picking off the fish, rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to +the sea again-something like pinning and unpinning linen on a +wash-line. It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the +long, sagging line may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when +they heard, "And naow to thee, 0 Capting," booming out of the fog, +the crew of the We're Here took heart. The dory swirled alongside +well loaded, Tom Platt yelling for Manuel to act as relief-boat. + +"The luck's cut square in two pieces," said long Jack, forking in the +fish, while Harvey stood open-mouthed at the skill with which the +plunging dory was saved from destruction. "One half was jest +punkins. Tom Platt wanted to haul her an' ha' done wid Ut; but I +said, "I'll back the doctor that has the second sight, an' the other +half come up sagging full o' big uns. Hurry, Man'nle, an' bring's a +tub o' bait. There's luck afloat to-night." + +The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from which their brethren +had just been taken, and Tom Platt and Long Jack moved +methodically up and down the length of the trawl, the boat's nose +surging under the wet line of hooks, stripping the sea-cucumbers +that they called pumpkins, slatting off the fresh-caught cod against +the gunwale, rebaiting, and loading Manuel's dory till dusk. + +"I'll take no risks," said Disko then-"not with him floatin' around so +near. Abishal won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories an' we'll +dress daown after supper." + +That was a mighty dressing-down, attended by three or four +blowing grampuses. It lasted till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice +heard to chuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish into the hold. + +"Say, you're haulin' ahead dretful fast," said Dan, when they +ground the knives after the men had turned m. "There's somethin' +of a sea to-night, an' I hain't heard you make no remarks on it." + +"Too busy," Harvey replied, testing a blade's edge. "Come to think +of it, she is a high-kicker." + +The little schooner was gambolling all around her anchor among +the silver-tipped waves. Backing with a start of affected surprise at +the sight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, +while the spray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with +the report of a gun. Shaking her head, she would say: "Well, I'm +sorry I can't stay any longer with you. I'm going North," and would +sidle off, halting suddenly with a dramatic rattle of her rigging. +"As I was just going to observe," she would begin, as gravely as a +drunken man addressing a lamp-post. The rest of the sentence (she +acted her words in dumb-show, of course) was lost in a fit of the +fidgets, when she behaved like a puppy chewing a string, a clumsy +woman in a side-saddle, a hen with her head cut off, or a cow stung +by a hornet, exactly as the whims of the sea took her. + +"See her sayin' her piece. She's Patrick Henry naow," said Dan. + +She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her +jib~boom from port to starboard. + +"But-ez-fer me, give me liberty-er give me-death!" + +Wop! She sat down in the moon-path on the water, courtesying +with a flourish of pride impressive enough had not the wheel-gear +sniggered mockingly in its box. + +Harvey laughed aloud. "Why, it's just as if she was alive," he said. + +"She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin'," said Dan +enthusiastically, as he was slung across the deck in a batter of +spray. "Fends 'em off an' fends 'em off, an' 'Don't ye come anigh +me,' she sez. Look at her-jest look at her! Sakes! You should see +one o' them toothpicks histin' up her anchor on her spike outer +fifteen-fathom water." + +"What's a toothpick, Dan?" + +"Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats. Fine's a yacht forward, +with yacht sterns to 'em, an' spike bowsprits, an' a haouse that 'u'd +take our hold. I've heard that Burgess himself he made the models +fer three or four of 'em. Dad's sot agin 'em on account o' their +pitchin' an' joltin', but there's heaps o' money in 'em. Dad can find +fish, but he ain't no ways progressive-he don't go with the march +o' the times. They're chock-full o' labour-savin' ' ech all. 'Ever +seed the Elector o' Gloucester? She's a daisy, ef she is a +toothpick." + +"What do they cost, Dan?" + +"Hills o' dollars. Fifteen thousand, p'haps; more, mebbe. There's +gold-leaf an' everything you kin think of." Then to himself, half +under his breath, "Guess I'd call her Hattie S., too." + +CHAPTER V + +That was the first of many talks with Dan, who told Harvey why he +would transfer his dory's name to the imaginary Burgess-modelled +haddocker. Harvey heard a good deal about the real Hattie at +Gloucester; saw a lock of her hair-which Dan, finding fair words +of no avail, had "hooked" as she sat in front of him at school that +winter-and a photograph. Hattie was about fourteen years old, with +an awful contempt for boys, and had been trampling on Dan's heart +through the winter. All this was revealed under oath of solemn +secrecy on moonlit decks, in the dead dark, or in choking fog; the +whining wheel behind them, the climbing deck before, and +without, the unresting, clamorous sea. Once, of course, as the boys +came to know each other, there was a fight, which raged from bow +to stern till Penn came up and separated them, but promised not to +tell Disko, who thought fighting on watch rather worse than +sleeping. Harvey was no match for Dan physically, but it says a +great deal for his new training that he took his defeat and did not +try to get even with his conqueror by underhand methods. + +That was after he had been cured of a string of boils between his +elbows and wrists, where the wet jersey and oilskins cut into the +flesh. The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they were +ripe Dan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that +now he was a "blooded Banker"; the affliction of gurry-sores being +the mark of the caste that claimed him. + +Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head with +too much thinking. He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, and +often longed to see her and above all to tell her of this wonderful +new life, and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it. +Otherwise he preferred not to wonder too much how she was +bearing the shock of his supposed death. But one day, as he stood +on the foc'sle ladder, guying the cook, who had accused him and +Dan of hooking fried pies, it occurred to him that this was a vast +improvement on being snubbed by strangers in the smoking-room +of a hired liner. + +He was a recognized part of the scheme of things on the We're +Here; had his place at the table and among the bunks; and could +hold his own in the long talks on stormy days, when the others +were always ready to listen to what they called his "fairy-tales" of +his life ashore. It did not take him more than two days and a +quarter to feel that if he spoke of his own life-it seemed very far +away-no one except Dan (and even Dan's belief was sorely tried) +credited him. So he invented a friend, a boy he had heard of, who +drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, Ohio, and ordered +five suits of clothes at a time and led things called "germans" at +parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen, but all the +presents were solid silver. Salters protested that this kind of yarn +was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, but +he listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the end +gave Harvey entirely new notions on "germans," clothes, cigarettes +with gold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, +champagne, card-playing, and hotel accommodation. Little by little +he changed his tone when speaking of his "friend," whom long +Jack had christened "the Crazy Kid," "the Gilt-edged Baby," "the +Suckin' Vanderpoop," and other pet names; and with his +sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would even invent histories +about silk pajamas and specially imported neckwear, to the +"friend's" discredit. Harvey was a very adaptable person, with a +keen eye and ear for every face and tone about him. + +Before long he knew where Disko kept the old greencrusted +quadrant that they called the "hog-yoke"-under the bed-bag in his +bunk. When he took the sun, and with the help of "The Old +Farmer's" almanac found the latitude, Harvey would jump down +into the cabin and scratch the reckoning and date with a nail on the +rust of the stove-pipe. Now, the chief engineer of the liner could +have done no more, and no engineer of thirty years' service could +have assumed one half of the ancient-mariner air with which +Harvey, first careful to spit over the side, made public the +schooner's position for that day, and then and not till then relieved +Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette in all these things. + +The said "hog-yoke," an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac, +Blunt's "Coast Pilot," and Bowditch's "Navigator" were all the +weapons Disko needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that +was his spare eye. Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platt +taught him first how to "fly the blue pigeon"; and, though his +strength was not equal to continuous sounding in any sort of a sea, +for calm weather with a seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko +used him freely. As Dan said: + +'Tain't soundin's dad wants. It's samples. Grease her up good, +Harve." Harvey would tallow the cup at the ~end, and carefully +bring the sand, shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to Disko, +who fingered and smelt it and gave judgment As has been said, +when Disko thought of cod he thought as a cod; and by some +long-tested mixture of instinct and experience, moved the We~re +Here from berth to berth, always with the fish, as a blindfolded +chess-player moves on the unseen board. + +But Disko's board was the Grand Bank-a triangle two hundred and +fifty miles on each side-a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with +dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the +tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the +fishing-fleet. + +For days they worked in fog-Harvey at the bell-till, grown familiar +with the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, his heart rather in +his mouth. But the fog would not lift, and the fish were biting, and +no one can stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. Harvey +devoted himself to his lines and the gaff or gob-stick as Tom Platt +called for them; and they rowed back to the schooner guided by +the bell and Tom's instinct; Manuel's conch sounding thin and faint +beside them. But it was an unearthly experience, and, for the first +time in a month, Harvey dreamed of the shifting, smoking floors of +water round the dory, the lines that strayed away into nothing, and +the air above that melted on the sea below ten feet from his +straining eyes. A few days later he was out with Manuel on what +should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the whole length of the +roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing, and Harvey +grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth was lost. +"Whale-hole," said Manuel, hauling m. "That is good joke on +Disko. Come!" and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and +the others jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them +to the edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand +Bank. They made another berth through the fog, and that time the +hair of Harvey's head stood up when he went out in Manuel's dory. +A whiteness moved in the whiteness of the fog with a breath like +the breath of the grave, and there was a roaring, a plunging, and +spouting. It was his first introduction to the dread summer berg of +the Banks, and he cowered in the bottom of the boat while Manuel +laughed. There were days, though, clear and soft and warm, when +it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf over the hand-lines and +spank the drifting "sun-scalds" with an oar; and there were days of +light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steer the schooner from +one berth to another. + +It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his +band on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail +scythed back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, +in spite of Disko saying that it would break a snake's back to +follow his wake. But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were +sailing on the wind with the staysail-an old one, luckily-set, and +Harvey jammed her right into it to show Dan how completely he +had mastered the art. The foresail went over with a bang, and the +foregaff stabbed and ripped through the staysail, which was, of +course, prevented from going over by the mainstay. They lowered +the wreck in awful silence, and Harvey spent his leisure hours for +the next few days under Tom Platt's lee, learning to use a needle +and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he said, he had made the +very same blunder himself in his early days. + +Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had +combined Disko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's +swinging overhand when the lines were hauled, Manuel's +round-shouldered but effective stroke in a dory, and Tom Platt's +generous Ohio stride along the deck. + +'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut," said Long Jack, when +Harvey was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. "I'll lay +my wage an' share 'tis more'n half play-actin' to him, an' he +consates himself he's a bowld mariner. Watch his little bit av a +back now!" + +"That's the way we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they make +believe all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, +an' so till they die-pretendin' an' pretendin'. I done it on the old +Ohio, I know. Stood my first watch-harbor-watch-feelin' finer'n +Farragut. Dan's full o' the same kind o' notions. See 'em now, +actin' to be genewine moss-backs-very hair a rope-yarn an' blood +Stockholm tar." He spoke down the cabin stairs. "Guess you're +mistook in your judgments fer once, Disko. What in Rome made +ye tell us all here the kid was crazy?" + +"He wuz," Disko replied. "Crazy ez a loon when he come aboard; +but I'll say he's sobered up consid'ble sence. I cured him." + +"He yarns good," said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaout a +kid of his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up an' +down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppers to a crowd o' +sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. He +knows scores of 'em." + +"Guess he strikes 'em outen his own head," Disko called from the +cabin, where he was busy with the logbook. "Stands to reason that +sort is all made up. It don't take in no one but Dan, an' he laughs at +it. I've heard him, behind my back." + +"Yever hear what Sim'on Peter Ca'honn said when they whacked +up a match 'twix' his sister Hitty an' Lorin' Jerauld, an' the boys put +up that joke on him daown to Georges?" drawled Uncle Salters, +who was dripping peaceably under the lee of the starboard +dory-nest. + +Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a Cape +Cod man, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. +Uncle Salters went on with a rasping chuckie: + +"Sim'on Peter Ca'honn he said, an' he was jest right, abaout Lorin', +'Ha'af on the taown,' he said, 'an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' they +told me she's married a 'ich man.' Sim'on Peter Ca'honn he hedn't +no roof to his mouth, an' talked that way." + +"He didn't talk any Pennsylvania Dutch," Tom Platt replied. "You'd +better leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Ca'houns was gypsies +frum 'way back." + +"Wal, I don't profess to be any elocutionist," Salters said. "I'm +comin' to the moral o' things. That's jest abaout what aour Harve +be! Ha'af on the taown, an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' there's +some'll believe he's a rich man. Yah!" + +"Did ye ever think how sweet 'twould be to sail wid a full crew o' +Salterses?" said Long Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'af in the +muck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' makes out he's a +fisherman!" + +A little laugh went round at Salters's expense. + +Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the log-book that he kept +in a hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that ran +on, page after soiled page: + +"July 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to +northward. So ends this day. + +'July 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish. + +"July 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N.E. and fine +weather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish. + +"July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So +ends this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478." + +They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed +themselves if it were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or +twice he suggested that, if ft was not an impertinence, he thought +he could preach a little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his +throat at the mere notion, reminding him that he was not a +preacher and mustn't think of such things. "We'd hev him +rememberin' Johns-town next," Salters explained, "an' what would +happen then?" so they compromised on his reading aloud from a +book called "Josephus." It was an old leather-bound volume, +smelling of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like the Bible, +but enlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it +nearly from cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a silent little +body. He would not utter a word for three days on end sometimes, +though he played checkers, listened to the songs, and laughed at +the stories. When they tried to stir him up, he would answer: "I +don't wish to seem unneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing +to say. My head feels quite empty. I've almost forgotten my name." +He would turn to Uncle Salters with an expectant smile. + +"Why, Pennsylvania Pratt," Salters would shout "You'll fergit me +next!" + +"No-never," Penn would say, shutting his lips firmly. +"Pennsylvania Pratt, of course," he would repeat over and over. +Sometimes it was Uncle Salters who forgot, and told him he was +Haskins or Rich or McVitty; but Penn was equally content-till next +time. + +He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as a +lost child and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn liked +the boy, he relaxed, too. Salters was not an amiable person (He +esteemed it his business to keep the boys in order); and the first +time Harvey, in fear and trembling, on a still day, managed to shin +up to the main-truck (')an was behind him ready to help), he +esteemed it his duty to hang Salters's big sea-boots up there-a sight +of shame and derision to the nearest schooner. With Disko, Harvey +took no liberties; not even when the old man dropped direct +orders, and treated him, like the rest of the crew, to "Don't you +want to do so and so?" and "Guess you'd better," and so forth. +There was something about the clean-shaven lips and the puckered +corners of the eyes that was mightily sobering to young blood. + +Disko showed him the meaning of the thumbed and pricked chart, +which, he said, laid over any government publication whatsoever; +led him, pencil in hand, from berth to berth over the whole string +of banks-Le Have, Western, Banquereau, St. Pierre, Green, and +Grand -talking "cod" meantime. Taught him, too, the principle on +which the "hog-yoke" was worked. + +In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head for +figures, and the notion of stealing information from one glimpse of +the sullen Bank sun appealed to all his keen wits. For other +sea-matters his age handicapped him. As Disko said, he should +have begun when he was ten. Dan could bait up trawl or lay his +hand on any rope in the dark; and at a pinch, when Uncle Salters +had a gurry-score on his palm, could dress down by sense of touch. +He could steer in anything short of half a gale from the feel of the +wind on his face, humouring the We're Here just when she needed +it These things he did as automatically as he skipped about the +rigging, or made his dory a part of his own will and body. But he +could not communicate his knowledge to Harvey. + +Still there was a good deal of general information flying about the +schooner on stormy days, when they lay up in the foc'sle or sat on +the cabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, leads, and rings rolled and +rattled in the pauses of the talk. Disko spoke of whaling voyages in +the Fifties; of great she-whales slain beside their young; of death +agonies on the black tossing seas, and blood that spurted forty feet +in the air; of boats smashed to splinters; of patent rockets that went +off wrong-end-first and bombarded the trembling crews; of +cutting-in and boiling-down, and that terrible "nip" of '71, when +twelve hundred men were made homeless on the ice in three +days-wonderful tales, all true. But more wonderful still were his +stories of the cod, and how they argued and reasoned on their +private businesses deep down below the keel. + +Long Jack's tastes ran more to the supernatural. He held them +silent with ghastly stories of the "Yo-hoes" on Monomoy Beach, +that mock and terrify lonely clam-diggers; of sand-walkers and +dune-haunters who were never properly buried; of hidden treasure +on Fire Island guarded by the spirits of Kidd's men; of ships that +sailed in the fog straight over Truro township; of that harbor in +Maine where no one but a stranger will lie at anchor twice in a +certain place because of a dead crew who row alongside at +midnight with the anchor in the bow of their old-fashioned boat, +whistling-not calling, hut whistling-for the soul of the man who +broke their regt. + +Harvey had a notion that the east coast of his native land, from +Mount Desert south, was populated chiefly by people who took +their horses there in the summer and entertained in country-houses +with hardwood floors and Vantine portires. He laughed at the +ghost-tales,-not as much as he would have done a month +before,-but ended by sifting still and shuddering. + +Tom Platt dealt with his interminable trip round the Horn on the +old Ohio in flogging days, with a navy more extinct than the +dodo-the navy that passed away in the great war. He told them how +red-hot shot are dropped into a cannon, a wad of wet clay between +them and the cartridge; how they sizzle and reek when they strike +wood, and how the little ship-boys of the Miss Jim Buck hove +water over them and shouted to the fort to try again. And he told +tales of blockade-long weeks of swaying at anchor, varied only by +the departure and return of steamers that had used up their coal +(there was no chance for the sailing-ships); of gales and cold~ld +that kept two hundred men, night and day, pounding and chopping +at the ice on cable, blocks, and rigging, when the galley was as +red-hot as the fort's shot, and men drank cocoa by the bucket Tom +Platt had no use for steam. His service closed when that thing was +comparatively new. He admitted that it was a specious invention in +time of peace, but looked hope-fully for the day when sails should +come back again on ten-thousand-ton frigates with +hundred-and-ninety-foot booms. + +Manuel's talk was slow and gentle-all about pretty girls in Madeira +washing clothes in the dry beds of streams, by moonlight, under +waving bananas; legends of saints, and tales of queer dances or +fights away in the cold Newfoundland baiting-ports Salters was +mainly agricultural; for, though he read "Josephus" and expounded +it, his mission in life was to prove the value of green manures, and +specially of clover, against every form of phosphate whatsoever. +He grew libellous about phosphates; he dragged greasy "Orange +Judd" books from his bunk and intoned them, wagging his finger at +Harvey, to whom it was all Greek. Little Penn was so genuinely +pained when Harvey made fun of Salters's lectures that the boy +gave it up, and suffered in polite silence. That was very good for +Harvey. + +The cook naturally did not loin in these conversations. As a rule, +he spoke only when it was absolutely necessary; but at times a +queer gift of speech descended on him, and he held forth, half in +Gaelic, half in broken English, an hour at a time. He was +especially communicative with the boys, and he never withdrew +his prophecy that one day Harvey would be Dan's master, and that +he would see it. He told them of mall-carrying in the 'winter up +Cape Breton way, of the dog-train that goes to Coudray, and of the +ram-steamer Arctic, that breaks the ice between the mainland and +Prince Edward Island. Then he told them stories that his mother +had told him, of life far to the southward, where water never froze; +and he said that when he died his soul would go to lie down on a +warm white beach of sand with palm-trees waving above. That +seemed to the boys a very odd idea for a man who had never seen a +palm in his life. Then, too, regularly at each meal, he would ask +Harvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cooking was to his taste; +and this always made the "second half' laugh. Yet they had a great +respect for the cook's judgment, and in their hearts considered +Harvey something of a mascot by consequence. + +And while Harvey was taking in knowledge of new things at each +pore and hard health with every gulp of the good air, the We're +Here went her ways and did her business on the Bank, and the +silvery-gray kenches of well-pressed fish mounted higher and +higher in the hold. No one day's work was out of common, but the +average days were many and close together. + +Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was closely +watched-"scrowged upon," Dan called it-by his neighbours, but he +had a very pretty knack of giving them the slip through the +curdling, glidy fog-banks. Disko avoided company for two reasons. +He wished to make his own experirnents, in the first place; and in +the second, he objected to the mixed gatherings of a fleet of all +nations. The bulk of them were mamly Gloucester boats, +with a scattering from Provincetown, Harwich, Chatham, and +some of the Maine ports, but the crews drew from goodness knows +where. Risk breeds recklessness, and when greed is added there +are fine chances for every kind of accident in the crowded fleet, +which, like a mob of sheep, is huddled round some unrecognized +leader. "Let the two Jeraulds lead 'em," said Disko. "We're baound +to lay among 'em for a spell on the Eastern Shoals; though ef luck +holds, we won't hev to lay long. Where we are naow, Harve, ain't +considered noways good graound." + +"Ain't it?" said Harvey, who was drawing water (he had learned +just how to wiggle the bucket), after an unusually long +dressing-down. "Shouldn't mind striking some poor ground for a +change, then." + +"All the graound I want to see-don't want to strike her-is Eastern +Point," said Dan. "Say, Dad, it looks's if we wouldn't hev to lay +more'n two weeks on the Shoals. You'll meet all the comp'ny you +want then, Harve. That's the time we begin to work. No reg'lar +meals fer no one then. 'Mug-up when ye're hungry, an' sleep when +ye can't keep awake. Good job you wasn't picked up a month later +than you was, or we'd never ha' had you dressed in shape fer the +Old Virgin." + +Harvey understood from the Eldridge chart that the Old Virgin and +a nest of curiously named shoals were the turning-point of the +cruise, and that with good luck they would wet the balance of their +salt there. But seeing the size of the Virgin (it was one tiny dot), he +wondered how even Disko with the hog-yoke and the lead could +find her. He learned later that Disko was entirely equal to that and +any other business and could even help others. A big four-by-five +blackboard hung in the cabin, and Harvey never understood the +need of it till, after some blinding thick days, they heard the +unmelodious tooting of a foot-power fog-horn-a machine whose +note is as that of a consumptive elephant. + +They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their +foot to save trouble. "Square-rigger bellowin' fer his latitude," said +Long Jack. The dripping red head-sails of a bark glided out of the +fog, and the We're Here rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand. + +The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings. + +"Frenchman," said Uncle Salters, scornfully. "Miquelon boat from +St. Malo." The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I'm 'most outer +'baccy, too, Disko." + +"Same here," said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vous-backez vous! +Standez awayez, you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from- +St. Malo, eh?" + +"Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet--St. Malo! St. Pierre +et Miquelon," cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps and +laughing. Then all together, "Bord! Bord!" + +"Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetch +anywheres, exceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six +forty-nine's good enough fer them; an' I guess it's abaout right, too" + +Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in the +main-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark. + +"Seems kinder uneighbourly to let 'em swedge off like this," +Salters suggested, feeling in his pockets + +"Hev ye learned French then sence last trip?" said Disko. "I don't +want no more stone-ballast hove at us 'long 0' your callin' +Miquelon boats 'footy cochins,' same's you did off Le Have." + +"Harmon Rush he said that was the way to rise 'em. Plain United +States is good enough fer me. We're all dretful short- on tearakker. +Young feller, don't you speak French?" + +"Oh, yes," said Harvey valiantly; and he bawled: +"Hi! Say! Arretez vous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour +tabac." + +"Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed again. + +"That hit 'em. Let's heave a dory over, anyway," said Tom Platt. "I +don't exactly hold no certificates on French, but I know another +lingo that goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, an' interpret." + +The raffle and confusion when he and Harvey were hauled up the +bark's black side was indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck round +with glaring coloured prints of the Virgin-the Virgin of +Newfoundland, they called her. Harvey found his French of no +recognized Bank brand, and his conversation was limited to nods and grins. But +Tom Platt waved his arms and got along swimmingly. The captain +gave him a drink of unspeakable gin, and the opera-comique crew, +with their hairy throats, red caps, and long knives, greeted him as a +brother. Then the trade began. They had tobacco, plenty of +it-American, that had never paid duty to France. They wanted +chocolate and crackers. Harvey rowed back to arrange with the +cook and Disko, who owned the stores, and on his return the +cocoa-tins and cracker-bags were counted out by the Frenchman's +wheel. It looked like a piratical division of loot; but Tom Platt +came out of it roped with black pigtail and stuffed with cakes of +chewing and smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners swung +off into the mist, and the last Harvey heard was a gay chorus: + +"Par derriere chez ma tante, fly a un bois joli, +Et le rossignol y chante +Et le jour et la nuit.... + +Que donneriez vous, belle, +Qui 1'arnenerait ici? +Je donneral Quebec, +Sorel et Saint Denis." + +"How was it my French didn't go, and your sign-talk did?" Harvey +demanded when the batter had been distributed among the We're +Heres. + +"Sign-talk!" Platt guffawed. "Well, yes, 'twas sign-talk, but a heap +older'n your French, Harve. Them French boats are chockfull o' +Freemasons, an' that's why." + +"Are you a Freemason, then?" + +"Looks that way, don't it?" said the man-o'-war's man, stuffing his +pipe; and Harvey had another mystery of the deep sea to brood +upon. + +CHAPTER VI + +The thing that struck him most was the exceedingly casual way in +which some craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fishing-boats, as +Dan said, were naturally dependent on the courtesy and wisdom of +their neighbours; but one expected better things of steamers. That +was alter another interesting interview, when they had been chased +for three miles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, all boarded over +on the upper deck, that smelt like a thousand cattle-pens. A very +excited officer yelled at them through a speaking-trumpet, and she +lay and lollopped helplessly on the water while Disko ran the +We're Here under her lee and gave the skipper a piece of his mind. +"Where might ye be-eh? Ye don't deserve to be anywheres. You +barn-yard tramps go hoggin' the road on the high seas with no +blame consideration fer your neighbours, an' your eyes in your +coffee-cups instid o' in your silly heads." + +At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something about +Disko's own eyes. "We haven't had an observation for three days. +D'you suppose we can run her blind?" he shouted- + +"Wa-al, I can," Disko retorted. "What's come to your lead? Et it? +Can't ye smell bottom, or are them cattle too rank?" + +"What d' ye feed 'em?" said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness, +for the smell of the pens woke all the farmer in him. "They say +they fall off dretful on a v'yage. Dunno as it's any o' my business, +but I've a kind o' notion that oil-cake broke small an' sprinkled + +"Thunder!" said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over the +side. "What asylum did they let His Whiskers out of?" + + "Young feller," Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging, "let +me tell yeou 'fore we go any further that I've~" + +The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense +politeness. "Excuse me," he said, "but I've asked for my reckoning. +If the agricultural person with the hair will kindly shut his head, +the sea-green barnacle 'with the wall-eye may per-haps condescend +to enlighten us." + +"Naow you've made a show o' me, Salters," said Disko, angrily. He +could not stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped out +the latitude and longitude without more lectures. + +"Well, that's a boat-load of lunatics, sure," said the skipper, as he +rang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into +the schooner. + +"Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him an' his crowd are +abaout the likeliest I've ever seen," said Disko as the We're Here +slid away. "I was jest givin' him my jedgment on lullsikin' round +these waters like a lost child, an' you must cut in with your fool +farmin'. Can't ye never keep things sep'rate?" + +Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, winking one to the other +and full of joy; but Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till +evening, Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was practically a barn on +blue water, and Disko insisting that, even if this were the case, +decency and fisher-pride demanded that he should have kept +"things sep'rate." Long Jack stood it in silence for a time,-an angry +skipper makes an unhappy crew,-and then he spoke across the +table after supper: + +"Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?" said he. + +"They'll tell that tale agin us fer years-that's all," said Disko. +"Oil-cake sprinkled!" + +"With salt, o' course," said Salters, Impenitent, reading the +farming reports from a week-old New York paper. + +"It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's," the skipper went on. + +"Can't see Ut that way," said Long Jack, the peacemaker "Look at +here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather +cud ha' met a tramp an, over an' above givin' her her reckonin', +-over an' above that, I say,-cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent +on the management av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they +will not. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. +Double game an' twice runnin'-all to us." Dan kicked Harvey under +the table, and Harvey choked in his cup. + +"Well," said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat +plastered, "I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' mine, 'fore +I spoke." + +"An' right there," said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline and +etiquette- "right there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked him to +stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to be +anyways-what it shouldn't." + +'Dunno but that's so," said Disko, who saw his way to an +honourable retreat from a fit of the dignities. + +"Why, o' course it was so," said Salters, "you bein' skipper here; +an' I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint-not from any leadin' or +conviction, but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two +blame boys of aours." + +"Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd +done? Always those blame boys. But I wouldn't have missed the +show fer a half-share in a halibutter," Dan whispered. + +"Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate," said Disko, and the +light of new argument lit in Salters's eye as he crumbled cut plug +into his pipe. + +"There's a power av vartue in keepin' things sep'rate," said Long +Jack, intent on stilling the storm. "That's fwhat Steyning of +Steyning and Hare's f'und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on +the Manila D. Kuhn, instid o' Cap. Newton that was took with +inflam'try rheumatism an' couldn't go. Counahan the Navigator we +called him." + +"Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night 'thout a pond o' +rum somewheres in the manifest," said Tom Platt, playing up to +the lead. "He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston +lookin' fer the Lord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his +merits. Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free +fer a year or more on account of his stories. + +Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't +he?" + +"Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the Caspar McVeagh was +built; but he could niver keep things sep'rate. Steyning tuk him fer +the reason the thief tuk the hot stove-bekaze there was nothin' else +that season. The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he +whacked up an iverlastin' hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha' +floated the Manila, insurance an' all, in fwhat they stowed aboard +her. They lef' Boston Harbour for the great Grand Bank wid a +roarin' nor'wester behind 'em an' all hands full to the bung. An' the +hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did they set, an' divil a +rope did they lay hand to, till they'd seen the bottom av a +fifteen-gallon cask o' bug-juice. That was about wan week, so far +as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he told ut!) +All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an' the Marilla-'twas +summer, and they'd give her a foretopmast-struck her gait and kept +ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' thrembled over it for a +whoile, an' made out, betwix' that an' the chart an' the singin' in his +head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable Island, gettin' along +glorious, but speakin' nothin'. Then they broached another keg, an' +quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another spell. The Marilla she +lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her +lee-rail up to that time-hustlin' on one an' the same slant. But they +saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintiy they obsarved +they'd bin out a matter o' fourteen days and they mis-trusted the +Bank has suspinded payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty +fathom. 'That's me,' sez Counahan. 'That's me iv'ry time! I've run +her slat on the Bank fer you, an' when we get thirty fathom we'll +turn in like little men. Counahan is the b'y,' sez he. 'Counahan the +Navigator!' + +"Nex' cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan: 'Either the lead-line's tuk +to stretchin' or else the Bank's sunk.' + +"They hauled ut up, bein' just about in that state when ut seemed +right an' reasonable, and sat down on the deck countin' the knots, +an' gettin' her snarled up hijjus. The Marilla she'd struck her gait, +an' she hild ut, an' prisindy along came a tramp, an' Counahan +spoke her. + +'Hev ye seen any fishin'-boats now?' sez he, quite casual. + +'There's lashin's av them off the Irish coast,' sez the tramp. + +'Aah! go shake yerseif,' sez Counahan. 'Fwhat have I to do wid the +Irish coast?' + +"'Then fwhat are ye doin' here?' sez the tramp. + +'Sufferin' Christianity!' sez Counahan (he always said that whin his +pumps sucked an' he was not feelin' good)-'Sufferin' Christianity!' +he sez, 'where am I at?' + +'Thirty-five mile west-sou'west o' Cape Clear,' sez the tramp, 'if +that's any consolation to you.' + +"Counahan fetched wan jump, four feet sivin inches, measured by +the cook. + +'Consolation!' sez he, bould as brass. 'D'ye take me fer a dialect? +Thirty-five mile from Cape Clear, an' fourteen days from Boston +Light. Sufferin' Christianity, 'tis a record, an' by the same token I've +a mother to Skibbereen!' Think av ut! The gall av um! But ye see +he could niver keep things sep'rate. + +"The crew was mostly Cork an' Kerry men, barrin' one Marylander +that wanted to go back, but they called him a mutineer, an' they ran +the ould Marilla into Skibbereen, an' they had an illigant time +visitin' around with frinds on the ould sod fer a week. Thin they +wint back, an' it cost 'em two an' thirty days to beat to the Banks +again. 'Twas gettin' on towards fall, and grub was low, so +Counahan ran - her back to Boston, wid no more bones to ut." + +"And what did the firm say?" Harvey demanded. + +"Fwhat could they? The fish was on the Banks, an' Counahan was +at. T-wharf talkin' av his record trip east! They tuk their +satisfaction out av that, an' ut all came av not keepin' the crew and +the rum sep'rate in the first place; an' confusin' Skibbereen wid +'Queereau, in the second. Counahan the Navigator, rest his sowi! +He was an imprompju citizen!" + +"Once I was in the Lucy Holmes," said Manuel, in his gentle voice. +"They not want any of her feesh in Gloucester. Eh, wha-at? Give us +no price. So we go across the water, and think to sell to some Fayal +man. Then it blow fresh, and we cannot see well. Eh, wha-at? Then +it blow some mQre fresh, and we go down below and drive very +fast-no one know where. By and by we see a land, and it get some +hot. Then come two, three nigger in a brick. Eh, wha-at? We ask +where we are, and they say-now, what you all think?" + +"Grand Canary," said Disko, alter a moment. Manuel shook his +head, smiling. + +"Blanco," said Tom Platt. + +"No. Worse than that. We was below Bezagos, and the brick she +was from Liberia! So we sell our feesh there! Not bad, so? Eh, +wha-at?" + +"Can a schooner like this go right across to Africa?" said Harvey. + +"Go araound the Horn ef there's anythin' worth goin' fer, and the +grub holds aout," said Disko. "My father he run his packet, an' she +was a kind o' pinkey, abaout fifty ton, I guess,-the Rupert,-he run +her over to Greenland's icy mountains the year ha'af our fleet was +tryin' alter cod there. An' what's more, he took my mother along +with him,-to show her haow the money was earned, I presoom,-an' +they was all iced up, an' I was born at Disko. Don't remember +nothin' abaout it, o' course. We come back when the ice eased in +the spring, but they named me fer the place. Kinder mean trick to +put up on a baby, but we're all baound to make mistakes in aour +lives." + +"Sure! Sure!" said Salters, wagging his head. "All baound to make +mistakes, an' I tell you two boys here thet alter you've made a +mistake-ye don't make fewer'n a hundred a day-the next best +thing's to own up to it like men." + +Long Jack winked one tremendous wink that embraced all hands +except Disko and Salters, and the incident was closed. + +Then they made berth alter berth to the northward, the dories out +almost every day, running along the east edge of the Grand Bank in +thirty- to forty-fathom water, and fishing steadily. + +It was here Harvey first met the squid, who is one of the best +cod-baits, but uncertain in his moods. They + +88 Rudyard Kipling + +were waked out of their bunks one black night by yells of "Squid +0!" from Salters, and for an hour and a half every soul aboard hung +over his squid-jig-a piece of lead painted red and armed at the +lower end with a circle of pins bent backward like half-opened +umbrella ribs. The squid-for some unknown reason-likes, and +wraps himself round, this thing, and is hauled up ere he can escape +from the pins. But as he leaves his home he squirts first water and +next ink into his captor's face; and it was curious to see the men +weaving their heads from side to side to dodge the shot. They were +as black as sweeps when the flurry ended; but a pile of fresh squid +lay on the deck, and the large cod thinks very well of a little shiny +piece of squid tentacle at the tip of a clam-baited hook. Next day +they caught many fish, and met the Carrie Pitman, to whom they +shouted their luck, and she wanted to trade-seven cod for one +fair-sized squid; but Disko would not agree at the price, and the +Carrie dropped sullenly to leeward and anchored half a mile away, +in the hope of striking on to some for herself. + +Disco said nothing till after supper, when he sent Dan and Manuel +out to buoy the We're Here's cable and announced his intention of +turning in with the broad-axe. Dan naturally repeated these +remarks to the dory from the Carrie, who wanted to know why +they were buoying their cable, since they were not on rocky +bottom. + +"Dad sez he wouldn't trust a ferryboat within five mile o' you," +Dan howled cheerfully. + +"Why don't he git out, then? Who's hinderin'?" said the other. + +"'Cause you've jest the same ex lee-bowed him, an' he don't take that +from any boat, not to speak o' sech a driftin' gurry-butt as you be." + +"She ain't driftin' any this trip," said the man angrily, for the Carrie +Pitman had an unsavory reputation for breaking her ground- tackle. + +"Then haow d'you make berths?" said Dan. "It's her best p'int o' +sailin'. An' ef she's quit driftin', what in thunder are you doin' with +a new jib-boom?" That shot went home. + +"Hey, you Portugoosy organ-grinder, take your monkey back to +Gloucester. Go back to school, Dan Troop," was the answer. + +"0-ver-alls! 0-ver-alls!" yelled Dan, who knew that one of the +Carrie's crew had worked in an overall factory the winter before. + +"Shrimp! Gloucester shrimp! Git aout, you Novy!" + +To call a Gloucester man a Nova Scotian is not well received. Dan +answered in kind. + +"Novy yourself, ye Scrabble-towners! ye Chatham wreckers! Git +aout with your brick in your stockin'!" And the forces separated, +but Chatharn had the worst of it. + +"I knew haow 'twould be," said Disko. "She's drawed the wind +raound already. Some one oughter put a deesist on thet packet. +She'll snore till midnight, an' jest when we're gettin' our sleep she'll +strike adrift. Good job we ain't crowded with craft hereaways. But +I ain't goin' to up anchor fer Chatham. She may hold." + +The wind, which had hauled round, rose at sundown and blew +steadily. There was not enough sea, though, to disturb even a +dory's tackle, but the Carrie Pitman was a law unto herself. At the +end of the boys' watch they heard the crack-crack-crack of a huge +muzzle-loading revolver aboard her. + +"Gory, glory, hallelujah!" sung Dan. "Here she comes, Dad; +butt-end first, walkin' in her sleep same's she done on 'Queereau." + +Had she been any other boat Disko would have taken his chances, +but now he cut the cable as the Carrie Pitman, with all the North +Atlantic to play in, lurched down directly upon them. The We're +Here, under jib and riding-sail, gave her no more room than was +absolutely necessary,-Disko did not wish to spend a week hunting +for his cable,-but scuttled up into the wind as the Carrie passed +within easy hail, a silent and angry boat, at the mercy of a raking +broadside of Bank chaff. + +"Good evenin'," said Disko, raising his head-gear, "an' haow does +your garden grow?" + +"Go to Ohio an' hire a mule," said Uncle Salters. "We don't want +no farmers here." + +"Will I lend YOU my dory-anchor?" cried Long Jack. + +"Unship your rudder an' stick it in the mud," Bald Tom Platt. + +"Say!" Dan's voice rose shrill and high, as he stood on the +wheel-box. "Sa-ay! Is there a strike in the o-ver-all factory; or hev +they hired girls, ye Shackamaxons?" + +"Veer out the tiller-lines," cried Harvey, "and nail 'em to the +bottom~' That was a salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by +Tom Platt. Manuel leaned over the stern and yelled: "Johanna +Morgan play the organ! Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb +with a gesture of unspeakable contempt and derision, while little +Penn covered himself with glory by piping up: "Gee a little! Hssh! +Come here. Haw!" + +They rode on their chain for the rest of the night, a short, snappy, +uneasy motion, as Harvey found, and wasted half the forenoon +recovering the cable. But the boys agreed the trouble was cheap at +the price of triumph and glory, and they thought with grief over all +the beautiful things that they might have said to the discomfited +Carrie. + +CHAPTER VII + +Next day they fell in with more sails, all circling slowly from the +east northerly towards the west. But just when they expected to +make the shoals by the Virgin the fog shut down, and they +anchored, surrounded by the tinklings of invisible bells. There was +not much fishing, but occasionally dory met dory in the fog and +exchanged news. + +That night, a little before dawn, Dan and Harvey, who had been +sleeping most of the day, tumbled out to "hook" fried pies. There +was no reason why they should not have taken them openly; but +they tasted better so, and it made the cook angry. The heat and +smell below drove them on deck with their plunder, and they +found Disko at the bell, which he handed over to Harvey. + +"Keep her goin'," said he. "I mistrust I hear somethin'. Ef it's +anything, I'm best where I am so's to get at things." + +It was a forlorn little jingle; the thick air seemed to pinch it off, +and in the pauses Harvey heard the muffled shriek of a liner's +siren, and he knew enough of the Banks to know what that meant. +It came to him, with horrible distinctness, how a boy in a +cherry-coloured jersey-he despised fancy blazers now with all a +fisher-man's contempt-how an ignorant, rowdy boy had once +said it would be "great" if a steamer ran down a fishing-boat. +That boy had a stateroom with a hot and cold bath, and spent +ten minutes each morning picking over a gilt-edged bill of fare. +And that same boy-no, his very much older brother- was up at +four of the dim dawn in streaming, crackling oilskins, hammering, +literally for the dear life, on a bell smaller than the steward's +breakfast-bell, while somewhere close at hand a thirty-foot steel +stem was storming along at twenty miles an hour! The bitterest +thought of all was that there were folks asleep in dry, +upholstered cabins who would never learn that. they had +massacred a boat before breakfast. So Harvey rang the bell. + +"Yes, they slow daown one turn o' their blame propeller," said +Dan, applying himself to Manuel's conch, "fer to keep inside the +law, an' that's consolin' when we're all at the bottom. Hark to her! +She's a humper!" + +"Aooo-whoo-whupp!" went the siren. "Wingle-tingle-tink," went +the belL "Graaa-ouch!" went the conch, while sea and +sky were all mrned up in milky fog. Then Harvey fek that +he was near a moving body, and found himself looking up +and up at the wet edge of a cliff-like bow, leaping, it seemed, +directly over the schooner. A jaunty little feather of water curled in +front of it, and as it lifted it showed a long ladder of Roman +numerals-XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., and sd forth-on a +salmon-coloured gleaming side. It tilted forward and downward +with a heart-stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a line of +brass-rimmed port-holes flashed past; a jet of steam puffed in +Harvey's helplessly uplifted hands; a spout of hot water roared +along the rail of the We're Here, and the little schooner staggered +and shook in a rush of screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished +in the fog. Harvey got ready to faint or be sick, or both, when he +heard a crack like a trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in +his ear, a far-away telephone voice drawling: "Heave to! You've +sunk us!" + +"Is it us?" he gasped. + +"No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're goin' to look," said Dan, +running out a dory. + +In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, and the cook were +overside and away. Presently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped +clean across, drifted past the bows. Then an empty green dory +came by, knocking on the We're Here's side, as though she wished +to be taken in. Then followed something, face down, in a blue +jersey, but-it was not the whole of a man. Penn changed colour and +caught his breath with a click. Harvey pounded despairingly at the +bell, for he feared they + + + + CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS + + + + + + + + + + 93 might be sunk at any minute, and he jumped at Dan's hail as +the crew came back. + +"The Jennie Cushman," said Dan, hysterically, "cut clean in +half-graound up an' trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile +away. Dad's got the old man. There ain't any one else, and-there +was his son, too. Oh, Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I've seen-" He +dropped his head on his arms and sobbed while the others dragged +a gray-headed man aboard. + +"What did you pick me up for?" the stranger groaned. "Disko, what +did you pick me up for?" + +Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man's eyes +were wild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew. +Then up and spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or +Rich or MeVitty when Uncle Salters forgot; and his face was +changed on him from the face of a fool to the countenance of an +old, wise man, and he said in a strong voice: "The Lord gave, and +the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord! I was-I +am a minister of the Gospel. Leave him to me." + +"Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then pray my son back to +me! Pray back a nine-thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of +fish. If you'd left me alone my widow could ha' gone on to the +Provident an' worked fer her board, an' never known-an' never +known. Now I'll hev to tell her." + +"There ain't notbin' to say," said Disko. "Better lie down a piece, +Jason Olley." + +When a man has lost his only son, his summer's work, and his +means of livelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give +consolation. + +"All Gloucester men, wasn't they?" said Tom Platt, fiddling +helplessly with a dory-becket. + +"Oh, that don't make no odds," said Jason, wringing the wet from +his beard. "I'll be rowin' summer boarders araound East Gloucester +this fall." He rolled heavily to the rail, singing: + +"Happy birds that sing and fly +Round thine altars, 0 Most High!" + +"Come with me. Come below!" said Penn, as though he had a right +to give orders. Their eyes met and fought for a quarter of +a minute. + +"I dunno who you be, but I'll come," said Jason submissively. +"Mebbe I'll get back some o' the-some o' the-nine thousand +dollars." Penn led him into the cabin and slid the door behind. + +"That ain't Penn," cried Uncle Salters. "It's Jacob Boiler, an'-he's +remembered Johnstown! I never seed stich eyes in any livin' man's +head. What's to do naow? What'll I do naow?" + +They could hear Penn's voice and Jason's together. Then Penn's +went on alone, and Salters slipped off his hat, for Penn was +praying. Presently the little man came up the steps, huge drops of +sweat on his face, and looked at the crew. Dan was still sobbing by +the wheel. + +"He don't know us," Salters groaned. "It's all to do over again, +checkers and everything-an' what'll he say to me?" + +Penn spoke; they could hear that it was to strangers. "I have +prayed," said he. "Our people believe in prayer. I have prayed for +the life of this ma~'s son. Mine were drowned before my eyes-she +and my eldest and-the others. Shall a man be more wise than his +Maker? I prayed never for their lives, but I have prayed for this +man's son, and he will surely be sent him. + +Salters looked pleadingly at Penn to see if he remembered. + +"How long have I been mad?" Penn asked suddenly. His mouth +was twitching. + +"Pshaw, Penn! You weren't never mad," Salters began "Only a +little distracted like." + +"I saw the houses strike the bridge before the fires broke out. I do +not remember any more. How long ago is that?" + +"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" cried Dan, and Harvey whimpered +in sympathy. + +"Abaout five year," said Disko, in a shaking voice. + +"Then I have been a charge on some one for every day of that time. +Who was the man?" + +Disko pointed to Salters. + +"Ye hain't-ye hain't!" cried the sea-farmer, twisting his hands +together. "Ye've more'n earned your keep twice-told; an' there's +money owm' you, Penn, besides ha'af o' my quarter-share in +the boat, which is yours fer value received." + +"You are good men. I can see that in your faces. But--" + +"Mother av Mercy," whispered Long Jack, "an' he's been wid +us~all these trips! He's clean bewitched." + +A schooner's bell struck up alongside, and a voice hailed through +the fog: "0 Disko! 'Heard abaout the Jennie Cushman?" + +"They have found his son," cried Penn. "Stand you still and see the +salvation of the Lord!" + +"Got Jason aboard here," Disko answered, but his voice quavered. +"There-warn't any one else?" + +"We've fund one, though. 'Run acrost him snarled up in a mess o' +lumber thet might ha' bin a foc'sle. His head's cut some." + +"Who is he?" + +The We're Here's heart-beats answered one another. + +"Guess it's young Olley," the voice drawled. + +Penn raised his hands and said something in German. Harvey +could have sworn that a bright sun was shining upon his lifted +face; but the drawl went on: "Sa-ay! You fellers guyed us +consid'rable t'other night." + +"We don't feel like guyin' any now," said Disko. + +"I know it; but to tell the honest truth we was kinder-kinder driftin' +when we run agin young Olley." + +It was the irrepressible Carrie Pitman, and a roar of unsteady +laughter went up from the deck of the We're Here. + +"Hedn't you 'baout's well send the old man aboard? We're runnin' +in fer more bait an' graound-tackle. Guess you won't want him, +anyway, an' this blame windlass work makes us short-handed. +We'll take care of him. He married my woman's aunt." + +"I'll give you anything in the boat," said Troop. + +"Don't want nothin', 'less, mebbe, an anchor that'll hold. Say! +Young Olley's gittin' kinder baulky an' excited. Send the old man +along." + +Penn waked him from his stupor of despair, and Tom Platt rowed +him over. He went away without a word + +96 Rudyard Kipling of thanks, not knowing what was to come; +and the fog closed over all. + +"And now," said Penn, drawing a deep breath as though about to +preach. "And now"-the erect body sank like a sword driven home +into the scabbard; the light faded from the overbright eyes; the +voice returned to its usual pitiful little titter- "and now," said +Pennsylvania Pratt, "do you think it's too early for a little game of +checkers, Mr. Salters?" + +"The very thing-the very thing I was goin' to say myself," cried +Salters promptly. "It beats all, Penn, how ye git on to what's in a +man's mind." + +The little fellow blushed and meekly followed Salters forward. + +"Up anchor! Hurry! Let's quit these crazy waters," shouted Disko, +and never was he more swiftly obeyed. + +"Now what in creation d'ye suppose is the meanin' o' that all?" said +Long Jack, when they were working through the fog once more, +damp, dripping, and bewildered. + +"The way I sense it," said Disko, at the wheel, "is this: The Jennie +Cushman business comin' on an empty stummick--" + +"H~we saw one of them go by," sobbed Harvey. + +"An' that, o' course, kinder hove him outer water, julluk runnin' a +craft ashore; hove him right aout, I take it, to rememberin' +Johnstown an' Jacob Boiler an' such-like reminiscences. Well, +consolin' Jason there held him up a piece, same's shorin' up a boat. +Then, bein' weak, them props slipped an' slipped, an' he slided +down the ways, an' naow he's water-borne agin. That's haow I +sense it." + +They decided that Disko was entirely correct + +'Twould ha' bruk Salters all up," said Long Jack, "if Penn had +stayed Jacob Bollerin'. Did ye see his face when Penn asked who +he'd been charged on all these years? How is ut, Salters?" + +"Asleep-dead asleep. Turned in like a child," Salters replied, +tiptoeing alt. "There won't be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did ye +ever see sech a gift in prayer? He everlastin'ly hiked young Olley +outer the ocean. Thet's my belief. Jason was tur'ble praoud of his +boy, an' I mistrusted all along 'twas a jedgment on worshippin' vain +idols." + +"There's others jes as sot;" said Disko. + +"That's dif runt," Salters retorted quickly. "Penn's not all caulked, +an' I ain't only but doin' my duty by him." + +They waited, those hungry men, three hours, till Penn reappeared +with a smooth face and a blank mini He said he believed that he +had been dreaming. Then he wanted to know why they were so +silent, and they could not tell him. + +Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the next three or four days; +and when they could not go out, turned them into the hold to stack +the ship's stores into smaller compass, to make more room for the +fish. The packed mass ran from the cabin partition to the sliding +door behind the foc'sle stove; and Disko showed how there is great +art in stowing cargo so as to bring a schooner to her best draft. The +crew were thus kept lively till they recovered their spirits; and +Harvey was tickled with a rope's end by Long Jack for being, as the +Galway man said, "sorrowful as a sick cat over fwhat couldn't be +helped." He did a great deal of thinking in those weary days, and +told Dan what he thought, and Dan agreed with him-even to the +extent of asking for fried pies instead of hooking them. + +But a week later the two nearly upset the Haitie S. in a wild +attempt to stab a shark with an old bayonet tied to a stick. The +grim brute rubbed alongside the dory begging for small fish, and +between the three of them it was a mercy they all got off alive. + +At last, after playing blindman's-buff in the fog, there came a +morning when Disko shouted down the foc'sle: "Hurry, boys! +We're in taown!" + +CHAPTER VIII + + To the end of his days, Harvey will never forget that sight. The +sun was just clear of the horizon they had not seen for nearly a +week, and his low red light struck into the riding-sails of three +fleets of anchored schooners--one to the north, one to the westward, +and one to the south. There must have been nearly a hundred of +them, of every possible make and build, with, far away, a +square-rigged Frenchman, all bowing and courtesying one to the +other. From every boat dories were dropping away like bees from a +crowded hive, and the clamour of voices, the rattling of ropes and +blocks, and the splash of the oars carried for miles across the +heaving water. The sails turned all colours, black, pearly-gray, and +white, as the sun mounted; and more boats swung up through the +mists to the southward. + +The dories gathered in clusters, separated, reformed, and broke +again, all heading one way; while men hailed and whistled and +cat-called and sang, and the water was speckled with rubbish +thrown overboard. + +"It's a town," said Harvey. "Disko was right. It U' a town!" + +"I've seen smaller," said Disko. "There's about a thousand men +here; an' yonder's the Virgin." He pointed to a vacant space of +greenish sea, where there were no dories. + +The We're Here skirted round the northern squadron, Disko +waving his hand to friend after friend, and anchored as nearly as a +racing yacht at the end of the season. The Bank fleet pass good +seamanship in silence; but a bungler is jeered all along the line. + +"Jest in time fer the caplin," cried the Mary Chilton. + +"'Salt 'most wet?" asked the King Philip. + +"Hey, Tom Platt! Come t' supper t0-night?" said the Henry Clay; +and so questions and answers flew back and forth. Men had met +one another before, dory-fishing in the fog, and there is no place +for gossip like the Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about +Harvey's rescue, and asked if be were worth his salt yet. The young +bloods jested with Dan, who had a lively tongue of his own, and +inquired alter their health by the town-nicknames they least liked. +Manuel's countrymen jabbered at him in their own language; and +even the silent cook was seen riding the jib-boom and shouting +Gaelic to a friend as black as himself. After they had buoyed the +cable--all around the Virgin is rocky bottom, and carelessness +means chafed ground-tackle and danger from drifting-after they +had buoyed the cable, their dories went forth to join the mob of +boats anchored about a mile away. The schooners rocked and +dipped at a safe distance, like mother ducks watching their brood, +while the dories behaved like mannerless ducklings. + +As they drove into the confusion, boat banging boat, Harvey's ears +tingled at the comments on his rowing. Every dialect from +Labrador to Long Island, with Portuguese, Neapolitan, Lingua +Franca, French, and Gaelic, with songs and shoutings and new +oaths, rattled round him, and he seemed to be the butt of it all. For +the first time in his life he felt shy-perhaps that came from living +so long with only the We're Heres-among the scores of wild faces +that rose and fell with the reeling small craft. A gentle, breathing +swell, three furlongs from trough to barrel, would quietly shoulder +up a string of variously painted dories. They hung for an instant, a +wonderful frieze against the sky-line, and their men pointed and +hailed. Next moment the open mouths, waving arms, and bare +chests disappeared, while on another swell came up an entirely +new line of characters like paper figures in a toy theatre. So +Harvey stared. "Watch out!" said Dan, flourishing a dip-net "When +I tell you dip, you dip. The caplin'll school any time from naow on. +Where'll we lay, Tom Platt?" + +Pushing, shoving, and hauling, greeting old friends here and +warning old enemies there, Commodore Tom + +100 Rudyard Kipling + +Platt led his little fleet well to leeward of the general crowd, and +immediately three or four men began to haul on their anchors with +intent to le~bow the We're Heres. But a yell of laughter went up as +a dory shot from her station with exceeding speed, its occupant +pulling madly on the roding. + +"Give her slack!" roared twenty voices. "Let him shake it out." + +"What's the matter?" said Harvey, as the boat flashed away to +the~southward. "He's anchored, isn't he?" + +"Anchored, sure enough, but his graound-tackle's kinder shifty," +said Dan, laughing. "Whale's fouled it. . . . Dip Harve! Here they +come!" + +The sea round them clouded and darkened, and then frizzed up in +showers of tiny silver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the +cod began to leap like trout in May; while behind the cod three or +four broad gray-backs broke the water into boils. + +Then everybody shouted and tried to haul up his anchor to get +among the school, and fouled his neighbour's line and said what +was in his heart, and dipped furiously with his dip-net, and shrieked +cautions and advice to his companions, while the deep fizzed like +freshly opened soda-water, and cod, men, and whales together +flung in upon the luckless bait. Harvey was nearly knocked +overboard by the handle of Dan's net. But in all the wild tumult he +noticed, and never forgot, the wicked, set little eye-something like +a circus elephant's eye-of a whale that drove along almost level with +the water, and, so be ~aid, winked at him. Three boats found their +rodings fouled by these reckless mid-sea hunters, and were towed +half a mile ere their horses shook the line free. + +Then the caplin moved off, and five minutes later there was no +sound except the splash of the sinkers overside, the flapping of the +cod, and the whack of the muckles as the men stunned them. It +was wonderful fishing. Harvey could see the glimmering cod +below, swimming slowly in droves, biting as steadily as they +swam. Bank law strictly forbids more than one hook on one line +when the dories are on the Virgin or the Eastern Shoals; but so +close lay the boats that even single hooks snarled, and Harvey +found himself in hot argument with a genfle, hairy Newfoundlander +on one side and a howling Portuguese on the other. + +Worse than any tangle of fishing-lines was the confusion of the +dory-rodings below water. Each man had anchored where it +seemed good to him, drifting and rowing round his fixed point As +the fish struck on less quickly, each man wanted to haul up and get +to better ground; but every third man found himself intimately +connected with some four or five neighbours. To cut another's +roding is crime unspeakable on the Banks; yet it was done, and +done without detection, three or four times that day. Tom Platt +caught a Maine man in the black act and knocked him over the +gunwale with an oar, and Manuel served a fellow- countryman in +the same way. But Harvey's anchor-line was cut, and so was +Penn's, and they were turned into relief-boats to carry fish to the +We're Here as the dories filled. The caplin schooled once more at +twilight, when the mad clamour was repeated; and at dusk they +rowed back to dress down by the light of kerosene-lamps on the +edge of the pen. + +It was a huge pile, and they went to sleep while they were dressing. +Next day several boats fished right above the cap of the Virgin; +and Harvey, with them, looked down on the very weed of that +lonely rock, which rises to within twenty feet of the surface. The +cod were there in legions, marching solemnly over the leathery +kelp. When they bit, they bit all together; and so when they +stopped. There was a slack time at noon, and the dories began to +search for amusement. It was Dan who sighted the Hope Of Prague +just coming up, and as her boats joined the company they were +greeted with the question: "Who's the meanest man in the Fleet?" + +Three hundred voices answered cheerily: "Nick Bra-ady." It +sounded like an organ chant. + +"Who stole the lam~wicks?" That was Dan's contribution. + +"Nick Bra-ady," sang the boats. + +"Who biled the salt bait fer soup?" This was an unknown backbiter +a quarter of a mile away. + +Again the joyful chorus. Now, Brady was not especially mean, +but he had that reputation, and the Fleet made the most of it. +Then they discovered a man from a Truro boat who, six years +before, had been convicted of using a tackle with five or six +hooks-a "scrowger," they call it~n the Shoals. Naturally, he had +been christened "Scrowger Jim"; and though he had hidden +himself on the Georges ever since, he found his honours waiting for +him full blown. They took it up in a sort of firecracker chorus: +"Jim! 0 Jim! Jim! 0 Jim! Sssscrowger Jim!" That pleased +everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man-he had been making +it up all day, and talked about it for weeks-sang, "The Carrie +Pitman's anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that they +were indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how +he was off for beans, because even poets must not have things all +their own way. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. +Was there a careless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang +about him and his food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet +was told at full length. Had a man hooked tobacco from a +mess-mate? He was named in meeting; the name tossed from roller +to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, Long Jack's market-boat that +he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh, but Dan was an angry +boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter's views on +manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey's +ladylike handling of the oar-all were laid before the public; and as +the fog fell around them in silvery sheets beneath the sun, the +voices sounded like a bench of invisible judges pronouncing +sentence. + +The dories roved and fished and squabbled till a swell underran the +sea. Then they drew more apart to save their sides, and some one +called that if the swell continued the Virgin would break. A +reckless Galway man with his nephew denied this, hauled up +anchor, and rowed over the very rock itself. Many voices called +them to come away, while others dared them to hold on. As the +smooth-backed rollers passed to the southward, they hove the dory +high and high into the mist, and dropped her in ugly, sucking, +dimpled water, where she spun round her anchor, within a foot or +two of the hidden rock. It was playing with death for mere +bravado; and the boats looked on in uneasy silence till Long +Jack rowed up behind his countrymen and quietly cut their roding. + +"Can't ye hear ut knockin'?" he cried. "Pull for you miserable +lives! Pull!" + +The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the next +swell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There was a +deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of +acres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal +sea. Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the +Galway men held their tongue. + +"Ain't it elegant?" said Dan, bobbing like a young seal at home. +"She'll break about once every ha'af hour now, 'les the swell piles +up good. What's her reg'lar time when she's at work, Tom Platt?" + +"Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. Harve, you've seen the +greatest thing on the Banks; an' but for Long Jack you'd seen some +dead men too." + +There came a sound of merriment where the fog lay thicker and +the schooners were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously +out of the mist, and was received with shouts and cries of, "Come +along, darlin'," from the Irishry. + +"Another Frenchman?" said Harvey. + +"Hain't you eyes? She's a Baltimore boat; goin' in fear an' +tremblin'," said Dan. "We'll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess +it's the fust time her skipper ever met up with the Fleet this way." + +She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail was +looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind +was moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of +the sea, and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt +figurehead, looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her +skirts to cross a muddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. +That was very much her situation. She knew she was somewhere +in the neighbourhood of the Virgin, had caught the roar of it, and +was, therefore, asking her way. This is a small part of what she +heard from the dancing dories: + +"The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin' of? 'This is Le + +104 Rudyard Kipling + +Have on a Sunday mornin'. Go home an' sober up." + +"Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an' tell 'em we're comm. + +Half a dozen voices together, in a most tuneful chorus, as her stern +went down with a roll and a bubble into the troughs: +"Thay-aah-she-strikes!" + +"Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You're on top of her now." + +"Daown! Hard daown! Let go everything!" + +"All hands to the pumps!" + +"Daown jib an' pole her!" + +Here the skipper lost his temper and said things. instantly fishing +was suspended to answer him, and he heard many curious facts +about his boat and her next port of call. They asked him if he were +insured; and whence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said' it +belonged to the Carrie Pitman; they called his boat a mud-scow, +and accused him of dumping garbage to frighten the fish; they +offered to tow him and charge it to his wife; and one audacious +youth slipped up almost under the counter, smacked it with his +open palm, and yelled: "Gid up, Buck!" + +The cook emptied a pan of ashes on him, and he replied with +cod-heads. The bark's crew fired small coal from the galley, and +the dories threatened to come aboard and "razee" her. They would +have warned her at once had she been in real peril; but, seeing her +well clear of the Virgin, they made the most of their chances. The +fun was spoilt when the rock spoke again, a half-mile to windward, +and the tormented bark set everything that would draw and went +her ways; but the dories felt that the honours lay with them. + +All that night the Virgin roared hoarsely; and next morning, over +an angry, white-headed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering +masts waiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove out till ten o'clock, +when the two Jeraulds of the Day's Eye, imagining a lull which did +not exist, set the example. In a minute half the boats were out and +bobbing in the cockly swells, but Troop kept the We're Heres at +work dressing down. He saw no sense in "dares"; and as the storm +grew that evening they had the pleasure of receiving wet strangers +only too glad to make any refuge in the gale. The boys stood by the +dory-tackles with lanterns, the men ready to haul, one eye cocked +for the sweeping wave that would make them drop everything and +hold on for dear life. Out of the dark would come a yell of "Dory, +dory!" They would hook up and haul in a drenched man and a +half-sunk boat, till their decks were littered down with nests of +dories and the bunks were full. Five times in their watch did +Harvey, with Dan, jump at the foregaff where it lay lashed on the +boom, and cling with arms, legs, and teeth to rope and spar and +sodden canvas as a big wave filled the decks. One dory was +smashed to pieces, and the sea pitched the man head first on to the +decks, cutting his forehead open; and about dawn, when the racing +seas glimmered white all along their cold edges, another man, blue +and ghastly, crawled in with a broken hand, asking news of his +brother. Seven extra mouths sat down to breakfast: A Swede; a +Chatham skipper; a boy from Hancock, Maine; one Duxbury, and +three Provincetown men. + +There was a general sorting out among the Fleet next day; and +though no one said anything, all ate with better appetites when +boat after boat reported full crews aboard. Only a couple of +Portuguese and an old man from Gloucester were drowned, but +many were cut or bruised; and two schooners had parted their +tackle and been blown to the southward, three days' sail. A man +died on a Frenchman-it was the same bark that had traded tobacco +with the We're Heres. She slipped away quite quietly one wet, +white morning, moved to a patch of deep water, her sails all +hanging anyhow, and Harvey saw the funeral through Disko's +spy-glass. It was only an oblong bundle slid overside. They did not +seem to have any form of service, but in the night, at anchor, +Harvey heard them across the star-powdered black water, singing +something that sounded like a hymn. it went to a very slow tune. + +"La brigantine +Qui va tourner, +Roule et s'incline +Pour m'entrainer. +Oh, Vierge Marie, +Pour moi priez Dieul +Adieu, patrie; +Ouebec, adjeul" + + Tom Platt visited her, because, he said, the dead man was his +brother as a Freemason. It came out that a wave had doubled the +poor fellow over the heel of the bowsprit and broken his back. The +news spread like a flash, for, contrary to general custom, the +Frenchman held an auction of the dead man's kit,-he had no friends +at St Malo or Miquelon,-and everything was spread out on the top +of the house, from his red knitted cap to the leather belt with the +sheath-knife at the back. Dan and Harvey were out on +twenty-fathom water in the Hattie S., and naturally rowed over to +join the crowd. It was a long pull, and they stayed some little time +while Dan bought the knife, which had a curious brass handle. +When they dropped overside and pushed off into a drizzle of rain +and a lop of sea, it occurred to them that they might get into +trouble for neglecting the lines. + +"Guess 'twon't hurt us any to be warmed up," said Dan, shivering +under his oilskins, and they rowed on into the heart of a white fog, +which, as usual, dropped on them without warning. + +"There's too much blame tide hereabouts to trust to your instinks," +he said. "Heave over the anchor, Harve, and we'll fish a piece till +the thing lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. Three pound ain't any +too much in this water. See how she's tightened on her rodin' +already." + +There was quite a little bubble at the bows, where some +irresponsible Bank current held the dory full stretch on her rope; +but they could not see a boat's length in any direction. Harvey +turned up his collar and bunched himself over his reel with the air +of a wearied navigator. Fog had no special terrors for him now. +They fished a while in silence, and found the cod struck on well. +Then Dan drew the sheath-knife and tested the edge of it on the +gunwale. + +"That's a daisy," said Harvey. "How did you get it so cheap?" + +"On account o' their blame Cath'lic superstitions," said Dan, +jabbing with the bright blade. "They don't fancy takin' +iron from off a dead man, so to speak. 'See them Arichat +Frenchmen step back when I bid?" + +"But an auction ain't taking anythink off a dead man. It's business." + +"We know it ain't, but there's no goin' in the teeth o' superstition. +That's one o' the advantages o' livin' in a progressive country." +And Dan began whistling: + + +"Oh, Double Thatcher, how are you? +Now Eastern Point comes inter view. +The girls an' boys we soon shall see, +At anchor off Cape Ann!" + +"Why didn't that Eastport man bid, then? He bought his boots. +Ain't Maine progressive?" + +"Maine? Pshaw! They don't know enough, or they hain't got +money enough, to paint their haouses in Maine. I've seen 'em. The +Eastport man he told me that the knife had been used-so the +French captain told him-used up on the French coast last year." + +"Cut a man? Heave's the muckle." Harvey hauled in his fish, +rebaited, and threw over. + +"Killed him! Course, when I heard that I was keener'n ever to get +it." + +"Christmas! I didn't know it," said Harvey, turning round. "I'll give +you a dollar for it when I-get my wages. Say, I'll give you two +dollars." + +"Honest? D'you like it as much as all that?" said Dan, flushing. +"Well, to tell the truth, I kinder got it for you-to give; but I didn't +let on till I saw how you'd take it. It's yours and welcome, Harve, +because we're dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an' so followin'. +Catch a-holt!" + +He held it out, belt and all. + +"But look at here. Dan, I don't see-" + +"Take it. 'Tain't no use to me. I wish you to hev it." The temptation +was irresistible. "Dan, you're a white man," said Harvey. "I'll keep +it as long as I live." + +"That's good hearin'," said Dan, with a pleasant laugh; and then, +anxious to change the subject: " 'Look's if your line was fast to +somethin'." + + "Fouled, I guess," said Harve, tugging. Before he pulled up he +fastened the belt round him, and with deep delight heard the tip of +the sheath click on the thwart. "Concern the thing!" he cried. "She +acts as though she were on strawberry-bottom. It's all sand here, +ain't it?" + +Dan reached over and gave a judgmatic tweak. "Hollbut'll act that +way 'f he's sulky. Thet's no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once or +twice. She gives, sure. Guess we'd better haul up an' make certain." + +They pulled together, making fast at each turn on the cleats, and +the hidden weight rose sluggishly. + +"Prize, oh! Haul!" shouted Dan, but the shout ended in a shrill, +double shriek of horror, for out of the sea cam~the body of the +dead Frenchman buried two days before! The hook had caught him +under the right armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and +shoulders above water. His arms were tied to his side, and-he had +no face. The boys fell over each other in a heap at the bottom of +the dory, and there they lay while the thing bobbed alongside, held +on the shortened line. + +"The tide-the tide brought him!" said Harvey with quivering lips, as +he fumbled at the clasp of the belt. + +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Harve!" groaned Dan, "be quick. He's come for it. +Let him have it. Take it off." + +"I don't want it! 1 don't want it!" cried Harvey. "I can't find the +bu-buckle." + +"Quick, Harve! He's on your line!" + +Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing the head that had no face +under its streaming hair. "He's fast still," he whispered to Dan, who +slipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt far +overside. The body shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously rose +to his knees, whiter than the fog. + +"He come for it. He come for it. I've seen a stale one hauled up on +a trawl and I didn't much care, but he come to us special." + +"I wish-I wish I hadn't taken the knife. Then he'd have come on +your line." + +"Dunno as thet would ba' made any differ. We're both scared out +o' ten years' growth. Oh, Harve, did ye see his head?" + +"Did I? I'll never forget it. But look at here, Dan; it couldn't have +been meant. It was only the tide." + +"Tide! He come for it, Harve. Why, they sunk him six miles to +south'ard o' the Fleet, an' we're two miles from where she's lyin' +now. They told me he was weighted with a fathom an' a half o' +chain-cable." + +'Wonder what he did with the knife-up on the French coast?" + +"Something bad. 'Guess he's bound to take k with him to the +Judgment, an' so-- What are you doin' with the fish?" + +"Heaving 'em overboard," said Harvey. + +"What for? We sha'n't eat 'em." + +"I don't care. I had to look at his face while I was takin' the belt off. +You can keep your catch if you like. I've no use for mine." + +Dan said nothing, but threw his fish over again. + +"Guess ifs best to be on the safe side," he murmured at last. "I'd +give a month's pay if this fog 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fog +that ye don't see in clear weather -yo-hoes an' hollerers and such +like. I'm sorter relieved he come the way he did instid o' walkin'. +He might ha' walked." + +"Do~n't, Dan! We're right on top of him now. 'Wish I was safe +aboard, hem' pounded by Uncle Saltem." + +"They'll be lookin' fer us in a little. Gimme the tooter." Dan took +the tin dinner-horn, but paused before he blew. + +"Go on," said Harvey. "I don't want to stay here all night" + +"Question is, haow he'd take it. There was a man frurn down the +coast told me once he was in a schooner where they darsen't ever +blow a horn to the dories, becaze the skipper-not the man he was +with, but a captain that had run her five years before-he'd drowned +a boy alongside in a drunk fit; an' ever after, that boy he'd row +along-side too and shout, 'Dory! dory!' with the rest" + +"Dory! dory!" a muffled voice cried through the fog. They cowered +again, and the horn dropped from Dan's hand. + + + "Hold on!" cried Harvey; "it's the cook." + +"Dunno what made me think o' thet fool tale, either," said Dan. +"It's the doctor, sure enough." + +"Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!" + +"We're here," sung both boys together. They heard oars, but could +see nothing till the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into them. + +"What iss happened?" said he. "You will be beaten at home." + +"Thet's what we want. Thet's what we're sufferin' for" said Dan. +"Anything homey's good enough fer us. We've had kinder +depressin' company." As the cook passed. them a line, Dan told +him the tale. + +"Yess! He come for hiss knife," was all he said at the end. + +Never had the little rocking We're Here looked so deliciously +home-like as when the cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them +back to her. There was a warm glow of light from the cabin and a +satisfying smell of food forward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko +and the others, all quite alive and solid, leaning over the rail and +promising them a first-class pounding. But the cook was a black. +master of strategy. He did not get the dories aboard till he had +given the more striking points of the tale, explaining as he backed +and bumped round the counter how Harvey was the mascot to +destroy any possible bad luck. So the boys came override as rather +uncanny heroes, and every one asked them questions instead of +pounding them for making trouble. Little Penn delivered quite a +speech on the folly of superstitions; but public opinion was against +him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the most excruciating +ghost-stories, till nearly midnight. Under that influence no one +except Salters and Penn said anything about "idolatry," when the +cook put a lighted candle, a cake of flour and water, and a pinch of +salt on a shingle, and floated them out astern to keep the +Frenchman quiet in case he was still restless. Dan lit the candle +because he had bought the belt, and the cook grunted and muttered +charms as long as be could see the ducking point of flame. + +Said Harvey to Dan, as they turned in after watch: + +"How about progress and Catholic superstitions?" + +"Huh! I guess I'm as enlightened and progressive as the next man, +but when it comes to a dead St Malo deck-hand scarin' a couple o' +pore boys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent knife, why, then, the +cook can take hold fer all o' me. I mistrust furriners, livin' or +dead." + +Next morning all, except the cook, were rather ashamed of the +ceremonies, and went to work double tides, speaking gruffly to one +another. + +The We're Here was racing neck and neck for her last few loads +against the Parry Norman; and so close was the struggle that the +Fleet took side and betted tobacco. All hands worked at the lines +or dressing-down till they fell asleep where they stood-beginning +before dawn and ending when it was too dark to see. They even +used the cook as pitcher, and turned Harvey into the hold to pass +salt, while Dan helped to dress down. Luckily a Parry Norman man +sprained his ankle falling down the foc'sle, and the We're Heres +gained. Harvey could not see how one more fish could be +crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Platt stowed and stowed, and +planked the mass down with big stones from the ballast, and there +was always "jest another day's work." Disko did not tell them when +all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft the cabin and +began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten in the morning. +The riding-sail was down and the main- and topsail were up by +noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home, envying +their good fortune. At last she cleared decks, hoisted her flag,-as is +the right of the first boat off the Banks,-up~anchored, and began to +move. Disko pretended that he wished to accommodate folk who +had not sent in their mail, and so worked her gracefully in and out +among the schooners. In reality, that was his little triumphant +procession, and for the fifth year running it showed what kind of +mariner he was. Dan's accordion and Tom Platt's fiddle supplied +the music of the magic verse you must not sing till all the salt is +wet: + +"Hih! Yih'. Yoho! Send your letters raound! +All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound! + +Bend, oh, bend your mains'1, we're back to Yankeeland- +With fifteen hunder' quintal, +An' fifteen hunder' quintal, +'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal, + +'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand." + + The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and +the Gloucester men shouted messages to their wives and +womenfolks and owners, while the We're Here finished the +musical ride through the Fleet, her headsails quivering like a man's +hand when he raises it to say good-by. + +Harvey very soon discovered that the We're Here, with her +riding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the We're Here +headed west by south under home canvas, were two very different +boats. There was a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" +weather; he could feel the dead weight in the hold flung forward +mightily across the surges, and the streaming line of bubbles +overside made his eyes dizzy. + +Disko kept them busy fiddling with the sails; and when those were +flattened like a racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big topsail, +which was put over by hand every time she went about. In spare +moments they pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine, which +does not improve a cargo. But since there was no fishing, Harvey +had time to look at the sea from another point of view. The, +low-sided schooner was naturally on most intimate terms with her +surroundings. They saw little of the horizon save when she topped +a swell; and usually she was elbowing, fidgeting, and coa'ing +her steadfast way through gray, gray-blue, or black hollows l +aced across and across with streaks of shivering foam; or +rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of some bigger +water-hill. It was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? +I'm ouly the little We're Here." Then she would slide away +chuckling softly to herself till she was brought up by some +fresh obstacle. The dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing +hour after hour through long days without noticing it; and Harvey, +being anything but dull, began to comprehend and enjoy the dry +chorus of wave-tops turning over with a sound of incessant + + + + + + CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS + + 113 + +tearing; the hurry of the winds working across open spaces and +herding the purple-blue cloud-shadows; the splendid upheaval of +the red sunrise; the folding and packing away of the morning +mists, wall after wall withdrawn across the white floors; the salty +glare and blaze of noon; the kiss of rain falling over thousands of +dead, flat square miles; the chilly blackening of everything at the +day's end; and the million wrinkles of the sea under the moonlight, +when the jib-boom solemnly poked at the low stars, and Harvey +went down to get a doughnut from the cook. + +But the best fun was when the boys were put on the wheel +together, Tom Platt within hail, and she cuddled her lee-rail down +to the crashing blue, and kept a little home-made rainbow arching +unbroken over her windlass. Then the jaws of the booms whined +against the masts, and the sheets creaked, and the sails filled with +roaring; and when she slid into a hollow she trampled like a +woman tripped in her own silk dress, and came out, her jib wet +half-way up, yearning and peering for the tall twin-lights of +Thatcher's Island. + +They left the cold gray of the Bank sea, saw the lumber-ships +making for Quebec by the Straits of St. Lawrence, with the Jersey +salt-brigs from Spain and Sicily; found a friendly northeaster off +Artimon Bank that drove them within view of the East light of +Sable Island,-a sight Disko did not linger over,-and stayed with +them past Western and Le Have, to the northern fringe of George's. +From there they picked up the deeper water, and let her go merrily. + +"Hattie's pulling on the string," Dan confided to Harvey. "Hattie an' +Ma. Next Sunday you'll be hirin' a boy to throw water on the +windows to make ye go to sleep. 'Guess you'll keep with us till +your folks come. Do you know the best of gettin' ashore again?" + +"Hot bath?" said Harvey. His eyebrows were all white with dried +spray. + +"That's good, but a night-shirt's better. I've been dreamin' o' +night-shirts ever since we bent our mainsail. Ye can wiggle your +toes then. Ma'll hev a new one fer me, all washed soft. It's home, +Harve. It's home! Ye can sense it in the air. We're riurnin' into the +aidge of a hot wave naow, an' I can smell the bayberries. Wonder +if we'll get in fer supper. Port a trifle." + +The hesitating sails flapped and lurched in the close air as the deep +smoothed out, blue and oily, round them. When they whistled for a +wind only the rain came in spiky rods, bubbling and drumming, +and behind the rain the thunder and the lightning of mid-August. +They lay on the deck with bare feet and arms, telling one another +what they would order at their first meal ashore; for now the land +was in plain sight. A Gloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, +a man in the little pulpit on the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, +his bare head plastered down with the wet. "And all's well!" he +sang cheerily, as though he were watch on a big liner. +"Wouverman's waiting fer you, Disko. What's the news o' the +Fleet?" + +Disko shouted it and passed on, while the wild summer storm +pounded overhead and the lightning flickered along the capes from +four different quarters at once. It gave the low circle of hills round +Gloucester Harbor, Ten Pound Island, the fish-sheds, with the +broken line of house-roofs, and each spar and buoy on the water, in +blinding photographs that came and went a dozen times to the +minute as the We're Here crawled in on half-flood, and the +whistling-buoy moaned and mourned behind her. Then the storm +died out in long, separated, vicious dags of blue-white flame, +followed by a single roar like the roar of a mortar-battery, and the +shaken air tingled under the stars as it got back to silence. + +"The flag, the flag!" said Disko, suddenly, pointing upward. + +"What is Ut?" said Long Jack. + +"Otto! Ha'af mast. They can see us frum shore now." + +"I'd clean forgot He's no folk to Gloucester, has he?" + +"Girl he was goin' to be married to this fall." + +"Mary pity her!" said Long Jack, and lowered the little flag +half-mast for the sake of Otto, swept overboard in a gale off Le +Have three months before. + +Disko wiped the wet from his eyes and led the We're Here to +Wouverman's wharf, giving his orders in whispers, while she +swung round moored tugs and night-watchmen hailed her from the +ends of inky-black piers. Over and above the darkness and the +mystery of the procession, Harvey could feel the land close round +him once more, with all its thousands of people asleep, and the +smell of earth after rain, and the familiar noise of a switching-engine +coughing to herself in a freight-yard; and all those things made his +heart beat and his throat dry up as he stood by the foresheet. They +heard the anchor-watch snoring on a lighthouse-tug, nosed into a +pocket of darkness where a lantern glimmered on either side; +somebody waked with a grunt, threw them a rope, and they made +fast to a silent wharf flanked with great iron-roofed sheds fall of +warm emptiness, and lay there without a sound. + +Then Harvey sat down by the wheel, and sobbed and sobbed as +though his heart would break, and a tall woman who had been +sitting on a weigh-scale dropped down into the schooner and +kissed Dan once on the cheek; for she was his mother, and she had +seen the We~re Here by the lightning flashes. She took no notice +of Harvey till he had recovered himself a little and Disko had told +her his story. Then they went to Disko's house together as the dawn +was breaking; and until the telegraph office was open and he could +wire his folk, Harvey Cheyne was perhaps the loneliest boy in all +America. But the curious thing was that Disko and Dan seemed to +think none the worse of him for crying. + +Wouverman was not ready for Disko's prices till Disko, sure that +the We're Here was at least a week ahead of any other Gloucester +boat, had given him a few days to swallow them; so all hands +played about the streets, and Long Jack stopped the Rocky Neck +trolley, on principle, as be said, till the conductor let him ride free. +But Dan went about with his freckled nose in the air, bung-full of +mystery and most haughty to his family. + +"Dan, I'll hev to lay inter you ef you act this way," said Troop, +pensively. "Sence we've come ashore this time you've bin a heap +too fresh." + +"I'd lay into him naow ef he was mine," said Uncle Salters, sourly. +He and Penn boarded with the Troops. + +"Oho!" said Dan, shuffling with the accordion round the backyard, +ready to leap the fence if the enemy advanced. "Dan, you're +welcome to your own judgment, but remember I've warned ye. +Your own flesh an' blood ha' warned ye! 'Tain't any o' my fault +ef you're mistook, but I'll be on deck to watch ye An' ez fer yeou, +Uncle Salters, Pharaoh's chief butler ain't in it 'longside o' you! +You watch aout an' wak. You'll be plowed under like your own +blamed clover; but me-Dan Troop-I'll flourish +like a green bay-tree because I warn't stuck on my own opinion." + +Disko was smoking in all his shore dignity and a pair of beautiful +carpet-slippers. "You're gettin' ez crazy as poor Harve. You two go +araound gigglin' an' squinchin' an' kickin' each other under the +table till there's no peace in the haouse," said he. + +"There's goin' to be a heap less-fer some folks," Dan replied. "You +wait an' see." + +He and Harvey went out on the trolley to East Gloucester, where +they tramped through the bayberry bushes to the lighthouse, and +lay down on the big red boulders and laughed themselves hungry. +Harvey had shown Dan a telegram, and the two swore to keep +silence till the shell burst + +"Harve's folk?" said Dan, with an unruffled face after supper. +"Well, I guess they don't amount to much of anything, or we'd ha' +heard from 'em by naow. His pop keeps a kind o' store out West. +Maybe he'll give you 's much as five dollars, Dad." + +"What did I tell ye?" said Salters. "Don't sputter over your vittles, +Dan." + +CHAPTER IX + +Whatever his private sorrows may be, a multimillionaire, like any +other workingman, should keep abreast of his business. Harvey +Cheyne, senior, had gone East late in June to meet a woman +broken down, hall mad, who dreamed day and night of her son +drowning in the gray seas. He had surrounded her 'with doctors, +trained nurses, massage-women, and even faith-cure companions, +but they were useless. Mrs. Cheyne lay still and moaned, or talked +of her boy by the hour together to any one who would listen. Hope +she had none, and who could offer it? All she needed was +assurance that drowning did not hurt; and her husband watched to +guard lest she should make the experiment. Of his own sorrow he +spoke little-hardly realized the depth of it till he caught himself +ask'ng the calendar on his writing-desk, "What's the use of going +on?" + +There had always lain a pleasant notion at the back of his head +that, some day, when he had rounded off everything and the boy +had left college, he would take his son to his heart and lead him +into his possessions. Then that boy, he argued, as busy fathers do, +would instantly become his companion, partner, and ally, and there +would follow splendid years of great works carried out +together-the old head backing the young fire. Now his boy was +dead-lost at sea, as it might have been a Swede sailor from one of +Cheyne's big teaships; the wife dying, or worse; he himself was +trodden down by platoons of women and doctors and maids and +attendants; worried almost beyond endurance by the shift and +change of her poor restless whims; hopeless, with no heart to meet +his many enemies. + +He had taken the wife to his raw new palace in San Diego, where +she and her people occupied a wing of great price, +and Cheyne, in a veranda-room, between a secretary and a +typewriter, who was also a telegraphist, toiled along wearily from +day to day. There was a war of rates among four Western railroads +in which he was supposed to be interested; a devastating strike had +developed in his lumber camps in Oregon, and the legislature of +the State of California, which has no love for its makers, was +preparing open war against him. + +Ordinarily he would have accepted battle ere it was offered, and +have waged a pleasant and unscrupulous campaign. But now he sat +limply, his soft black hat pushed forward on to his nose, his big +body shrunk inside his loose clothes, staring at his boots or the +Chinese junks in the bay, and assenting absently to the secretary's +questions as he opened the Saturday mail. + +Cheyne was wondering how much it would cost to drop everything +and pull out. He carried huge insurances, could buy himself royal +annuities, and between one of his places in Colorado and a little +society (that would do the wife good), say in Washington and the +South Carolina islands, a man might forget plans that had come to +nothing. On the other hand + +The click of the typewriter stopped; the girl was looking at the +secretary, who had turned white. + +He passed Cheyne a telegram repeated from San Francisco: + + Picked up by fishing schooner We're Here having fallen off boat +great times on Banks fishing all well waiting Gloucester Mass care +Disko Troop for money or orders wire what shall do and how is +Mama Harvey N. Cheyne. + + The father let it fall, laid his head down on the roller-top of the +shut desk, and breathed heavily. The secretary ran for Mrs. +Cheyne's doctor who found Cheyne pacing to and fro. + +'~What-what d' you think of it? Is it possible? Is there any meaning +to it? I can't quite make it out," he cried. + +"I can," said the doctor. "I lose seven thousand a year-that's all." He +thought of the struggling New York practice he had dropped at +Cheyne's imperious bidding, and returned the telegram with a sigh. + +"You mean you'd tell her? 'May be a fraud?" + +"What's the motive?" said the doctor, coolly. "Detection's too +certain. It's the boy sure enough." + +Enter a French maid, impudently, as an indispensable one who is +kept on only by large wages. + +"Mrs. Cheyne she say you must come at once. She think you are +seek." + +The master of thirty millions bowed his head meekly and followed +Suzanne; and a thin, high voice on the upper landing of the great +white-wood square staircase cried: "What is it? What has +happened?" + +No doors could keep out the shriek that rang through the echoing +house a moment later, when her husband blurted out the news. + +"And that's all right," said the doctor, serenely, to the typewriter. +"About the only medical statement in novels with any truth to it is +that joy don't kill, Miss Kinzey." + +"I know it; but we've a heap to do first." Miss Kinzey was from +Milwaukee, somewhat direct of speech; and as her fancy leaned +towards the secretary, she divined there was work in hand. He was +looking earnestly at the vast roller-map of America on the wall. + +"Milsom, we're going right across. Private car-straight +through-Boston. Fix the connections," shouted Cheyne down the +staircase. + +"I thought so." + +The secretary turned to the typewriter, and their eyes met (out of +that was born a story-nothing to do with this story). She looked +inquiringly, doubtful of his resources. He signed to her to move to +the Morse as a general brings brigades into action. Then he swept +his hand musician-wise through his hair, regarded the ceiling, and +set to work, while Miss Kinzey's white fingers called up the +Continent of America. + +"K. H. Wade, Los Angeles The 'Constance' is at Los Angeles, isn't +she, Miss Kinzey?" + +"Yep." Miss Kinzey nodded between clicks as the secretary looked +at his watch. + +"Ready? Send 'Constance,' private car, here, and arrange for +special to leave here Sunday in time to connect with New York +Limited at Sixteenth Street, Chicago, Tuesday next." + +Click~lick~lick! "Couldn't you better that?" + +"Not on those grades. That gives 'em sixty hours from here to +Chicago. They won't gain anything by taking a special east of that. +Ready? Also arrange with Lake Shore and Michigan Southern to +take 'Constance' on New York Central and Hudson River Buffalo +to Albany, and B. and A. the same Albany to Boston. Indispensable +I should reach Boston Wednesday evening. Be sure nothing +prevents. Have also wired Canniff, Toucey, and Barnes. --Sign, +Cheyne." + +Miss Kinzey nodded, and the secretary went on. + +"Now then. Canniff, Toucey, and Barnes, of course. Ready? +Canniff, Chicago. Please take my private car 'Constance' from +Santa Fe' at Sixteenth Street next Tuesday p. m. on N. Y. Limited +through to Buffalo and deliver N. Y. C. for Albany.-Ever bin to N' +York, Miss Kinzey? We'll go some day.-Ready? Take car Buffalo +to Albany on Limited Tuesday p. m. That's for Toucey." + +"Haven't bin to Noo York, but I know that!" with a toss of the +head. + +"Beg pardon. Now, Boston and Albany, Barnes, same instructions +from Albany through to Boston. Leave three-five P. M. (you +needn't wire that); arrive nine-five P. M. Wednesday. That covers +everything Wade will do, but it pays to shake up the managers." + +"It's great," said Miss Kinzey, with a look of admiration. This was +the kind of man she understood and appreciated. + +'Tisn't bad," said Milsom, modestly. "Now, any one but me would +have lost thirty hours and spent a week working out the run, +instead of handing him over to the Santa Fe' straight through to +Chicago." + +"But see here, about that Noo York Limited. Chauncey Depew +himself couldn't hitch his car to her," Miss Kinzey suggested, +recovering herself. + +"Yes, but this isn't Chauncey. It's Cheyne--lightiiing. It goes." + + "Even so. Guess we'd better wire the boy. You've forgotten that, +anyhow." + +"I'll ask." + +When he returned with the father's message bidding Harvey meet +them in Boston at an appointed hour, he found Miss Kinzey +laughing over the keys. Then Milsom laughed too, for the frantic +clicks from Los Angeles ran: "We want to know why-why-why? +General uneasiness developed and spreading." + +Ten minutes later Chicago appealed to Miss Kinzey in these +words: ~'lf crime of century is maturing please warn friends in +time. We are all getting to cover here." + +This was capped by a message from Topeka (and wherein Topeka +was concerned even Milsom could not guess): "Don't shoot, +Colonel. We'll come down." + +Cheyne smiled grimly at the consternation of his enemies when the +telegrams were laid before him. "They think we're on the warpath. +Tell 'em we don't feel like fighting just now, Milsom. Tell 'em +what we're going for. I guess you and Miss Kinsey had better come +along, though it isn't likely I shall do any business on the road. Tell +'em the truth-for once." + +So the truth was told. Miss Kinzey clicked in the sentiment while +the secretary added the memorable quotation, "Let us have peace," +and in board rooms two thousand miles away the representatives +of sixty-three million dollars' worth of variously manipulated +railroad interests breathed more freely. Cheyne was flying to meet +the only son, so miraculously restored to him. The bear was +seeking his cub, not the bulls. Hard men who had their knives +drawn to fight for their financial lives put away the weapons and +wished him God-speed, while half a dozen panic-smitten tin-pot +roads perked up their heads and spoke of the wonderful things they +would have done had not Cheyne buried the hatchet. + +It was a busy week-end among the wires; for now that their anxiety +was removed, men and cities hastened to accommodate. Los +Angeles called to San Diego and Barstow that the Southern +California engineers might know and be ready in their lonely +roundhouses; Barstow passed the word to the Atlantic and Pacific; +and Albuquerque flung it the whole length of the Atchinson, +Topeka, and Santa Fe management, even into Chicago. An engine, +combination-car with crew, and the great and gilded "Constance" +private car were to be "expedited" over those two thousand three +hundred and fifty miles. The train would take precedence of one +hundred and seventy-seven others meeting and passing; despatchers +and crews of every one of those said trains must be notified. Sixteen +locomotives, sixteen engineers, and sixteen firemen would be +needed-each and every one the best available. Two and one half +minutes would be allowed for changing engines, three for +watering, and two for coaling. "Warn the men, and arrange tanks +and chutes accordingly; for Harvey Cheyne is in a hurry, a hurry-a +hurry," sang the wires. "Forty miles an hour will be expected, and +division superintendents will accompany this special over their +respective divisions. From San Diego to Sixteenth Street, Chicago, +let the magic carpet be laid down. Hurry! Oh, hurry!" + +"It will be hot," said Cheyne, as they rolled out of San Diego in the +dawn of Sunday. "We're going to hurry, Mama, just as fast as ever +we can; but I really don't think there's any good of your putting on +your bonnet and gloves yet. You'd much better lie down and take +your medicine. I'd play you a game of dominoes, but it's Sunday." + +"I'll be good. Oh, I will be good. Only-taking off my bonnet makes +me feel as if we'd never get there." + +"Try to sleep a little, Mama, and we'll be in Chicago before you +know." + +"But it's Boston, Father. Tell them to hurry." + +The six-foot drivers were hammering their way to San Bernardino +and the Mohave wastes, but this was no grade for speed. That +would come later. The heat of the desert followed the heat of the +hills as they turned east to the Needles and the Colorado River. +The car cracked in the utter drouth and glare, and they put crushed +ice to Mrs. Cheyne's neck, and toiled up the long, long grades, past +Ash Fork, towards Flagstaff, where the forests and quarries are, +under the dry, remote skies. The needle of the speed-indicator +flicked and wagged to and fro; the cinders rattled on the roof, and +a whirl of dust sucked after the whirling wheels. The crew of the +combination sat on their bunks, panting in their shirtsleeves, and +Cheyne found himself - among them shouting old, old stories of +the railroad that every trainman knows, above the roar of the car. +He told them about his son, and how the sea had given up its dead, +and they nodded and spat and rejoiced with him; asked after "her, +back there," and whether she could stand it if the engineer "let her +out a piece," and Cheyne thought she could. Accordingly, the great +fire-horse was "let~ut" from Flagstaff to Winslow, till a division +superintendent protested. + +But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, where the French +maid, sallow-white with fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only +moaned a little and begged her husband to bid them "hurry." And +so they dropped the dry sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona +behind them, and grilled on till the crash of the couplings and the +wheeze of the brake-hose told them they were at Coolidge by the +Continental Divide. + +Three bold and experienced men-cool, confident, and dry when +they began; white, quivering, and wet when they finished their +trick at those terrible wheels-swung her over the great lift from +Albuquerque to Glorietta and beyond Springer, up and up to the +Raton Tunnel on the State line, whence they dropped rocking into +La Junta, had sight of the Arkansaw, and tore down the long slope +to Dodge City, where Cheyne took comfort once again from +setting his watch an hour ahead. + +There was very little talk in the car. The secretary and typewriter +sat together on the stamped Spanish-leather cushions by the +plate-glass observation-window at the rear end, watching the surge +and ripple of the ties crowded back behind them, and, it is +believed, making notes of the scenery. Cheyne moved nervously +between his own extravagant gorgeousness and the naked +necessity of the combination, an unlit cigar in his teeth, till the +pitying crews forgot that he was their tribal enemy, and did their +best to entertain him. + +At night the bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of all +the luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through the +emptiness of abject desolation. + +124 Rudyard Kipling + +Now they heard the swish of a water-tank, and the guttural voice +of a Chinaman, the click-clink of hammers that tested the Krupp +steel wheels, and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear- platform; +now the solid crash of coal shot into the tender; and now a beating +back of noises as they flew past a waiting train. Now they looked +out into great abysses, a trestle purring beneath their tread, or up to +rocks that barred out half the stars. Now scaur and ravine changed +and rolled back to jagged mountains on the horizon's edge, and +now broke into hills lower and lower, till at last came the true +plains. + +At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in a copy of a Kansas +paper containing some sort of an interview with Harvey, who had +evidently fallen in with an enterprising reporter, telegraphed on +from Boston. The joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond +question their boy, and it soothed Mrs. Cheyne for a while. Her +one word "hurry" was conveyed by the crews to the engineers at +Nickerson, Topeka, and Marceline, where the grades are easy, and +they brushed the Continent behind them. Towns and villages were +close together now, and a man could feel here that he moved +among people. + +"I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. What are we doing?" + +"The very best we can, Mama. There's no sense in getting in before +the Limited. We'd only have to wait." + +"I don't care. I want to feel we're moving. Sit down and tell me the +miles." + +Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her (there were some miles +which stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never +changed its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with +the hum of a giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. +Cheyne; and the heat, the remorseless August heat, was making +her giddy; the clock-hands would not move, and when, oh, when +would they be in Chicago? + +It is not true that, as they changed engines at Fort Madison, Cheyne +passed over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive +Engineers an endowment sufficient to enable them to fight him +and his fellows on equal terms for evermore. He paid his +obligations to engineers and firemen as he believed they deserved, +and only his bank knows what he gave the crews who had +sympathized with him. It is on record that the last crew took entire +charge of switching operations at Sixteenth Street, because "she" was +in a doze at last, and Heaven was to help any one who bumped her. + +Now the highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore and +Michigan Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something +of an autocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back +up to a car. None the less he handled the "Constance" as if she +might have been a load of dynamite, and when the crew rebuked +him, they did it in whispers and dumb show. + +"Pshaw!" said the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe men, +discussing life later, "we weren't runnin' for a record. Harvey +Cheyne's wife, she were sick back, an' we didn't want to jounce +her. 'Come to think of it, our runnin' time from San~Diego to +Chicago was 57.54. You can tell that to them Eastern way-trains. +When we're tryin' for a record, we'll let you know." + +To the Western man (though this would not please either city) +Chicago and Boston are cheek by jowl, and some railroads +encourage the delusion. The Limited whirled the "Constance" into +Buffalo and the arms of the New York Central and Hudson River +(illustrious magnates with white whiskers and gold charms on their +watch-chains boarded her here to talk a little business to Cheyne), +who slid her gracefully into Albany, where the Boston and Albany +completed the run from tide-water to tide- water-total time, +eighty-seven hours and thirty-five minutes, or three days, fifteen +hours and one half. Harvey was waiting for them. + + Alter violent emotion most people and all boys demand food. +They feasted the returned prodigal behind drawn curtains, cut off +in their great happiness, while the trains roared in and out around +them. Harvey ate, drank, and enlarged on his adventures all in one +breath, and when he had a hand free his mother fondled it. His +voice was thickened with living in the open, salt air; his palms +were rough and hard, his wrists dotted with marks of gurrysores; +and a fine full flavour of codfish hung round rubber boots and blue +jersey. + +The father, well used to judging men, looked at him keenly. He did +not know what enduring harm the boy might have taken. Indeed, +he caught himself thinking that he knew very little whatever of his +son; but he distinctly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced +youth who took delight in "calling down the old man," and +reducing his mother to tears-such a person as adds to the gaiety of +public rooms and hotel piazzas, where the ingenuous young of the +wealthy play with or revile the bell-boys. But this well set-up +fisher-youth did not wriggle, looked at him with eyes steady, clear, +and unflinching, and spoke in a tone distinctly, even startlingly, +respectful. There was that in his voice, too, which seemed to +promise that the change might be permanent, and that the new +Harvey had come to stay. + +"Some one's been coercing him," thought Cheyne. "Now +Constance would never have allowed that. Don't see as Europe +could have done it any better." + +"But why didn't you tell this man, Troop, who you were?" the +mother repeated, when Harvey had expanded his story at least +twice. + +"Disko Troop, dear. The best man that ever walked a deck. I don't +care who the next is." + +"Why didn't you tell him to put you ashore? You know Papa would +have made it up to him ten times over." + +"I know it; but he thought I was crazy. I'm afraid I called him a +thief because I couldn't find the bills in my pocket." + +"A sailor found them by the flagstaff that-that night," sobbed Mrs. +Cheyne. + +"That explains it, then. I don't blame Troop any. I just said I +wouldn't work-on a Banker, too--and of course he hit me on the +nose, and oh! I bled like a stuck hog." + +"My poor darling! They must have abused you horribly." + +"Dunno quite. Well, after that, I saw a light." + +Cheyne slapped his leg and chuckled. This was going to be a boy +after his own hungry heart. He had never seen precisely that +twinkle in Harvey's eye before. + +"And the old man gave me ten and a half a month; he's paid me +half now; and I took hold with Dan and pitched right in. I can't do +a man's work yet. But I can handle a dory 'most as well as Dan, +and I don't get rattled in a fog-much; and I can take my trick in +light winds-that's steering, dear-and I can 'most bait up a trawl, +and I know my ropes, of course; and I can pitch fish till the cows +come home, and I'm great on old Josephus, and I'll show you how +I can clear coffee with a piece of fish-skin, and-I think I'll have +another cup, please. Say, you've no notion what a heap of work +there is in ten and a half a month!" + +"I began with eight and a half, my son," said Cheyne. + +'That so? You never told me, sir." + +"You never asked, Harve. I'll tell you about it some day, if you care +to listen. Try a stuffed olive." + +"Troop says the most interesting thing in the world is to find out how the +next man gets his vittles. It's great to have a trimmed-up meal again. W +e were well fed, though. But mug on the Banks. Disko fed us first-class. +He's a great man.And Dan-that's his son-Dan's my partner. And +there's Uncle Salters and his manures, an' he reads Josephus. He's +sure I'm crazy yet. And there's poor little Penn, and he is crazy. +You mustn't talk to him about Johnstown, because- + +And, oh, you must know Tom Platt and Long Jack and Manuel. +Manuel saved my life. I'm sorry he's a Portuguee. He can't talk +much, but he's an everlasting musk ian. He found me struck +adrift and drifting, and hauied me in." + +"I wonder your nervous system isn't completely wrecked," said +Mrs. Cheyne. + +"What for, Mama? I worked like a horse and I ate like a hog and I +slept like a dead man." + +That was too much for Mrs. Cheyne, who began to think of her +visions of a corpse rocking on the salty seas. She went to her +stateroom, and Harvey curled up beside his father, explaining +his indebteeiness. + +"You can depend upon me to do everything I can for the crowd, +Harve. They seem to be good men on your showing." + +"Best in the Fleet, sir. Ask at Gloucester," said Harvey. "But Disko +believes still he's cured me of being crazy. Dan's the only one I've +let on to about you, and our private cars and all the rest of it, and +I'm not quite sure Dan believes. I want to paralyze 'em to-morrow. +Say, can't they run the 'Constance' over to Gloucester? Mama don't +look fit to be moved, anyway, and we're bound to finish cleaning +out by tomorrow. Wouverman takes our fish. You see, we're the +first off the Banks this season, and it's four twenty-five a quintal. +We held out till he paid it. They want it quick." + +"You mean you'll have to work to-morrow, then?" + +"I told Troop I would. I'm on the scales. I've brought the tallies +with me." He looked at the greasy notebook with an air of +importance that made his father choke. "There isn't but three- +no-two ninety-four or five quintal more by my reckoning." + +"Hire a substitute," suggested Cheyne, to see what Harvey would +say. + +"Can't, sir. I'm tally-man for the schooner. Troop says I've a better +head for figures than Dan. Troop's a mighty just man." + +"Well, suppose I don't move the 'Constance' to-night, how'll you fix +it?" + +Harvey looked at the clock, which marked twenty past eleven. + +"Then I'll sleep here till three and catch the four o'clock freight. +They let us men from the Fleet ride free as a rule." + +"That's a notion. But I think we can get the 'Constance' around +about as soon as your men's freight. Better go to bed now." + +Harvey spread himself on the sofa, kicked off his boots, and was +asleep before his father could shade the electrics. Cheyne sat +watching the young face under the shadow of the arm thrown over +the forehead, and among many things that occurred to him was the +notion that he might perhaps have been neglectful as a father. + +"One never knows when one's taking one's biggest risks," he said. +"It might have been worse than drowning; but I don't think it has-I +don't think it has. If it hasn't, I haven't enough to pay Troop, that's +all; and I don't think it has." + +Morning brought a fresh sea breeze through the windows, the +"Constance" was side-tracked among freight-cars at Gloucester, +and Harvey had gone to his business. + +"Then he'll fall overboard again and he drowned," the mother said +bitterly. + +"We'll go and look, ready to throw him a rope m case. You've +never seen him working for his bread," said the father. + +"What nonsense! As if any one expected + +"Well, the man that hired him did. He's about right, too." + +They went down between the stores full of fishermen's oilskins to +Wouverman's wharf where the We're Here rode high, her Bank flag +still flying, all hands busy as beavers in the glorious morning light. +Disko stood by the main hatch superintending Manuel, Penn, and +Uncle Salters at the tackle. Dan was swinging the loaded baskets +inboard as Long Jack and Tom Platt filled them, and Harvey, with +a notebook, represented the skipper's interests before the clerk of +the scales on the salt-sprinkled wharf-edge. + +"Ready!" cried the voices below. "Haul!" cried Disko. "Hi!" said +Manuel. "Here!" said Dan, swinging the basket. Then they heard +Harvey's voice, clear and fresh, checking the weights. + +The last of the fish had been whipped out, and Harvey leaped from +the string-piece six feet to a ratline, as the shortest way to hand +Disko the tally, shouting, "Two ninety-seven, and an empty hold!" + +"What's the total, Harve?" said Disko. + +"Eight sixty-five. Three thousand six hundred and seventy-six +dollars and a quarter. 'Wish I'd share as well as wage." + +"Well, I won't go so far as to say you hevn't deserved it, Harve. +Don't you want to slip up to Wouverman's office and take him our +tallies?" + +"Who's that boy?" said Cheyne to Dan, well used to all manner of +questions from those idle imbeciles called summer boarders. + +"Well, he's kind o' supercargo," was the answer. "We picked him +up struck adrift on the Banks. Fell overboard from a liner, he sez. +He was a passenger. He's by way o' hem' a fisherman now." + +"Is he worth his keep?" + +"Ye-ep. Dad, this man wants to know ef Harve's worth his keep. +Say, would you like to go aboard? We'll fix up a ladder for her." + +"I should very much, indeed. 'Twon't hurt you, Mama, and you'll be +able to see for yourself." + +The woman who could not lift her head a week ago scrambled +down the ladder, and stood aghast amid the mess and tangle aft. + +"Be you anyways interested in Harve?" said Disko. + +"Well, ye-es." + +"He's a good boy, an' ketches right hold jest as he's bid. You've +heard haow we found him? He was sufferin' from nervous +prostration, I guess, 'r else his head had hit somethin', when we +hauled him aboard. He's all over that naow. Yes, this is the cabin. +'Tain't in order, but you're quite welcome to look araound. Those +are his figures on the stove-pipe, where we keep the reckonin' +mosdy." + +"Did he sleep here?" said Mrs. Cheyne, sitting on a yellow locker +and surveying the disorderly bunks. + +"No. He berthed forward, madam, an' only fer him an' my boy +hookin' fried pies an muggin' up when they ought to ha' been +asleep, I dunno as I've any special fault to find with him." + +"There weren't nothin' wrong with Harve," said Uncle Salters, +descending the steps. "He hung my boots on the main-truck, and he +ain't over an' above respectful to such as knows more'n he do, +specially about farmin'; but he were mostly misled by Dan." + +Dan in the meantime, profiting by dark hints from Harvey early +that morning, was executing a war-dance on deck. "Tom, Tom!" he +whispered down the hatch. "His folks has come, an' Dad hain't +caught on yet, an' they're pow-wowin' in the cabin. She's a daisy, +an' he's all Harve claimed he was, by the looks of him." + +"Howly Smoke!" said Long Jack, climbing out covered with salt +and fish-skin. "D'ye belave his tale av the kid an' the little +four-horse rig was thrue?" + +"I knew it all along," said Dan. "Come an' see Dad mistook in his +judgments." + +They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say: "I'm glad he +has a good character, because-he's my son." + +Disko's jaw fell,-Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click +of it,-and he stared alternately at the man and the woman. + +"I got his telegram in San Diego four days ago, and we came over." + +"In a private car?" said Dan. "He said ye might." + +"In a private car, of course." + +Dan looked at his father with a hurricane of irreverent winks. + +"There was a tale he told us av drivin' four little ponies in a rig av +his own," said Long Jack. "Was that thrue now?" + +"Very likely," said Cheyne. "Was it, Mama?" + +"He had a little drag when we were in Toledo, I think," said the +mother. + +Long Jack whistled. "Oh, Disko!" said he, and that was all. + +"I wuz-I am mistook in my jedgments-worse'n the men o' +Marblehead," said Disko, as though the words were being +windlassed out of him. "I don't mind ownin' to you, Mr. Cheyne, as +I mistrusted the boy to he crary. He talked kinder odd about +money." + +"So he told me." + +"Did he tell ye anything else? 'Cause I pounded him once." This +with a somewhat anxious glance at Mrs. Cheyne. + +"Oh, yes," Cheyne replied. "I should say it probably did him more +good than anything else in the world." + +"I jedged 'twuz necessary, er I wouldn't ha' done it. I don't want you +to think we abuse our boys any on this packet." + +"I don't think you do, Mr. Troop." + +Mrs. Cheyne had been looking at the faces-Disko's ivory-yellow, +hairless, iron countenance; Uncle Salters's, with its rim of +agricultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; Manuel's quiet +smile; Long Jack's grin of delight, and Tom Platt's scar. Rough, by +her standards, they certainly were; but she had a mother's wits in +her eyes, and she rose with out-stretched hands. + +"Oh, tell me, which is who?" said she, half sobbing. "I want to +thank you and bless you-all of you." + +"Faith, that pays me a hunder time," said Long Jack. + +Disko introduced them all in due form. The captain of an old-time +Chinaman could have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne babbled +incoherently. She nearly threw herself into Manuel's arms when +she understood that he had first found Harvey. + +"But how shall I leave him dreeft?" said poor Manuel. "What do +you yourself if you find him so? Eh, wha-at? We are in one good +boy, and I am ever so pleased he come to be your son." + +"And he told me Dan was his partner!" she cried. Dan was already +sufficiently pink, but he turned a rich crimson when Mrs. Cheyne +kissed him on both cheeks before the assembly. Then they led her +forward to show her the foc'sle, at which she wept again, and must +needs go down to see Harvey's identical bunk, and there she found +the nigger cook cleaning up the stove, and he nodded as though +she were some one he had expected to meet for years. They tried, +two at a time, to explain the boat's daily life to her, and she sat by +the pawl-post, her gloved hands on the greasy table, laughing with +trembling lips and crying with dancing eyes. + +"And who's ever to use the We're Here after this?" said Long Jack +to Tom Platt. "I feel as if she'd made a cathedral av ut all." + +"Cathedral!" sneered Tom Platt. "Oh, if it had bin even the Fish +C'mmission boat instid of this bally-hoo o' blazes. If we only hed +some decency an' order an' side-boys when she goes over! She'll +have to climb that ladder like a hen, an' we-we ought to be mannin' +the yards!" + +"Then Harvey was not mad," said Penn, slowly, to Cheyne. + +"No, indeed-thank God," the big millionaire replied, stooping +down tenderly. + +"It must be terrible to be mad. Except to lose your child, I do not +know anything more terrible. But your child has come back? Let us +thank God for that." + +"Hello!" cried Harvey, looking down upon them benignly from the +wharf. + +"I wuz mistook, Harve. I wuz mistook," said Disko, swiftly, +holding up a hand. "I wuz mistook in my jedgments. Ye needn't +rub in any more." + +"Guess I'll take care o' that," said Dan, under his breath. + +"You'll be goin' off naow, won't ye?" + +"Well, not without the balance of my wages, 'less you want to have +the We're Here attached." + +"Thet's so; I'd clean forgot"; and he counted out the remaining +dollars. "You done all you contracted to do, Harve; and you done it +'baout's well as if you'd been brought up-" Here Disko brought +himself up. He did not quite see where the sentence was going to +end. + +"Outside of a private car?" suggested Dan, wickedly. + +"Come on, and I'll show her to you," said Harvey. + +Cheyne stayed to talk with Disko, but the others made a +procession to the depot, with Mrs. Cheyne at the head. The French +maid shrieked at the invasion; and Harvey laid the glories of the +"Constance" before them without a word. They took them in in +equal silence-stamped leather, silver door-handles and rails, cut +velvet, plate-glass, nickel, bronze, hammered iron, and the rare +woods of the continent inlaid. + +"I told you," said Harvey; "I told you." This was his crowning +revenge, and a most ample one. + +Mrs. Cheyne decreed a meal, and that nothing might be lacking to +the tale Long Jack told afterwards in his boarding-house, she +waited on them herself. Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny +tables in howling gales have curiously neat and finished manners; +but Mrs. Cheyne, who did not know this, was surprised. She +longed to have Manuel for a butler; so silently and easily did he +comport himself among the frail glassware and dainty silver. Tom +Platt remembered the great days on the Ohio and the manners of +foreign potentates who dined with the officers; and Long Jack, +being Irish, supplied the small talk till all were at their ease. + +In the We're Here's cabin the fathers took stock of each other +behind their cigars. Cheyne knew well enough when he dealt with +a man to whom he could not offer money; equally well he knew +that no money could pay for what Disko had done. He kept his +own counsel and waited for an opening. + +"I hevn't done anything to your boy or fer your boy excep' make +him work a piece an' learn him how to handle the hog-yoke," said +Disko. "He has twice my boy's head for figgers." + +"By the way," Cheyne answered casually, "what d'you calculate to +make of your boy?" + +Disko removed his cigar and waved it comprehensively round the +cabin. "Dan's jest plain boy, an' he don't allow me to do any of his +thinkin'. He'll hev this able little packet when I'm laid by. He ain't +noways anxious to quit the business. I know that." + +"Mmm! 'Ever been West, Mr. Troop?" + +'Bin's fer ez Noo York once in a boat. I've no use for railroads. No +more hez Dan. Salt water's good enough fer the Troops. I've been +'most everywhere-in the nat'ral way, o' course." + +"I can give him all the salt water he's likely to need-till he's a +skipper." + +"Haow's that? I thought you wuz a kinder railroad king. Harve told +me so when-I was mistook in my jedgments." + +"We're all apt to be mistaken. I fancied perhaps you might know I +own a line of tea-clippers~an Francisco to Yokohama-six of +'em-iron-built, about seventeen hundred and eighty tons apiece. + +"Blame that boy! He never told. I'd ha' listened to that, instid o' his +truck abaout railroads an' ponycarriages." + +"He dldn't know." + +"'Little thing like that slipped his mind, I guess." + +"No, I only capt-took hold of the 'Blue M.' freighters -Morgan +and McQuade's old lin~this summer." Disko collapsed where he +sat, beside the stove. + +"Great Caesar Almighty! I mistrust I've been fooled from one end +to the other. Why, Phil Airheart he went from this very town six +year back-no, seven-an' he's mate on the San Jose-- now-twenty-six +days was her time out. His sister she's livin' here yet, an' she reads +his letters to my woman. An' you own the 'Blue M.' freighters?" + + Cheyne nodded. + +"If I'd known that I'd ha' jerked the We're Here back to port all +standin', on the word." + +"Perhaps that wouldn't have been so good for Harvey." + +"If I'd only known! If he'd only said about the cussed Line, I'd ha' +understood! I'll never stand on my own jedgments again-never. +They're well-found packets. Phil Airheart he says so." + +"I'm glad to have a recommend from that quarter. Airheart's +skipper of the San Jose now. What I was getting at is to know +whether you'd lend me Dan for a year or two, and we'll see if we +can't make a mate of him. Would you trust him to Airheart?" + +"It's a resk taking a raw boy--" + +"I know a man who did more for me." + +"That's diff'runt. Look at here naow, I ain't recommendin' Dan +special because he's my own flesh an' blood. I know Bank ways +ain't clipper ways, but he hain't much to learn. Steer he can-no boy +better, if I say it-an' the rest's in our blood an' get; but I could wish +he warn't so cussed weak on navigation." + +"Airheart will attend to that. He'll ship as boy for a voyage or two, +and then we can put him in the way of doing better. Suppose you +take him in hand this winter, and I'll send for him early in the +spring. I know the Pacific's a long ways off + +"Pshaw! We Troops, livin' an' dead, are all around the earth an' the +seas thereof." + +"But I want you to understand-and I mean this-any time you think +you'd like to see him, tell me, and I'll attend to the transportation. +'Twon't cost you a cent." + +"If you'll walk a piece with me, we'll go to my house an' talk this +to my woman. I've bin so crazy mistook in all my jedgments, it +don't seem to me this was like to be real." + +They went blue-trimmed of nasturtiums over to Troop's +eighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in +the front yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of +oversea plunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with +the dim eyes of those who look long to sea for the return of their +beloved. Cheyne addressed himself to her, and she gave consent +wearily. + +"We lose one hundred a year from Gloucester only, Mr. Cheyne," +she said-"one hundred boys an' men; and I've come so's to hate the +sea as if 'twuz alive an' listenin'. God never made it fer humans to +anchor on. These packets o' yours they go straight out, I take it' +and straight home again?" + +"As straight as the winds let 'em, and I give a bonus for record +passages. Tea don't improve by being at sea." + +"When he wuz little he used to play at keeping store, an' I had +hopes he might follow that up. But soon's he could paddle a dory I +knew that were goin' to be denied me." + +"They're square-riggers, Mother; iron-built an' well found. +Remember what Phil's sister reads you when she gits his letters." + +"I've never known as Phil told lies, but he's too venturesome (like +most of 'em that use the sea). If Dan sees fit, Mr. Cheyne, he can +go-fer all o' me." + +"She jest despises the ocean," Disko explained, "an' I-I dunno haow +to act polite, I guess, er I'd thank you better." + +"My father-my own eldest brother-two nephews-an' my second +sister's man," she said, dropping her head on her hand. "Would you +care fer any one that took all those?" + +Cheyne was relieved when Dan turned up and accepted with more +delight than he was able to put into words. Indeed, the offer meant +a plain and sure road to all desirable things; but Dan thought most +of commanding watch on broad decks, and looking into far-away +harbours. + +Mrs. Cheyne had spoken privately to the unaccountable Manuel in +the matter of Harvey's rescue. He seemed to have no desire for +money. Pressed hard, he said that he would take five dollars, +because he wanted to buy something for a girl. Otherwise-"How +shall I take money when I make so easy my eats and smokes? You +will giva some if I like or no? Eh, wha-at?. Then you shall giva me +money, but not that way. You shall giva all you can think." He +introduced her to a snuffy Portuguese priest with a list of semi-destitute +widows as long as his cassock. As a strict Unitarian, Mrs. Cheyne +could not sympathize with the creed, but she ended by respecting the +brown, voluble little man. + +Manuel, faithful son of the Church, appropriated all the blessings +showered on her for her charity. "That letta me out," said he. "I +have now ver' good absolutions for six months"; and he strolled +forth to get a handkerchief for the girl of the hour and to break the +hearts of all the others. + +Salters went West for a season with Penn, and left no address +behind. He had a dread that these mlllionary people, with wasteful +private cars, might take undue interest in his companion. It was +better to visit inland relatives till the coast was clear. "Never you +be adopted by rich folk, Penn," he said in the cars, "or I'll take 'n' +break this checker-board over your head. Ef you forgif your name +agin-which is Pratt-you remember you belong with Salters Troop, +an' set down right where you are till I come fer you. Don't go +taggin' araound after them whose eyes bung out with fatness, +accordin' to Scripcher." + +CHAPTER X + +But it was otherwise with the We're Here's silent cook, for he came +up, his kit in a handkerchief, and boarded the "Constance." Pay +was no particular object, and he did not in the least care where he +slept. His business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to follow +Harvey for the rest of his days. They tried argument and, at last, +persuasion; but there is a difference between one Cape Breton and +two Alabama negroes, and the matter was referred to Cheyne by +the cook and porter. The millionaire only laughed. He presumed +Harvey might need a body-servant some day or other, and was sure +that one volunteer was worth five hirelings. Let the man stay, +therefore; even though he called himself MacDonald and swore in +Gaelic. The car could go back to Boston, where, if he were still of +the same mind, they would take him West. + +With the "Constance," which in his heart of hearts he loathed, +departed the last remnant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave +himself up to an energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new +town in a new land, and he purposed to "take it in," as of old he +had taken in all the cities from Snohomish to San Diego of that +world whence he hailed. They made money along the crooked +street which was half wharf and half ship's store: as a leading +professional he wished to learn how the noble game was played. +Men said that four out of every five fish-balls served at New +England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and +overwhelmed him with figures in proof-statistics of boats, gear, +wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories, +insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners +of the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, +and whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he +conferred with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and +compared notes in his vast head. He coiled himself away on +chain-cables in marine junk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, +unslaked Western curiosity, till all the water-front wanted to know +"what in thunder that man was after, anyhow." He prowled into the +Mutual Insurance rooms, and demanded explanations of the mysterious +remarks chalked up on the blackboard day by day; and that brought +down upon him secretaries of every Fisherman's Widow and Orphan +Aid Society within the city limits. They begged shamelessly, each +man anxious to beat the other institution's record, and Cheyne +tugged at his beard and handed them all over to Mrs. Cheyne. + +She was resting in a boarding-house near Eastern Point-a strange +establishment, managed, apparently, by the boarders, where the +table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered and the population, +who seemed to have known one another intimately for years, rose +up at midnight to make Welsh rarebits if it felt hungry. On the +second morning of her stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond +solitaires before she came down to breakfast. + +"They're most delightful people," she confided to her husband; "so +friendly and simple, too, though they are all Boston, nearly." + +"That isn't simpleness, Mama," he said, looking across the +boulders behind the apple-trees where the hammocks were slung. +"It's the other thing, that w~that I haven't got." + +"It can't be," said Mrs. Cheyne quietly. "There isn't a woman here +owns a dress that cost a hundred dollars. Why, we~" + +"I know it, dear. We have~f course we have. I guess it's only the +style they wear East. Are you having a good time?" + +"I don't see very much of Harvey; he's always with you; but I ain't +near as nervous as I was." + +'7 haven't had such a good time since Willie died. I never rightly +understood that I had a son before this. Harve's got to be a great +boy. 'Anything I can fetch + +140 Rudyard Kipling + +you, dear? 'Cushion under your head? Well, we'll go down to the +wharf again and look around." + +Harvey was his father's shadow in those days, and the two strolled +along side by side, Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for laying +his hand on the boy's square shoulder. It was then that Harvey +noticed and admired what had never struck him before-his father's +curious power of getting at the heart of new matters as learned +from men in the street. + +"How d'you make 'em tell you everything without opening your +head?" demanded the son, as they came out of a rigger's loft. + +"I've dealt with quite a few men In my time, Harve, and one sizes +'em up somehow, I guess. I know something about myself, too." +Then, after a pause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: "Men can +'most always tell when a man has handled things for himself, and +then they treat him as one of themselves." + +"Same as they treat me down at Wouverman's wharf. I'm one of the +crowd now. Disko has told every one I've earned my pay." Harvey +spread out his hands and rubbed the palms together. "They're all +soft again," he said dolefully. + +"Keep 'em that way for the next few years, while you're getting +your education. You can harden 'em up after." + +"Ye-es, I suppose so," was the reply, in no delighted voice. + +"It rests with you, Harve. You can take cover behind your mama, +of course, and put her on to fussing about your nerves and your +high-strungness and all that kind of poppycock." + +"Have I ever done that?" said Harvey, uneasily. + +His father turned where he sat and thrust out a long hand. "You +know as well as I do that I can't make anything of you if you don't +act straight by me. I can handle you alone if you'll stay alone, but I +don't pretend to manage both you and Mama. Life's too short, +anyway." + +"Don't make me out much of a fellow, does it?" + +"I guess it was my fault a good deal; but if you want the truth, you +haven't been much of anything up to date. Now, have you?" + +"Umm! Disko thinks . . . Say, what d'you reckon it's cost you to +raise me from the start-first, last and all over?" + +Cheyne smiled. "I've never kept track, but I should estimate, in +dollars and cents, nearer fifty than forty thousand; maybe sixty. +The young generation comes high. It has to have things, and it tires +of 'em, and-the old man foots the bill." + +Harvey whistled, but at heart he was rather pleased to think that +his upbringing had cost so much. "And all that's sunk capital, isn't +it?" + +"Invested, Harve. Invested, I hope." + +"Making it only thirty thousand, the thirty I've earned is about ten +cents on the hundred. That's a mighty poor catch." Harvey wagged +his head solemnly. + +Cheyne laughed till he nearly fell off the pile into the water. + +"Disko has got a heap more than that out of Dan since he was ten; +and Dan's at school half the year, too." + +"Oh, that's what you're after, is it?" + +"No. I'm not after anything. I'm not stuck on myself any just +now-that's all. . . . I ought to be kicked." + +"I can't do it, old man; or I would, I presume, if I'd been made that +way." + +"Then I'd have remembered it to the last day I lived-and never +forgiven you," said Harvey, his chin on his doubled fists. + +"Exactly. That's about what I'd do. You see?" + +"I see. The fault's with me and no one else. All the samey, +something's got to be done about it." + +Cheyne drew a cigar from his vest-pocket, bit off the end, and fell +to smoking. Father and son were very much alike; for the beard hid +Cheyne's mouth, and Harvey had his father's slightly aquiline nose, +close-set black eyes, and narrow, high cheek-bones. With a touch +of brown paint he would have made up very picturesquely as a Red +Indian of the story-books. + +"Now you can go on from here," said Cheyne, slowly, "costing me +between six or eight thousand a year till you're a voter. Well, we'll +call you a man then. You can go right on from that, living on me to +the tune of forty or fitty thousand, besides what your mother will +give you, with a valet and a yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can +pretend to raise trotting-stock and play cards with your own crowd." + +"Like Lorry Tuck?" Harvey put in. + +"Yep; or the two De Vitre boys or old man McQuade's son. +California's full of 'em, and here's an Eastern sample while we're +talking." + +A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany deck-house, +nickel-plated binnacles, and pink-and-white-striped awnings +puffed up the harbour, flying the burgee of some New York club. +Two young men in what they conceived to be sea costumes were +playing cards by the saloon skylight; and a couple of women with +red and blue parasols looked on and laughed noisily. + +"Shouldn't care to be caught out in her in any sort of a breeze. No +beam," said Harvey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up her +mooring-buoy. + +"They're having what stands them for a good time. I can give you +that, and twice as much as that, Harve. How'd you like it?" + +"Caesar! That's no way to get a dinghy overside," said Harvey, still +intent on the yacht. "If I couldn't slip a tackle better than that I'd +stay ashore. . . . What if I don't?" + +"Stay ashore-or what?" + +"Yacht and ranch and live on 'the old man,' and-get behind Mama +where there's trouble," said Harvey, with a twinkle in his eye. + +"Why, in that case, you come right in with me, my son." + +"Ten dollars a month?" Another twinkle. + +"Not a cent more until you're worth it, and you won't begin to +touch that for a few years." + +"I'd sooner begin sweeping out the office-isn't that how the big bugs +start?-and touch something now than . + + "I know it; we all feel that way. But I guess we can hire any +sweeping we need. I made the same mistake myself of starting in +too soon." + +"Thirty million dollars' worth o' mistake, wasn't it? I'd risk it for +that." + +"I lost some; and I gained some. I'll tell you." + +Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he looked over the still +water, and spoke away from Harvey, who presently began to be +aware that his father was telling the story of his life. He talked in a +low, even voice, without gesture and without expression; and it +was a history for which a dozen leading journals would cheerfully +have paid many dollars-the story of forty years that was at the +same time the story of the New West, whose story is yet to be +written. + +It began with a kinless boy turned loose in Texas, and went on +fantastically through a hundred changes and chops of life, the +scenes shifting from State after Western State, from cities that +sprang up m a month and- in a season utterly withered away, to +wild ventures in wilder camps that are now laborious, paved +municipalities. It covered the building of three railroads and the +deliberate wreck of a fourth. It told of steamers, townships, forests, +and mines, and the men of every nation under heaven, manning, +creating, hewing, and digging these. It touched on chances of +gigantic wealth flung before eyes that could not see, or missed by +the merest accident of time and travel; and through the mad shift +of things, sometimes on horseback, more often afoot, now rich, +now poor, in and out, and back and forth, deck-hand, train-hand, +contractor, boarding-house keeper, journalist, engineer, drummer, +real-estate agent, politician, dead-beat, rum-seller, mine~owner, +speculator, cattle-man, or tramp, moved Harvey Cheyne, alert and +quiet, seeking his own ends, and, so he said, the glory and +advancement of his country. + +He told of the faith that never deserted him even when he hung on +the ragged edge of despair-the faith that comes of knowing men +and things. He enlarged, as though he were talking to himself, on +his very great courage and resource at all times. The thing was so +evident in the man's mind that he never even changed his tone. He +described how he had bested his enemies, or forgiven them, +exactly as they had bested or forgiven him in those careless days; +how he had entreated, cajoled, and bullied towns, companies, and +syndicates, all for their enduring good; crawled round, through, or +under mountains and ravines, dragging a string and hoop-iron railroad +after him, and in the end, how he had sat still while promiscuous +communities tore the last fragments of his character to shreds. + +The tale held Harvey almost breathless, his head a little cocked to +one side, his eyes fixed on his father's face, as the twilight +deepened and the red cigar-end lit up the furrowed cheeks and +heavy eyebrows. It seemed to him like watching a locomotive +storming across country in the dark-a mile between each glare of +the open fire-door: but this locomotive could talk, and the words +shook and stirred the boy to the core of his soul. At last Cheyne +pitched away the cigar-butt, and the two sat in the dark over the +lapping water. + +"I've never told that to any one before,"said the father. + +Harvey gasped. "It's just the greatest thing that ever was!" said he. + +"That's what I got. Now I'm coming to what I didn't get. It won't +sound much of anything to you, but I don't wish you to be as old as +I am before you find out. I can handle men, of course, and I'm no +fool along my own lines, but-but-I can't compete with the man who +has been taught! I've picked up as I went along, and I guess it +sticks out all over me." + +"I've never seen it," said the son, indignantly. + +"You will, though, Harve. You will-just as soon as you're through +college. Don't I know it? Don't I know the look on men's faces +when they think me a-a 'mucker,' as they call it out here? I can +break them to little pieces-yes-but I can't get back at 'em to hurt +'em where they live. I don't say they're 'way 'way up, but I feel I'm +'way, 'way, 'way off, somehow. Now you've got your chance. +You've got to soak up all the learning that's around, and you'll live +with a crowd that are doing the same thing. They'll be doing it for +a few thousand dollars a year at most; but remember you'll be +doing it for millions. You'll learn law enough to look after your +own property when I'm out o' the light, and you'll have to be solid +with the best men in the market (they are useful later); and above +all, you'll have to stow away the plain, common, sit-down-with-your +chin-on your-elbows book-learning. Nothing pays like that, Harve, +and it's bound to pay more and more each year in our country-in +business and in politics. You'll see." + +"There's no sugar in my end of the deal," said Harvey. "Four years +at college! 'Wish I'd chosen the valet and the yacht!" + +"Never mind, my son," Cheyne insisted. "You're investing your +capital where it'll bring in the best returns; and I guess you won't +find our property shrunk any when you're ready to take hold. Think +it over, and let me know in the morning. Hurry! We'll be late for +supper!" + +As this was a business talk, there was no need for Harvey to tell his +mother about it; and Cheyne naturally took the same point of view. +But Mrs. Cheyne saw and feared, and was a little jealous. Her boy, +who rode rough-shod over her, was gone, and in his stead reigned a +keen-faced youth, abnormally silent, who addressed most of his +conversation to his father. She understood it was business, and +therefore a matter beyond her premises. If she had any doubts, they +were resolved when Cheyne went to Boston and brought back a +new diamond marquise ring. + +"What have you two been doing now?" she said, with a weak little +smile, as she turned it in the light. + +"Talking-just talking, Mama; there's nothing mean about Harvey." + +There was not. The boy had made a treaty on his own account. +Railroads, he explained gravely, interested him as little as lumber, +real estate, or mining. What his soul yearned alter was control of +his father's newly purchased sailing-ship. If that could be promised +him within what he conceived to be a reasonable time, he, for his +part, guaranteed diligence and sobriety at college for four or five +years. In vacation he was to be allowed full access to all details +connected with the lin~he had not asked more than two thousand +questions about it,-from his father's most private papers in the safe +to the tug in San Francisco harbour. + +"It's a deal," said Cheyne at the last. "You'll alter your mind twenty +times before you leave college, o' course; but if you take hold of it +in proper shape, and if you don't tie it up before you're twenty-three, +I'll make the thing over to you. How's that, Harve?" + +"Nope; never pays to split up a going concern. There's too much +competition in the world anyway, and Disko says 'blood-kin hev to +stick together.' His crowd never go back on him. That's one reason, +he says, why they make such big fares. Say, the We're Here goes +off to the Georges on Monday. They don't stay long ashore, do +they?" + +"Well, we ought to be going, too, I guess. I've left my business +hung up at loose ends between two oceans, and it's time to connect +again. I just hate to do it, though; haven't had a holiday like this for +twenty years." + +"We can't go without seeing Disko off," said Harvey; "and +Monday's Memorial Day. Let's stay over that, anyway." + +"What is this memorial business? They were talking about it at the +boarding-house," said Cheyne weakly. He, too, was not anxious to +spoil the golden days. + +"Well, as far as I can make out, this business is a sort of +song-and-dance act, whacked up for the summer boarders. Disko +don't think much of it, he says, because they take up a collection +for the widows and orphans. Disko's independent. Haven't you +noticed that?" + +"Well-yes. A little. In spots. Is it a town show, then?" + +"The summer convention is. They read out the names of the +fellows drowned or gone astray since last time, and they make +speeches, and recite, and all. Then, Disko says, the secretaries of +the Aid Societies go into the back yard and fight over the catch. +The real show, he says, is in the spring. The ministers all take a +hand then, and there aren't any summer boarders around." + +"I see," said Cheyne, with the brilliant and perfect comprehension +of one born into and bred up to city pride. "We'll stay over for +Memorial Day, and get off in the afternoon." + +"Guess I'll go down to Disko's and make him bring his crowd up +before they sail. I'll have to stand with them, of course." + +"Oh, that's it, is it," said Cheyne. "I'm only a poor summer boarder, +and you're----" + +"A Banker-full-blooded Banker," Harvey called back as he boarded +a trolley, and Cheyne Went on with his blissful dreams for the +future. + +Disko had no use for public functions where appeals were made +for charity, but Harvey pleaded that the glory of the day would be +lost, so far as he was concerned, if the We're Heres absented +themselves. Then Disko made conditions. He had heard-it was +astonishing how all the world knew all the world's business along +the water-front-he had heard that a "Philadelphia actress-woman" +was going to take part in the exercises; and he mistrusted that she +would deliver "Skipper Ireson's Ride." Personally, he had as little +use for actresses as for summer boarders; but justice was justice, +and though he himself (here Dan giggled) had once slipped up on +a matter of judgment, this thing must not be. So Harvey came back +to East Gloucester, and spent half a day explaining to an amused +actress with a royal reputation on two seaboards the inwardness of +the mistake she contemplated; and she admitted that it was justice, +even as Disko had said. + +Cheyne knew by old experience what would happen; but anything +of the nature of a public palaver as meat and drink to the man's +soul. He saw the trolleys hurrying west, in the hot, hazy morning, +full of women in light summer dresses, and white-faced +straw-hatted men fresh from Boston desks; the stack of bicycles +outside the post~office; the come-and-go of busy officials, greeting +one another; the slow flick and swash of bunting in the heavy air; +and the important man with a hose sluicing the brick sidewalk. + +"Mother," he said suddenly, "don't you remember-after Seattle was +burned out-and they got her going again?" + +Mrs. Cheyne nodded, and looked critically down the crooked street +Like her husband, she understood these gatherings, all the West +over, and compared them one against another. The fishermen +began to mingle with the crowd about the town-hall doors-blue- +jowled Portuguese, their women bare-headed or shawled for the +most part; clear-eyed Nova Scotians, and men of the Maritime +Provinces; French, Italians, Swedes, and Danes, with outside crews +of coasting schooners; and everywhere women in black, who +saluted one another with gloomy pride, for this was their day of +great days. And there were ministers of many creeds ,-pastors of +great, gilt-edged congregations, at the seaside for a rest, with +shepherds of the regular work,-from the priests of the Church on +the Hill to bush-bearded ex-sailor Lutherans, hail-fellow with the +men of a score of boats. There were owners of lines of schooners, +large contributors to the societies, and small men, their few craft +pawned to the mastheads, with bankers and marine-insurance +agents, captains of tugs and water-boats, riggers, fitters, lumpers, +salters, boat-builders, and coopers, and all the mixed population of +the water-front. + +They drifted along the line of seats made gay with the dresses of +the summer boarders, and one of the town officials patrolled and +perspired till he shone all over with pure civic pride. Cheyne had +met him for five minutes a few days before, and between the two +there was entire understanding. + +"Well, Mr. Cheyne, and what d'you think of our city? -Yes, +madam, you can sit anywhere you please.-You have this kind of +thing out West, I presume?" + +"Yes, but we aren't as old as you." + +"That's so, of course. You ought to have been at the exercises when +we celebrated our two hundred and fiftieth birthday. I tell you, Mr. +Cheyne, the old city did herself credit." + +"So I heard. It pays, too. What's the matter with the town that it +don't have a first-class hotel, though?" + +"-Bight over there to the left, Pedro. Heaps o' room for you and +your crowd.-Why, that's what I tell 'em all the time, Mr. Cheyne. +There's big money in it, but I presume that don't affect you any. +What we want is + +A heavy hand fell on his broadcloth shoulder, and the flushed +skipper of a Portland coal-and-ice coaster spun him half round. +"What in thunder do you fellows mean by clappin' the law on the +town when all decent men are at sea this way? Heh? Town's dry as +a bone, an' smells a sight worse sence I quit. 'Might ha' left us one +saloon for soft drinks, anyway." + +"Don't seem to have hindered your nourishment this morning, +Carsen. I'll go into the politics of it later. Sit down by the door and +think over your arguments till I come back." + +"What good is arguments to me? In Miquelon champagne's +eighteen dollars a case and---" The skipper lurched into his seat +as an organ-prelude silenced him. + +"Our new organ," said the official proudly to Cheyne. + +'Cost us four thousand dollars, too. We'll have to get back to +high-license next year to pay for it. I wasn't going to let the +ministers have all the religion at their convention. Those are some +of our orphans standing up to sing. My wife taught 'em. See you +again later, Mr. Cheyne. I'm wanted on the platform." + +High, clear, and true, children's voices bore down the last noise of +those settling into their places. + +" O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and +magnify him for ever!" + +The women throughout the hall leaned forward to look as the +reiterated cadences filled the air. Mrs. Cheyne, with some others, +began to breathe short; she had hardly imagined there were so +many widows in the world; and instinctively searched for Harvey. +He had found the We're Heres at the back of the audience, and was +standing, as by right, between Dan and Disko. Uncle Salters, +returned the night before with Penn, from Pamlico Sound, received +him suspiciously. + +"Hain't your folk gone yet?" he grunted. "What are you doin' here, +young feller?" + +"0 ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify +him for ever!" + +"Hain't he good right?" said Dan. "He's bin there, same as the rest +of us." + +"Not in them clothes," Salters snarled. + +"Shut your head, Salters," said Disko. "Your bile's gone back on +you. Stay right where ye are, Harve." + +Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of the +municipality, bidding the world welcome to Gloucester, and +incidentally pointing out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of +the world. Then he turned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke +of the price that must be paid for the yearly harvest. They would +hear later the names of their lost dead one hundred and seventeen +of them. (The widows stared a little, and looked at one another +here.) Gloucester could not boast any overwhelming mills or +factories. Her sons worked for such wage as the sea gave; and they +all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were cow-pastures. +The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to help the +widows and the orphans, and after a few general remarks he took +this opportunity of thanking, in the name of the city, those who had +so public-spiritedly consented to participate in the excercises of +the occasion. + +"I jest despise the beggin' pieces in it," growled Disko. "It don't +give folk a fair notion of us." + +"Ef folk won't be fore-handed an' put by when they've the chance," +returned Salters, "it stands in the nature o' things they hev to be +'shamed. You take warnin' by that, young feller. Riches endureth +but for a season, ef you scatter them araound on lugsuries-- + +"But to lose everything, everything," said Penn. "What can you do +then? Once I"-the watery blue eyes stared up and down as if +looking for something to steady them--"once I read-in a book, I +think~f a boat where every one was run down-except some +one-and he said to me-" + +"Shucks!" said Salters, cutting in. "You read a little less an' take +more int'rust in your vittles, and you'll come nearer earnin' your +keep, Penn." + +Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt a creepy, crawly, +tingling thrill that began in the back of his neck and ended at his +boots. He was cold, too, though it was a stifling day. + +'That the actress from Philadelphia?" said Disko Troop, scowling +at the platform. "You've fixed it about old man Ireson, hain't ye, +Harve? Ye know why naow." + +It was not "Ireson's Ride" that the woman delivered, but some sort +of poem about a fishing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlers +beating in against storm by night, while the women made a guiding +fire at the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands +on. + +"They took the grandma's blanket, +Who shivered and bade them go; +They took the baby's cradle, +Who could not say them no." + +"Whew!" said Dan, peering over Long Jack's shoulder. "That's +great! Must ha' bin expensive, though." + +"Ground-hog case," said the Galway man. "Badly lighted port, +Danny." + +"And knew not all the while +If they were lighting a bonfire +Or only a funeral pile." + +The wonderful voice took hold of people by their heartstrings; and +when she told how the drenched crews were flung ashore, living +and dead, and they carried the bodies to the glare of the fires, +asking: "Child, is this your father?" or "Wife, is this your man?" +you could hear hard breathing all over the benches. + + +"And when the boats of Brixham +Go out to face the gales, +Think of the love that travels +Like light upon their sails!" + +There was very little applause when she finished. The women +were looking for their handkerchiefs, and many of the men stared +at the ceiling with shiny eyes. + +"H'm," said Salters; "that 'u'd cost ye a dollar to hear at any +theatre-maybe two. Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. 'Seems +downright waste to me. . . . Naow, how in Jerusalem did Cap. Bart +Edwardes strike adrift here?" + +"No keepin' him under," said an Eastport man behind. "He's a poet, +an' he's baound to say his piece. 'Comes from daown aour way, +too." + +He did not say that Captain B. Edwardes had striven for five +consecutive years to be allowed to recite a piece of his own +composition on Gloucester Memorial Day. An amused and +exhausted cornmittee had at last given him his desire. The +simplicity and utter happiness of the old man, as he stood up in his +very best Sunday clothes, won the audience ere he opened his +mouth. They sat unmurmuring through seven-and-thirty +hatchet-made verses describing at fullest length the loss of the +schooner Joan Hasken off the Georges in the gale of 1867, and +when he came to an end they shouted with one kindly throat. + +A far-sighted Boston reporter slid away for a full copy of the epic +and an interview with the author; so that earth had nothing more to +offer Captain Bart Edwardes, ex-whaler, shipwright, +master-fisherman, and poet, in the seventy-third year of his age. + +"Naow, I call that sensible," said the Eastport man. "I've bin over +that graound with his writin', jest as he read it, in my two hands, +and I can testily that he's got it all in." + +"If Dan here couldn't do better'n that with one hand before +breakfast, he ought to be switched," said Salters, upholding the +honor of Massachusetts on general principles. "Not but what I'm +free to own he's considerable litt'ery-fer Maine. Still " + +"Guess Uncle Salters's goin' to die this trip. Fust compliment he's +ever paid me," Dan sniggered. "What's wrong with you, Harve? +You act all quiet and you look greenish. Feelin' sick?" + +"Don't know what's the matter with me," Harvey implied." 'Seems +if my insides were too big for my outsides. I'm all crowded up and +shivery." + +"Dispepsy? Pshaw-too bad. We'll wait for the readin', an' then we'll +quit, an' catch the tide." + +The widows-they were nearly all of that season's making-braced +themselves rigidly like people going to be shot in cold blood, for +they knew what was coming. The summer-boarder girls in pink +and blue shirt-waists stopped tittering over Captain Edwardes's +wonderful poem, and looked back to see why all was silent. The +fishermen pressed forward a~ that town official who had talked to +Cheyne bobbed up on the platform and began to read the year's list +of losses, dividing them into months. Last September's casualties +were mostly single men and strangers, but his voice rang very loud +in the stillness of the hall. + +"September 9th.Schooner Florrie Anderson lost, with all aboard, +off the Georges. + +"Reuben Pitman, master, 50, single, Main Street, City. + +"Emil Olsen, 19, single, 329 Hammond Street, City. Denmark. + +"Oscar Standberg, single, 25. Sweden. + +"CarJ Stanberg, single, 28, Main Street. City. + +"Pedro, supposed Madeira, single, Keene's boardinghouse. City. + +"Joseph Welsh, alias Joseph Wright, 30, St. John's, +Newfoundland." + +"No-Augusty, Maine," a voice cried from the body of the hall. + +"He shipped from St. John's," said the reader, looking to see. + +"I know it. He belongs in Augusty. My nevvy." + +The reader made a pencilled correction on the margin of the list, +and resumed + + + + + +"Same schooner, Charlie Ritchie, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 33, +single. + + + +"Albert May, 267 Rogers Street, City, 27, single. + +"September 27th.-Orvin Dollard, 30, married, drowned in dorv off +Eastern Point." + +That shot went home, for one of the widows flinched where she +sat, clasping and unclasping her hands. Mrs. Cheyne, who had +been listening with wide-opened eyes, threw up her head and +choked. Dan's mother, a few seats to the right, saw and heard and +quickly moved to her side. The reading went on. By the time they +reached the January and February wrecks the shots were falling +thick and fast, and the widows drew breath between their teeth. + +"February l4th.-Schooner Harry Randolph dismasted on the way +home from Newfoundland; Asa Musie, married, 32, Main Street, +City, lost overboard. + +"February 23d.-Schooner Gilbert Hope; went astray in dory, Robert +Beavon, 29, married, native of Pubnico, Nova Scotia." + +But his wife was in the hall. They heard a low cry, as though a +little animal had been hit. It was stifled at once, and a girl +staggered out of the hall. She had been hoping against hope for +months, because some who have gone adrift in dories have been +miraculously picked up by deep-sea sailing-ships. Now she had her +certainty, and Harvey could see the policeman on the sidewalk +hailing a hack for her. "It's fifty cents to the depot"-the driver +began, but the policeman held up his hand-"but I'm goin' there +anyway. Jump right in. Look at here, All; you don't pull me next +time my lamps ain't lit. See?" + +The side-door closed on the patch of bright sunshine, and Harvey's +eyes turned again to the reader and his endless list. + +"April 1 9th-Schooner Mamie Douglas lost on the Banks with all +hands. + +"Edward Canton, 43, master, married, City. + +"D. Hawkins, alias Williams, 34, married, Shelbourne, Nova +Scotia. + +"G. W. Clay, coloured, 28, married, City." + +And so on, and so on. Great lumps were rising in Harvey's throat, +and his stomach reminded him of the day when he fell from the +liner. + +"May l0th.-Schooner We're Here [the blood tingled all over hi~. +Otto Svendson, 20, single, City, lost overboard." + +Once more a low, tearing cry from somewhere at the back of the +hall. + +"She shouldn't ha' come. She shouldn't ha' come," said Long Jack, +with a cluck of pity. + +"Don't scrowge, Harve," grunted Dan. Harvey heard that much, but +the rest was all darkness spotted with fiery wheels. Disko leaned +forward and spoke to his wife, where she sat with one arm round +Mrs. Cheyne, and the other holding down the snatching, catching, +ringed hands. + +"Lean your head daown-right daown!" slie whispered. "It'll go off +in a minute." + +"I ca-an't! I do-don't! Oh, let me-" Mrs. Cheyne did not at all know +what she said. + +"You must," Mrs. Troop repeated. "Your boy's jest fainted dead +away. They do that some when they're gettin' their growth. 'Wish to +tend to him? We can git aout this side. Quite quiet. You come right +along with me. Psha', my dear, we're both women, I guess. We +must tend to aour men-folk. Come!" + +The We're Heres promptly went through the crowd as a +body-guard, and it was a very white and shaken Harvey that they +propped up on a bench in an anteroom. + +"Favours his ma," was Mrs. Troop's ouly comment, as the mother +bent over her boy. + +"How d'you suppose he could ever stand it?" she cried indignantly +to Cheyne, who had said nothing at all. "It was horrible-horrible! +We shouldn't have come. It's wrong and wicked! It-it isn't right! +Why-why couldn't they put these things in the papers, where they +belong? Are you better, darling?" + +That made Harvey very properly ashamed. "Oh, I'm all right, I +guess," he said, struggling to his feet, with a broken giggle. "Must +ha' been something I ate for breakfast" + +"Coffee; perhaps," said Cheyne, whose face was all in hard lines, +as though it had been cut out of bronze. "We won't go back again." + +"Guess 'twould be 'baout's well to git daown to the wharf," said +Disko. "It's close in along with them Dagoes, an' the fresh air will +fresh Mrs. Cheyne up." + +Harvey announced that he never felt better in his life; but it was +not till he saw the We're Here, fresh from the lumper's hands, at +Wouverman's wharf, that he lost his all-overish feelings in a queer +mixture of pride and sorrowfulness. Other people summer +boarders and such-like-played about in cat-boats or looked at the +sea from pier-heads; but he understood things from the inside-- +more things than he could begin to think about None the less, he +could have sat down and howled because the little schooner was +going off. Mrs. Cheyne simply cried and cried every step of the +way and said most extraordinary things to Mrs. Troop, who +"babied" her till Dan, who had not been "babied" since he was six, +whistled aloud. + +And so the old crowd-Harvey felt like the most ancient of mariners +dropped into the old schooner among the battered dories, while +Harvey slipped the stern-fast from the pier-head, and they slid her +along the wharf-side with their hands. Every one wanted to say so +much that no one said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan +take care of Uncle Salters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and +Long Jack entreated Harvey to remember his lessons in +seamanship; but the jokes fell flat in the presence of the two +women, and it is hard to be funny with green harbour-water +widening between good friends. + +"Up jib and fores'l!" shouted Disko, getting to the wheel, as the +wind took her. " 'See you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near +thinkin' a heap o' you an' your folks." + +Then she glided beyond ear-shot, and they sat down to watch her +up the harbour, And still Mrs. Cheyne wept. + +"Pshaw, my dear," said Mrs. Troop: "we're both women, I guess. +Like's not it'll ease your heart to hey your cry aout. God He knows +it never done me a mite o' good, but then He knows I've had +something to cry fer!" + + Now it was a few years later, and upon the other edge of America, +that a young man came through the clammy sea fog up a windy +street which is flanked with most expensive houses built of wood +to imitate stone. To him, as he was standing by a hammered iron +gate, entered on horseback-and the horse would have been cheap at +a thousand dollars-another young man. And this is what they said: + +"Hello, Dan!" + +"Hello, Harve!" + +"What's the best with you?" + +"Well, I'm so's to be that kind o' animal called second mate this +trip. Ain't you most through with that triple invoiced college of +yours?" + +"Getting that way. I tell you, the Leland Stanford Junior, isn't a +circumstance to the old We're Here; but I'm coming into the +business for keeps next fall." + +"Meanin' aour packets?" + +"Nothing else. You just wait till I get my knife into you, Dan. I'm +going to make the old line lie down and cry when I take hold." + +"I'll resk it," said Dan, with a brotherly grin, as Harvey dismounted +and asked whether he were coming in. + +"That's what I took the cable fer; but, say, is the doctor anywheres +aranund? I'll draown that crazy rigger some day, his one cussed +joke an' all." + +There was a low, triumphant chuckle, as the ex-cook of the We're +Here came out of the fog to take the horse's bridle. He allowed no +one but himself to attend to any of Harvey's wants. + +"Thick as the Banks, ain't it, doctor?" said Dan, propitiatingly. + +But the coal-black Celt with the second-sight did not see fit to +reply till he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth +time croaked the old, old prophecy in his ear. + +"Master-man. Man-master," said he. "You remember, Dan Troop, +what I said? On the We're Here?" + +"Well, I won't go so far as to deny that it do look like it as things +stand at present," said Dan. "She was a noble packet, and one way +an' another I owe her a heap--her and Dad." + +"Me too," quoth Harvey Cheyne. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Captains Courageous, by Kipling + diff --git a/old/cptcr10a.zip b/old/cptcr10a.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e16f63 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cptcr10a.zip diff --git a/old/cptcr11a.txt b/old/cptcr11a.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4e22cd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cptcr11a.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6782 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Captains Courageous, by Kipling* +#9 in our series by Rudyard Kipling + +Also see our version cptcr10.txt and .zip +May 2000 Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling[Kipling#9]2186 + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This Project Gutenberg Etext prepared by David Reed <davidr@inconnect.com> +Our version cptcr10.txt was prepared by Bill Stoddard <hscrr@vgernet.net> + + + + +"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" + +A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS + +by Rudyard Kipling + + + + +TO +JAMES CONLAND, M.D., +Brattleboro, Vermont + +I ploughed the land with horses, +But my heart was ill at ease, +For the old sea-faring men +Came to me now and then, +With their sagas of the seas. + +Longfellow. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the +North Atlantic fog, as the big liner rolled and lifted, whistling +to warn the fishing-fleet. + +"That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard," said a man in a +frieze overcoat, shutting the door with a bang. "He isn't wanted +here. He's too fresh." + +A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and grunted between +bites: "I know der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you +you should imbort ropes' ends free under your dariff." + +"Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied +than anything," a man from New York drawled, as he lay at full +length along the cushions under the wet skylight. "They've dragged +him around from hotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was +talking to his mother this morning. She's a lovely lady, but she +don't pretend to manage him. He's going to Europe to finish his +education." + +"Education isn't begun yet." This was a Philadelphian, curled up +in a corner. "That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money, he +told me. He isn't sixteen either." + +"Railroads, his father, aind't it?" said the German. + +"Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at +San Diego, the old man has; another at Los Angeles; owns half a +dozen railroads, half the lumber on the Pacific slope, and lets +his wife spend the money," the Philadelphian went on lazily. "The +West don't suit her, she says. She just tracks around with the boy +and her nerves, trying to find out what'll amuse him, I guess. +Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York, and round +again. He isn't much more than a second-hand hotel clerk now. When +he's finished in Europe he'll be a holy terror." + +"What's the matter with the old man attending to him personally?" +said a voice from the frieze ulster. + +"Old man's piling up the rocks. 'Don't want to be disturbed, I +guess. He'll find out his error a few years from now. 'Pity, +because there's a heap of good in the boy if you could get at it." + +"Mit a rope's end; mit a rope's end!" growled the German. + +Once more the door banged, and a slight, slim-built boy perhaps +fifteen years old, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner +of his mouth, leaned in over the high footway. His pasty yellow +complexion did not show well on a person of his years, and his +look was a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very cheap +smartness. He was dressed in a cherry-coloured blazer, +knickerbockers, red stockings, and bicycle shoes, with a red +flannel cap at the back of the head. After whistling between his +teeth, as he eyed the company, he said in a loud, high voice: +"Say, it's thick outside. You can hear the fish-boats squawking +all around us. Say, wouldn't it be great if we ran down one?" + +"Shut the door, Harvey," said the New Yorker. "Shut the door and +stay outside. You're not wanted here." + +"Who'll stop me?" he answered, deliberately. "Did you pay for my +passage, Mister Martin? 'Guess I've as good right here as the next +man." + +He picked up some dice from a checkerboard and began throwing, +right hand against left. + +"Say, gen'elmen, this is deader'n mud. Can't we make a game of +poker between us?" + +There was no answer, and he puffed his cigarette, swung his legs, +and drummed on the table with rather dirty fingers. Then he pulled +out a roll of bills as if to count them. + +"How's your mamma this afternoon?" a man said. "I didn't see her +at lunch." + +"In her state-room, I guess. She's 'most always sick on the ocean. +I'm going to give the stewardess fifteen dollars for looking after +her. I don't go down more 'n I can avoid. It makes me feel +mysterious to pass that butler's-pantry place. Say, this is the +first time I've been on the ocean." + +"Oh, don't apologize, Harvey." + +"Who's apologizing? This is the first time I've crossed the ocean, +gen'elmen, and, except the first day, I haven't been sick one +little bit. No, sir!" He brought down his fist with a triumphant +bang, wetted his finger, and went on counting the bills. + +"Oh, you're a high-grade machine, with the writing in plain +sight," the Philadelphian yawned. "You'll blossom into a credit to +your country if you don't take care." + +"I know it. I'm an American -- first, last, and all the time. I'll +show 'em that when I strike Europe. Piff! My cig's out. I can't +smoke the truck the steward sells. Any gen'elman got a real +Turkish cig on him?" + +The chief engineer entered for a moment, red, smiling, and wet. +"Say, Mac," cried Harvey cheerfully, "how are we hitting it?" + +"Vara much in the ordinary way," was the grave reply. "The young +are as polite as ever to their elders, an' their elders are e'en +tryin' to appreciate it." + +A low chuckle came from a corner. The German opened his +cigar-case and handed a skinny black cigar to Harvey. + +"Dot is der broper apparatus to smoke, my young friendt," he said. +"You vill dry it? Yes? Den you vill be efer so happy." + +Harvey lit the unlovely thing with a flourish: he felt that he was +getting on in grownup society. + +"It would take more 'n this to keel me over," he said, ignorant that +he was lighting that terrible article, a Wheeling 'stogie'. + +"Dot we shall bresently see," said the German. "Where are we +now, Mr. Mactonal'?" + +"Just there or thereabouts, Mr. Schaefer," said the engineer. +"We'll be on the Grand Bank to-night; but in a general way o' +speakin', we're all among the fishing-fleet now. We've shaved +three dories an' near scalped the boom off a Frenchman since +noon, an' that's close sailing', ye may say." + +"You like my cigar, eh?" the German asked, for Harvey's eyes were +full of tears. + +"Fine, full flavor," he answered through shut teeth. "Guess we've +slowed down a little, haven't we? I'll skip out and see what the +log says." + +"I might if I vhas you," said the German. + +Harvey staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail. He was +very unhappy; but he saw the deck-steward lashing chairs together, +and, since he had boasted before the man that he was never +seasick, his pride made him go aft to the second-saloon deck at +the stern, which was finished in a turtle-back. The deck was +deserted, and he crawled to the extreme end of it, near the +flag-pole. There he doubled up in limp agony, for the Wheeling +"stogie" joined with the surge and jar of the screw to sieve out +his soul. His head swelled; sparks of fire danced before his eyes; +his body seemed to lose weight, while his heels wavered in the +breeze. He was fainting from seasickness, and a roll of the ship +tilted him over the rail on to the smooth lip of the turtle-back. +Then a low, gray mother-wave swung out of the fog, tucked Harvey +under one arm, so to speak, and pulled him off and away to +leeward; the great green closed over him, and he went quietly to +sleep. + +He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used to +blow at a summer-school he had once attended in the Adirondacks. +Slowly he remembered that he was Harvey Cheyne, drowned and dead +in mid-ocean, but was too weak to fit things together. A new smell +filled his nostrils; wet and clammy chills ran down his back, and +he was helplessly full of salt water. When he opened his eyes, he +perceived that he was still on the top of the sea, for it was +running round him in silver-coloured hills, and he was lying on a +pile of half-dead fish, looking at a broad human back clothed in a +blue jersey. + +"It's no good," thought the boy. "I'm dead, sure enough, and this +thing is in charge." + +He groaned, and the figure turned its head, showing a pair of little +gold rings half hidden in curly black hair. + +"Aha! You feel some pretty well now?" it said. "Lie still so: we +trim better." + +With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a +foamless sea that lifted her twenty full feet, only to slide her +into a glassy pit beyond. But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt +blue-jersey's talk. "Fine good job, I say, that I catch you. Eh, +wha-at? Better good job, I say, your boat not catch me. How you +come to fall out?" + +"I was sick," said Harvey; "sick, and couldn't help it." + +"Just in time I blow my horn, and your boat she yaw a little. Then +I see you come all down. Eh, wha-at? I think you are cut into +baits by the screw, but you dreeft -- dreeft to me, and I make a +big fish of you. So you shall not die this time." + +"Where am I?" said Harvey, who could not see that life was +particularly safe where he lay. + +"You are with me in the dory -- Manuel my name, and I come from +schooner 'We're Here' of Gloucester. I live to Gloucester. By-and-by +we get supper. Eh, wha-at?" + +He seemed to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, +not content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs +stand up to it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, +and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long +this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay +back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he +heard a gun and a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the +dory, but quite as lively, loomed alongside. Several voices talked +at once; he was dropped into a dark, heaving hole, where men in +oilskins gave him a hot drink and took off his clothes, and he +fell asleep. + +When he waked he listened for the first breakfast-bell on the +steamer, wondering why his state-room had grown so small. Turning, +he looked into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung +against a huge square beam. A three-cornered table within arm's +reach ran from the angle of the bows to the foremast. At the after end, +behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, +with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling gray eyes. He was +dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots. Several pairs of +the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, and some worn-out woollen +socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow oilskins swayed to +and fro beside the bunks. The place was packed as full of smells +as a bale is of cotton. The oilskins had a peculiarly thick +flavor of their own which made a sort of background to the smells +of fried fish, burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; but +these, again, were all hooped together by one encircling smell of +ship and salt water. Harvey saw with disgust that there were no +sheets on his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking +full of lumps and nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not +that of a steamer. She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather +wriggling herself about in a silly, aimless way, like a colt at +the end of a halter. Water-noises ran by close to his ear, and +beams creaked and whined about him. All these things made him +grunt despairingly and think of his mother. + +"Feelin' better?" said the boy, with a grin. "Hev some coffee?" He +brought a tin cup full and sweetened it with molasses. + +"Isn't there milk?" said Harvey, looking round the dark double +tier of bunks as if he expected to find a cow there. + +"Well, no," said the boy. "Ner there ain't likely to be till +'baout mid-September. 'Tain't bad coffee. I made it." + +Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of +pieces of crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously. + +"I've dried your clothes. Guess they've shrunk some," said the +boy. "They ain't our style much -- none of 'em. Twist round an' see +if you're hurt any." + +Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report +any injuries. + +"That's good," the boy said heartily. "Fix yerself an' go on deck. +Dad wants to see you. I'm his son,--Dan, they call me,--an' I'm +cook's helper an' everything else aboard that's too dirty for the +men. There ain't no boy here 'cep' me sence Otto went overboard -- +an' he was only a Dutchy, an' twenty year old at that. How'd you +come to fall off in a dead flat ca'am?" + +"'Twasn't a calm," said Harvey, sulkily. "It was a gale, and I was +seasick. Guess I must have rolled over the rail." + +"There was a little common swell yes'day an' last night," said the +boy. "But ef thet's your notion of a gale----" He whistled. "You'll +know more 'fore you're through. Hurry! Dad's waitin'." + +Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all +his life received a direct order--never, at least, without long, +and sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience +and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of +breaking his spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she +herself walked on the edge of nervous prostration. He could not +see why he should be expected to hurry for any man's pleasure, and +said so. "Your dad can come down here if he's so anxious to talk +to me. I want him to take me to New York right away. It'll pay +him." + +Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on +him. "Say, Dad!" he shouted up the foc'sle hatch, "he says you +kin slip down an' see him ef you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?" + +The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard +from a human chest: "Quit foolin', Dan, and send him to me." + +Dan sniggered, and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes. There +was something in the tones on the deck that made the boy dissemble +his extreme rage and console himself with the thought of gradually +unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth on the +voyage home. This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his +friends for life. He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular +ladder, and stumbled aft, over a score of obstructions, to where a +small, thick-set, clean-shaven man with gray eyebrows sat on a +step that led up to the quarter-deck. The swell had passed in the +night, leaving a long, oily sea, dotted round the horizon with the +sails of a dozen fishing-boats. Between them lay little black +specks, showing where the dories were out fishing. The schooner, +with a triangular riding-sail on the mainmast, played easily at +anchor, and except for the man by the cabin-roof --"house" they +call it--she was deserted. + +"Mornin'--Good afternoon, I should say. You've nigh slep' the +clock round, young feller," was the greeting. + +"Mornin'," said Harvey. He did not like being called "young feller"; +and, as one rescued from drowning, expected sympathy. His +mother suffered agonies whenever he got his feet wet; but this +mariner did not seem excited. + +"Naow let's hear all abaout it. It's quite providential, first an' last, +fer all concerned. What might be your name? Where from (we +mistrust it's Noo York), an' where baound (we mistrust it's +Europe)?" + +Harvey gave his name, the name of the steamer, and a short history +of the accident, winding up with a demand to be taken back +immediately to New York, where his father would pay anything +any one chose to name. + +"H'm," said the shaven man, quite unmoved by the end of Harvey's +speech. "I can't say we think special of any man, or boy even, +that falls overboard from that kind o' packet in a flat ca'am. +Least of all when his excuse is that he's seasick." + +"Excuse!" cried Harvey. "D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into +your dirty little boat for fun?" + +"Not knowin' what your notions o' fun may be, I can't rightly say, +young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn't call the boat which, +under Providence, was the means o' savin' ye, names. In the first +place, it's blame irreligious. In the second, it's annoyin' to my +feelin's--an' I'm Disko Troop o' the 'We're Here' o' Gloucester, +which you don't seem rightly to know." + +"I don't know and I don't care," said Harvey. "I'm grateful enough +for being saved and all that, of course! but I want you to +understand that the sooner you take me back to New York the +better it'll pay you." + +"Meanin'--haow?" Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a +suspiciously mild blue eye. + +"Dollars and cents," said Harvey, delighted to think that he was +making an impression. "Cold dollars and cents." He thrust a hand +into a pocket, and threw out his stomach a little, which was his +way of being grand. "You've done the best day's work you ever did +in your life when you pulled me in. I'm all the son Harvey Cheyne +has." + +"He's bin favoured," said Disko, dryly. + +"And if you don't know who Harvey Cheyne is, you don't know +much--that's all. Now turn her around and let's hurry." + +Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled +with people discussing and envying his father's dollars. + +"Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't. Take a reef in your stummick, +young feller. It's full o' my vittles." + +Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy +by the stump-foremast, and blood rushed to his face. "We'll pay for +that too," he said. "When do you suppose we shall get to New +York?" + +"I don't use Noo York any. Ner Boston. We may see Eastern Point +about September; an' your pa--I'm real sorry I hain't heerd tell +of him--may give me ten dollars efter all your talk. Then o' +course he mayn't." + +"Ten dollars! Why, see here, I--" Harvey dived into his pocket for +the wad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of +cigarettes. + +"Not lawful currency; an' bad for the lungs. Heave 'em overboard, +young feller, and try agin." + +"It's been stolen!" cried Harvey, hotly. + +"You'll hev to wait till you see your pa to reward me, then?" + +"A hundred and thirty-four dollars--all stolen," said Harvey, hunting +wildly through his pockets. "Give them back." + +A curious change flitted across old Troop's hard face. "What +might you have been doin' at your time o' life with one hundred +an' thirty-four dollars, young feller?" + +"It was part of my pocket-money--for a month." This Harvey +thought would be a knock-down blow, and it was--indirectly. + +"Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his +pocket-money--for one month only! You don't remember hittin' +anything when you fell over, do you? Crack agin a stanchion, +le's say. Old man Hasken o' the East Wind"--Troop seemed to be +talking to himself--"he tripped on a hatch an' butted the +mainmast with his head--hardish. 'Baout three weeks afterwards, +old man Hasken he would hev it that the "East Wind" was a +commerce-destroyin' man-o'-war, an' so he declared war on Sable Island +because it was Bridish, an' the shoals run aout too far. They +sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head an' feet appearin', fer the +rest o' the trip, an' now he's to home in Essex playin' with +little rag dolls." + +Harvey choked with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: "We're +sorry fer you. We're very sorry fer you--an' so young. We won't say +no more abaout the money, I guess." + +"'Course you won't. You stole it." + +"Suit yourself. We stole it ef it's any comfort to you. Naow, +abaout goin' back. Allowin' we could do it, which we can't, you +ain't in no fit state to go back to your home, an' we've jest come +on to the Banks, workin' fer our bread. We don't see the ha'af of +a hundred dollars a month, let alone pocket-money; an' with good +luck we'll be ashore again somewheres abaout the first weeks o' +September." + +"But--but it's May now, and I can't stay here doin' nothing just +because you want to fish. I can't, I tell you!" + +"Right an' jest; jest an' right. No one asks you to do nothin'. +There's a heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le +Have. I mistrust he lost his grip in a gale we f'und there. +Anyways, he never come back to deny it. You've turned up, plain, +plumb providential for all concerned. I mistrust, though, there's +ruther few things you kin do. Ain't thet so?" + +"I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore," +said Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about +"piracy," at which Troop almost--not quite--smiled. + +"Excep' talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more'n +you've a mind to aboard the 'We're Here'. Keep your eyes open, an' +help Dan to do ez he's bid, an' sechlike, an' I'll give you--you +ain't wuth it, but I'll give--ten an' a ha'af a month; say +thirty-five at the end o' the trip. A little work will ease up +your head, and you kin tell us all abaout your dad an' your ma +an' your money afterwards." + +"She's on the steamer," said Harvey, his eyes flling with tears. +"Take me to New York at once." + +"Poor woman--poor woman! When she has you back she'll forgit it +all, though. There's eight of us on the 'We're Here', an' ef we went +back naow--it's more'n a thousand mile--we'd lose the season. The +men they wouldn't hev it, allowin' I was agreeable." + +"But my father would make it all right." + +"He'd try. I don't doubt he'd try," said Troop; "but a whole +season's catch is eight men's bread; an' you'll be better in your +health when you see him in the fall. Go forward an' help Dan. It's +ten an' a ha'af a month, e I said, an' o' course, all f'und, +same e the rest o' us." + +"Do you mean I'm to clean pots and pans and things?" said Harvey. + +"An' other things. You've no call to shout, young feller." + +"I won't! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little +fish-kettle"--Harvey stamped on the deck--"ten times over, if +you take me to New York safe; and--and--you're in a hundred and +thirty by me, anyhow." + +"Haow?" said Troop, the iron face darkening. + +"How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want +me to do menial work"--Harvey was very proud of that +adjective--"till the Fall. I tell you I will not. You hear?" + +Troop regarded the top of the mainmast with deep interest for a +while, as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him. + +"Hsh!" he said at last. "I'm figurin' out my responsibilities in my +own mind. It's a matter o' jedgment." + +Dan stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. "Don't go to +tamperin' with Dad any more," he pleaded. "You've called him a +thief two or three times over, an' he don't take that from any livin' +bein'." + +"I won't!" Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and +still Troop meditated. + +"Seems kinder unneighbourly," he said at last, his eye travelling +down to Harvey. "I -- don't blame you, not a mite, young feeler, nor +you won't blame me when the bile's out o' your systim. Be sure you +sense what I say? Ten an' a ha'af fer second boy on the +schooner--an' all found--fer to teach you an' fer the sake o' your +health. Yes or no?" + +"No!" said Harvey. "Take me back to New York or I'll see you--" + +He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in the +scuppers, holding on to a nose that bled while Troop looked down +on him serenely. + +"Dan," he said to his son, "I was sot agin this young feeler +when I first saw him on account o' hasty jedgments. Never you be +led astray by hasty jedgments, Dan. Naow I'm sorry for him, +because he's clear distracted in his upper works. He ain't +responsible fer the names he's give me, nor fer his other +statements--nor fer jumpin' overboard, which I'm abaout ha'af +convinced he did. You he gentle with him, Dan, 'r I'll give you +twice what I've give him. Them hemmeridges clears the head. Let +him sluice it off!" + +Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older +men bunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless heir to thirty +millions. + + +CHAPTER II + +"I warned ye," said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the +dark, oiled planking. "Dad ain't noways hasty, but you fair earned +it. Pshaw! there's no sense takin' on so." Harvey's shoulders were +rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing. "I know the feelin'. +First time Dad laid me out was the last--and that was my first trip. +Makes ye feel sickish an' lonesome. I know." + +"It does," moaned Harvey. "That man's either crazy or drunk, +and--and I can't do anything." + +"Don't say that to Dad," whispered Dan. "He's set agin all liquor, +an'--well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made +you call him a thief? He's my dad." + +Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing +wad of bills. "I'm not crazy," he wound up. "Only--your father has +never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father +could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it." + +"You don't know what the 'We're Here's' worth. Your dad must hev +a pile o' money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out +a straight yarn. Go ahead." + +"In gold mines and things, West." + +"I've read o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go +around with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call +that the Wild West, and I've heard that their spurs an' bridles was +solid silver." + +"You are a chump!" said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. "My +father hasn't any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his +car." + +"Haow? Lobster-car?" + +"No. His own private car, of course. You've seen a private car +some time in your life?" + +"Slatin Beeman he hez one," said Dan, cautiously. "I saw her at +the Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin' her run.", +(Dan meant cleaning the windows.) "But Slatin Beeman he owns +'baout every railroad on Long Island, they say, an' they say he's +bought 'baout ha'af Noo Hampshire an' run a line fence around her, +an' filled her up with lions an' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an' +crocodiles an' such all. Slatin Beeman he's a millionaire. I've +seen his car. Yes?" + +"Well, my father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has +two private cars. One's named for me, the 'Harvey', and one for my +mother, the 'Constance'." + +"Hold on," said Dan. "Dad don't ever let me swear, but I guess you +can. 'Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if +you're lyin'." + +"Of course," said Harvey. + +"The ain't 'niff. Say, 'Hope I may die if I ain't speaking' truth."' + +"Hope I may die right here," said Harvey, "if every word I've +spoken isn't the cold truth." + +"Hundred an' thirty-four dollars an' all?" said Dan. "I heard ye +talkin' to Dad, an' I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up, same's +Jonah." + +Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young +person along his own lines, and ten minutes' questioning convinced +him that Harvey was not lying--much. Besides, he had bound +himself by the most terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he +sat, alive, with a red-ended nose, in the scuppers, recounting +marvels upon marvels. + +"Gosh!" said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when +Harvey had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour. +Then a grin of mischievous delight overspread his broad face. "I +believe you, Harvey. Dad's made a mistake fer once in his life." + +"He has, sure," said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge. + +"He'll be mad clear through. Dad jest hates to be mistook in his +jedgments." Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Harvey, don't +you spile the catch by lettin' on." + +"I don't want to be knocked down again. I'll get even with him, +though." + +"Never heard any man ever got even with dad. But he'd knock ye +down again sure. The more he was mistook the more he'd do it. But +gold-mines and pistols --" + +"I never said a word about pistols," Harvey cut in, for he was on +his oath. + +"Thet's so; no more you did. Two private cars, then, one named fer +you an' one fer her; an' two hundred dollars a month pocket-money, +all knocked into the scuppers fer not workin' fer ten an' a ha'af +a month! It's the top haul o' the season." He exploded with +noiseless chuckles. + +"Then I was right?" said Harvey, who thought he had found a +sympathiser. + +"You was wrong; the wrongest kind o' wrong! You take right hold +an' pitch in 'longside o' me, or you'll catch it, an' I'll catch +it fer backin' you up. Dad always gives me double helps 'cause I'm +his son, an' he hates favourin' folk. 'Guess you're kinder mad at +dad. I've been that way time an' again. But dad's a mighty jest +man; all the fleet says so." + +"Looks like justice, this, don't it?" Harvey pointed to his +outraged nose. + +"Thet's nothin'. Lets the shore blood outer you. Dad did it for +yer health. Say, though, I can't have dealin's with a man that +thinks me or dad or any one on the 'We're Here's' a thief. We +ain't any common wharf-end crowd by any manner o' means. We're +fishermen, an' we've shipped together for six years an' more. +Don't you make any mistake on that! I told ye dad don't let me +swear. He calls 'em vain oaths, and pounds me; but ef I could say +what you said 'baout your pap an' his fixin's, I'd say that 'baout +your dollars. I dunno what was in your pockets when I dried your +kit, fer I didn't look to see; but I'd say, using the very same +words ez you used jest now, neither me nor dad -- an' we was the +only two that teched you after you was brought aboard -- knows +anythin' 'baout the money. Thet's my say. Naow?" + +The bloodletting had certainly cleared Harvey's brain, and maybe +the loneliness of the sea had something to do with it. "That's all +right," he said. Then he looked down confusedly. "'Seems to me +that for a fellow just saved from drowning I haven't been over and +above grateful, Dan." + +"Well, you was shook up and silly," said Dan. "Anyway, there was +only dad an' me aboard to see it. The cook he don't count." + +"I might have thought about losing the bills that way," Harvey said, +half to himself, "instead of calling everybody in sight a thief. +Where's your father?" + +"In the cabin. What d' you want o' him again?" + +"You'll see," said Harvey, and he stepped, rather groggily, for +his head was still singing, to the cabin steps where the little +ship's clock hung in plain sight of the wheel. Troop, in the +chocolate-and-yellow painted cabin, was busy with a note-book and +an enormous black pencil which he sucked hard from time +to time. + +"I haven't acted quite right," said Harvey, surprised at his own +meekness. + +"What's wrong naow?" said the skipper. "Walked into Dan, hev ye?" + +"No; it's about you." + +"I'm here to listen." + +"Well, I--I'm here to take things back," said Harvey very quickly. +"When a man's saved from drowning---" he gulped. + +"Ey? You'll make a man yet ef you go on this way." + +"He oughtn't begin by calling people names." + +"Jest an' right--right an' jest," said Troop, with the ghost of a dry +smile. + +"So I'm here to say I'm sorry." Another big gulp. + +Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and +held out an eleven-inch hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' +good; an' this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments." A +smothered chuckle on deck caught his ear. "I am very seldom +mistook in my jedgments." The eleven-inch hand closed on +Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "We'll put a little more gristle to +that 'fore we've done with you, young feller; an' I don't think any +worse of ye fer anythin' the's gone by. You wasn't fairly +responsible. Go right abaout your business an' you won't take no +hurt." + +"You're white," said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to +the tips of his ears. + +"I don't feel it," said he. + +"I didn't mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows +he don't think the worse of any man, Dad's give himself away. He +hates to be mistook in his jedgments too. Ho! ho! Onct Dad has a +jedgment, he'd sooner dip his colours to the British than change it. +I'm glad it's settled right eend up. Dad's right when he says +he can't take you back. It's all the livin' we make here--fishin'. +The men'll be back like sharks after a dead whale in +ha'af an hour." + +"What for?" said Harvey. + +"Supper, o' course. Don't your stummick tell you? You've a heap to +learn." + +"Guess I have," said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of +ropes and blocks overhead. + +"She's a daisy," said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the +look. "Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her +salt wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into +the darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts. + +"What's that for? It's all empty," said Harvey. + +"You an' me an' a few more hev got to fill it," said Dan. "That's +where the fish goes." + +"Alive?" said Harvey. + +"Well, no. They're so's to be ruther dead--an' flat--an' salt. There's a +hundred hogshead o' salt in the bins, an' we hain't more'n covered +our dunnage to now." + +"Where are the fish, though?" + +"'In the sea they say, in the boats we pray,'" said Dan, quoting a +fisherman's proverb. "You come in last night with 'baout forty of +'em." + +He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the +quarter-deck. + +"You an' me we'll sluice that out when they're through. 'Send +we'll hev full pens to-night! I've seen her down ha'af a foot with +fish waitin' to clean, an' we stood to the tables till we was +splittin' ourselves instid o' them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they're +comm' in naow." Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen +dories rowing towards them over the shining, silky sea. + +"I've never seen the sea from so low down," said Harvey. "It's fine." + +The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden +lights on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green +mackerel shades in the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to +be pulling her dories towards her by invisible strings, and the little +black figures in the tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys. + +"They've struck on good," said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. +"Manuel hain't room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still +water, Aeneid he?" + +"Which is Manuel? I don't see how you can tell 'em 'way off, as +you do." + +"Last boat to the south'ard. He fund you last night," said Dan, +pointing. "Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can't mistake him. East o' +him--he's a heap better'n he rows--is Pennsylvania. Loaded with +saleratus, by the looks of him. East o' him--see how pretty they +string out all along--with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He's a +Galway man inhabitin' South Boston, where they all live mostly, +an' mostly them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away +yonder--you'll hear him tune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man-o'-war's +man he was on the old Ohio first of our navy, he says, to +go araound the Horn. He never talks of much else, 'cept when he +sings, but he has fair fishin' luck. There! What did I tell you?" + +A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. +Harvey heard something about somebody's hands and feet being +cold, and then: + +"Bring forth the chart, the doleful chart, +See where them mountings meet! +The clouds are thick around their heads, +The mists around their feet." + +"Full boat," said Dan, with a chuckle. "If he give us '0 Captain' it's +topping' too!" + +The bellow continued: + +"And naow to thee, 0 Capting, +Most earnestly I pray, +That they shall never bury me +In church or cloister gray." + +"Double game for Tom Platt. He'll tell you all about the old Ohio +tomorrow. 'See that blue dory behind him? He's my uncle,--Dad's +own brother,--an' ef there's any bad luck loose on the Banks +she'll fetch up agin Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he's +rowin'. I'll lay my wage and share he's the only man stung up to-day +--an' he's stung up good." + +"What'll sting him?" said Harvey, getting interested. + +"Strawberries, mostly. Pumpkins, sometimes, an' sometimes lemons +an' cucumbers. Yes, he's stung up from his elbows down. That man's +luck's perfectly paralyzin'. Naow we'll take a-holt o' the tackles +an' hist 'em in. Is it true what you told me jest now, that you +never done a hand's turn o' work in all your born life? Must feel +kinder awful, don't it?" + +"I'm going to try to work, anyway," Harvey replied stoutly. "Only +it's all dead new." + +"Lay a-holt o' that tackle, then. Behind ye!" + +Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of +the stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran +from something he called a "topping-lift," as Manuel drew +alongside in his loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant +smile that Harvey learned to know well later, and with a +short-handled fork began to throw fish into the pen on deck. +"Two hundred and thirty-one," he shouted. + +"Give him the hook," said Dan, and Harvey ran it into Manuel's +hands. He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory's bow, +caught Dan's tackle, hooked it to the stern-becket, and clambered +into the schooner. + +"Pull!" shouted Dan, and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how +easily the dory rose. + +"Hold on, she don't nest in the crosstrees!" Dan laughed; and +Harvey held on, for the boat lay in the air above his head. + +"Lower away," Dan shouted, and as Harvey lowered, Dan swayed +the light boat with one hand till it landed softly just behind the +mainmast. "They don't weigh nothin' empty. Thet was right smart +fer a passenger. There's more trick to it in a sea-way." + +"Ah ha!" said Manuel, holding out a brown hand. "You are some +pretty well now? This time last night the fish they fish for you. +Now you fish for fish. Eh, wha-at?" + +"I'm--I'm ever so grateful," Harvey stammered, and his +unfortunate hand stole to his pocket once more, but he remembered +that he had no money to offer. When he knew Manuel better the mere +thought of the mistake he might have made would cover him with +hot, uneasy blushes in his bunk. + +"There is no to be thankful for to me!" said Manuel. "How shall I +leave you dreeft, dreeft all around the Banks? Now you are a +fisherman eh, wha-at? Ouh! Auh!" He bent backward and forward +stiffly from the hips to get the kinks out of himself. + +"I have not cleaned boat to-day. Too busy. They struck on queek. +Danny, my son, clean for me." + +Harvey moved forward at once. Here was something he could do +for the man who had saved his life. + +Dan threw him a swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the +slime clumsily, but with great good-will. "Hike out the foot-boards; +they slide in them grooves," said Dan. "Swab 'em an' lay +'em down. Never let a foot-board jam. Ye may want her bad some +day. Here's Long Jack." + +A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside. + +"Manuel, you take the tackle. I'll fix the tables. Harvey, clear +Manuel's boat. Long Jack's nestin' on the top of her." + +Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory +just above his head. + +"Jest like the Injian puzzle-boxes, ain't they?" said Dan, as the one +boat dropped into the other. + +"Takes to ut like a duck to water," said Long Jack, a +grizzly-chinned, long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro +exactly as Manuel had done. Disko in the cabin growled up the +hatchway, and they could hear him suck his pencil. + +"Wan hunder an' forty-nine an' a half-bad luck to ye, Discobolus!" +said Long Jack. "I'm murderin' meself to fill your pockuts. Slate ut +for a bad catch. The Portugee has bate me." + +Whack came another dory alongside, and more fish shot into the +pen. + +"Two hundred and three. Let's look at the passenger!" The speaker +was even larger than the Galway man, and his face was made +curious by a purple Cut running slant-ways from his left eye to the +right corner of his mouth. + +Not knowing what else to do, Harvey swabbed each dory as it +came down, pulled out the foot-boards, and laid them in the +bottom of the boat. + +"He's caught on good," said the scarred man, who was Toni Platt, +watching him critically. "There are two ways o' doin' everything. +One's fisher-fashion--any end first an' a slippery hitch over all--an' +the other's--" + +"What we did on the old Ohio!" Dan interrupted, brushing into the +knot of men with a long board on legs. "Get out o' here, Tom Platt, +an' leave me fix the tables." + +He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, +kicked out the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging +blow from the man-o'-war's man. + +"An' they did that on the Ohio, too, Danny. See?" said Tom Platt, +laughing. + +"Guess they was swivel-eyed, then, fer it didn't git home, and I +know who'll find his boots on the main-truck ef he don't leave us +alone. Haul ahead! I'm busy, can't ye see?" + +"Danny, ye lie on the cable an' sleep all day," said Long Jack. +"You're the hoight av impidence, an' I'm persuaded ye'll corrupt +our supercargo in a week." + +"His name's Harvey," said Dan, waving two strangely shaped +knives, "an' he'll be worth five of any Sou' Boston clam-digger 'fore +long." He laid the knives tastefully on the table, cocked his head +on one side, and admired the effect. + +"I think it's forty-two," said a small voice overside, and there was a +roar of laughter as another voice answered, "Then my luck's turned +fer onct, 'caze I'm forty-five, though I be stung outer all shape." + +"Forty-two or forty-five. I've lost count," the small voice said. + +"It's Penn an' Uncle Salters caountin' catch. This beats the circus +any day," said Dan. "Jest look at 'em!" + +"Come in--come in!" roared Long Jack. "It's wet out yondher, +children." + +"Forty-two, ye said." This was Uncle Salters. + +"I'll count again, then," the voice replied meekly. The two dories +swung together and bunted into the schooner's side. + +"Patience o' Jerusalem!" snapped Uncle Salters, backing water +with a splash. "What possest a farmer like you to set foot in a boat +beats me. You've nigh stove me all up." + +"I am sorry, Mr. Salters. I came to sea on account of nervous +dyspepsia. You advised me, I think." + +"You an' your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole," +roared Uncle Salters, a fat and tubby little man. "You're comin' +down on me agin. Did ye say forty-two or forty-five?" + +"I've forgotten, Mr. Salters. Let's count." + +"Don't see as it could be forty-five. I'm forty-five," said Uncle +Salters. "You count keerful, Penn." + +Disko Troop came out of the cabin. "Salters, you pitch your fish in +naow at once," he said in the tone of authority. + +"Don't spile the catch, Dad," Dan murmured. "Them two are on'y +jest beginnin'." + +"Mother av delight! He's forkin' them wan by wan," howled Long +Jack, as Uncle Salters got to work laboriously; the little man in the +other dory counting a line of notches on the gunwale. + +"That was last week's catch," he said, looking up plaintively, his +forefinger where he had left off. + +Manuel nudged Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and, leaning +far overside, slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made +her fast forward. The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat +in--man, fish, and all. + +"One, two, four-nine," said Tom Platt, counting with a practised +eye. "Forty-seven. Penn, you're it!" Dan let the after-tackle run, and +slid him out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own +fish. + +"Hold on!" roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist. "Hold on, +I'm a bit mixed in my caount." + +He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like +"Pennsylvania." + +"Forty-one," said Tom Platt. "Beat by a farmer, Salters. An' you +sech a sailor, too!" + +"'Tweren't fair caount," said he, stumbling out of the pen; "an' I'm +stung up all to pieces." + +His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white. + +"Some folks will find strawberry-bottom," said Dan, addressing the +newly risen moon, "ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me." + +"An' others," said Uncle Salters, "eats the fat o' the land in sloth, +an' mocks their own blood-kin." + +"Seat ye! Seat ye!" a voice Harvey had not heard called from the +foc'sle. Disko Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went +forward on the word. Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea +reel and the tangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down full length on the +deck, and Dan dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him +banging casks with a hammer. + +"Salt," he said, returning. "Soon as we're through supper we git to +dressing-down. You'll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt an' Dad they stow +together, an' you'll hear 'em arguin'. We're second ha'af, you an' me +an' Manuel an' Penn--the youth an' beauty o' the boat." + +"What's the good of that?" said Harvey. "I'm hungry." + +"They'll be through in a minute. Suff! She smells good to-night. +Dad ships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It's a full +catch today, Aeneid it?" He pointed at the pens piled high with +cod. "What water did ye hev, Manuel?" + +"Twenty-fife father," said the Portuguese, sleepily. "They strike on +good an' queek. Some day I show you, Harvey." + +The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder +men came aft. The cook had no need to cry "second half." Dan and +Manuel were down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt, last and +most deliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with +the back of his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down before a +tin pan of cod's tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and +fried potato, a loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful +coffee. Hungry as they were, they waited while "Pennsylvania" +solemnly asked a blessing. Then they stoked in silence till Dan +drew a breath over his tin cup and demanded of Harvey how he +felt. + +"'Most full, but there's just room for another piece." + +The cook was a huge, jet-black negro, and, unlike all the negroes +Harvey had met, did not talk, contenting himself with smiles and +dumb-show invitations to eat more. + +"See, Harvey," said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, "it's +jest as I said. The young an' handsome men--like me an' Pennsy an' +you an' Manuel--we're second ha'af, an' we eats when the first ha'af +are through. They're the old fish; an' they're mean an' humpy, an' +their stummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which +they don't deserve. Aeneid that so, doctor?" + +The cook nodded. + +"Can't he talk?" said Harvey in a whisper. + +"'Nough to get along. Not much o' anything we know. His natural +tongue's kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, +he does, where the farmers speak homemade Scotch. Cape +Breton's full o' niggers whose folk run in there durin' aour war, an' +they talk like farmers--all huffy-chuffy." + +"That is not Scotch," said "Pennsylvania." "That is Gaelic. So I +read in a book." + +"Penn reads a heap. Most of what he says is so--'cep' when it comes +to a caount o' fish--eh?" + +"Does your father just let them say how many they've caught +without checking them?" said Harvey. + +"Why, yes. Where's the sense of a man lyin' fer a few old cod?" + +"Was a man once lied for his catch," Manuel put in. "Lied every +day. Fife, ten, twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was." + +"Where was that?" said Dan. "None o' aour folk." + +"Frenchman of Anguille." + +"Ah! Them West Shore Frenchmen don't caount anyway. Stands to +reason they can't caount Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks, +Harvey, you'll know why," said Dan, with an awful contempt. + + "Always more and never less, + Every time we come to dress," + +Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the "second ha'af" +scrambled up at once. + +The shadow of the masts and rigging, with the never-furled +riding-sail, rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; +and the pile of fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. +In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disko +Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins. Dan passed +Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the inboard end of the rough +table, where Uncle Salters was drumming impatiently with a +knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at his feet. + +"You pitch to Dan an' Tom Platt down the hatch, an' take keer +Uncle Salters don't cut yer eye out," said Dan, swinging himself +into the hold. "I'll pass salt below." + +Penn and Manuel stood knee deep among cod in the pen, +flourishing drawn knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and +mittens on his hands, faced Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey +stared at the pitchfork and the tub. + +"Hi!" shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up +with a finger under its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on +the edge of the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of +tearing, and the fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either +side of the neck, dropped at Long Jack's feet. + +"Hi!" said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod's +liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the +head and offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle +Salters, who snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, +the backbone flew over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, +gutted, and open, splashed in the tub, sending the salt water into +Harvey's astonished mouth. After the first yell, the men were +silent. The cod moved along as though they were alive, and long +ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the miraculous dexterity of it +all, his tub was full. + +"Pitch!" grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and +Harvey pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch. + +"Hi! Pitch 'em bunchy," shouted Dan. "Don't scatter! Uncle Salters is +the best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!" + +Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting +magazine pages against time. Manuel's body, cramped over from +the hips, stayed like a statue; but his long arms grabbed the fish +without ceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was easy to see +he was weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him +without breaking the chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled +because he had caught his finger in a Frenchman's hook. These +hooks are made of soft metal, to be rebent after use; but the cod +very often get away with them and are hooked again elsewhere; +and that is one of the many reasons why the Gloucester boats +despise the Frenchmen. + +Down below, the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough +flesh sounded like the whirring of a grindstone--steady undertune +to the "click-nick" of knives in the pen; the wrench and shloop of +torn heads, dropped liver, and flying offal; the "caraaah" of Uncle +Salters's knife scooping away backbones; and the flap of wet, open +bodies falling into the tub. + +At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; +for fresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back +ached with the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his +life that he was one of the working gang of men, took pride in the +thought, and held on sullenly. + +"Knife oh!" shouted Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, +gasping among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple +himself, and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook +appeared, noiseless as a black shadow, collected a mass of +backbones and heads, and retreated. + +"Blood-ends for breakfast an' head-chowder," said Long Jack, +smacking his lips. + +"Knife oh!" repeated Uncle Salters, waving the flat, curved +splitter's weapon. + +"Look by your foot, Harve," cried Dan below. + +Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch +combing. He dealt these around, taking over the dulled ones. + +"Water!" said Disko Troop. + +"Scuttle-butt's for'ard an' the dipper's alongside. Hurry, Harve," +said Dan. + +He was back in a minute with a big dipperful of stale brown water +which tasted like nectar, and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom +Platt. + +"These are cod," said Disko. "They ain't Damarskus figs, Tom +Platt, nor yet silver bars. I've told you that ever single time since +we've sailed together." + +"A matter o' seven seasons," returned Tom Platt coolly. "Good +stowin's good stowin' all the same, an' there's a right an' a wrong +way o' stowin' ballast even. If you'd ever seen four hundred ton o' +iron set into the--" + +"Hi!" With a yell from Manuel the work began again, and never +stopped till the pen was empty. The instant the last fish was down, +Disko Troop rolled aft to the cabin with his brother; Manuel and +Long Jack went forward; Tom Platt only waited long enough to +slide home the hatch ere he too disappeared. In half a minute +Harvey heard deep snores in the cabin, and he was staring blankly +at Dan and Penn. + +"I did a little better that time, Danny," said Penn, whose eyelids +were heavy with sleep. "But I think it is my duty to help clean." + +"'Wouldn't hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal," said Dan. +"Turn in, Penn. You've no call to do boy's work. Draw a bucket, +Harvey. Oh, Penn, dump these in the gurry-butt 'fore you sleep. +Kin you keep awake that long?" + +Penn took up the heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a +cask with a hinged top lashed by the foc'sle; then he too dropped +out of sight in the cabin. + +"Boys clean up after dressin' down an' first watch in ca'am weather +is boy's watch on the 'We're Here'." Dan sluiced the pen +energetically, unshipped the table, set it up to dry in the moonlight, +ran the red knife-blades through a wad of oakum, and began to +sharpen them on a tiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offal and +backbones overboard under his direction. + +At the first splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from the +oily water and sighed a weird whistling sigh. Harvey started back +with a shout, but Dan only laughed. + +"Grampus," said he. "Beggin' fer fish-heads. They up-eend the way +when they're hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, hain't +he?" A horrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of +white sank, and the water bubbled oilily. "Hain't ye never seen a +grampus up-eend before? You'll see 'em by hundreds 'fore ye're +through. Say, it's good to hev a boy aboard again. Otto was too old, +an' a Dutchy at that. Him an' me we fought consid'ble. 'Wouldn't +ha' keered fer that ef he'd hed a Christian tongue in his head. +Sleepy?" + +"Dead sleepy," said Harvey, nodding forward. + +"Mustn't sleep on watch. Rouse up an' see ef our anchor-light's +bright an' shinin'. You're on watch now, Harve." + +"Pshaw! What's to hurt us? 'Bright's day. Sn-orrr!" + +"Jest when things happen, Dad says. Fine weather's good sleepin', +an' 'fore you know, mebbe, you're cut in two by a liner, an' +seventeen brass-bound officers, all gen'elmen, lift their hand to it +that your lights was aout an' there was a thick fog. Harve, I've +kinder took to you, but ef you nod onet more I'll lay into you with a +rope's end." + +The moon, who sees many strange things on the Banks, looked +down on a slim youth in knickerbockers and a red jersey, +staggering around the cluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner, +while behind him, waving a knotted rope, walked, after the manner +of an executioner, a boy who yawned and nodded between the +blows he dealt. + +The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted +a little in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the +miserable procession continued. Harvey expostulated, threatened, +whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words +clotting on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and +slashed away with the rope's end, punishing the dories as often as +he hit Harvey. At last the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon +the tenth stroke little Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in +two tumbled heaps side by side on the main hatch, so deeply +asleep that he actually rolled them to their berths. + + +CHAPTER III + +It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and +heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin +dish of juicy fragments of fish--the blood-ends the cook had +collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the +elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, +swabbed down the foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water +for the cook, and investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores +were stacked. It was another perfect day--soft, mild, and clear; and +Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs. + +More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas +were full of sails and dories. Far away on the horizon, the smoke of +some liner, her hull invisible, smudged the blue, and to eastward a +big ship's top-gallant sails, just lifting, made a square nick in it. +Disko Troop was smoking by the roof of the cabin--one eye on the +craft around, and the other on the little fly at the main-mast-head. + +"When Dad kerfiummoxes that way," said Dan in a whisper, "he's +doin' some high-line thinkin' fer all hands. I'll lay my wage an' +share we'll make berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, an' the Fleet +they know Dad knows. 'See 'em comm' up one by one, lookin' fer +nothin' in particular, o' course, but scrowgin' on us all the time? +There's the Prince Leboo; she's a Chat-ham boat. She's crep' up +sence last night. An' see that big one with a patch in her foresail an' +a new jib? She's the Carrie Pitman from West Chat-ham. She won't +keep her canvas long onless her luck's changed since last season. +She don't do much 'cep' drift. There ain't an anchor made 'll hold +her. . . . When the smoke puffs up in little rings like that, Dad's +studyin' the fish. Ef we speak to him now, he'll git mad. Las' time I +did, he jest took an' hove a boot at me." + +Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes +that saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fish--pitting +his knowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod +in his own sea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive +schooners on the horizon as a compliment to his powers. But now +that it was paid, he wished to draw away and make his berth alone, +till it was time to go up to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that +roaring town upon the waters. So Disko Troop thought of recent +weather, and gales, currents, food-supplies, and other domestic +arrangements, from the point of view of a twenty-pound cod; was, +in fact, for an hour a cod himself, and looked remarkably like one. +Then he removed the pipe from his teeth. + +"Dad," said Dan, "we've done our chores. Can't we go overside a +piece? It's good catchin' weather." + +"Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them ha'af baked brown shoes. +Give him suthin' fit to wear." + +"Dad's pleased--that settles it," said Dan, delightedly, dragging +Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. +"Dad keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, 'cause Ma sez +I'm keerless." He rummaged through a locker, and in less than +three minutes Harvey was adorned with fisherman's rubber boots +that came half up his thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the +elbows, a pair of nippers, and a sou'wester. + +"Naow ye look somethin' like," said Dan. "Hurry!" + +"Keep nigh an' handy," said Troop "an' don't go visitin' racund the +Fleet. If any one asks you what I'm cal'latin' to do, speak the +truth--fer ye don't know." + +A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay astern of the schooner. Dan +hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, +while Harvey tumbled clumsily after. + +"That's no way o' gettin' into a boat," said Dan. "Ef there was any +sea you'd go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet her." + +Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart and watched +Harvey's work. The boy had rowed, in a lady-like fashion, on the +Adirondack ponds; but there is a difference between squeaking +pins and well-balanced ruflocks--light sculls and stubby, eight-foot +sea-oars. They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted. + +"Short! Row short!" said Dan. "Ef you cramp your oar in any kind +o' sea you're liable to turn her over. Ain't she a daisy? Mine, too." + +The little dory was specklessly clean. In her bows lay a tiny +anchor, two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, +brown dory-roding. A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under +Harvey's right hand, beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and +a shorter wooden stick. A couple of lines, with very heavy leads +and double cod-hooks, all neatly coiled on square reels, were stuck +in their place by the gunwale. + +"Where's the sail and mast?" said Harvey, for his hands were +beginning to blister. + +Dan chuckled. "Ye don't sail fishin'-dories much. Ye pull; but ye +needn't pull so hard. Don't you wish you owned her?" + +"Well, I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked 'em," +Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family +till then. + +"That's so. I forgot your dad's a millionaire. You don't act +millionary any, naow. But a dory an' craft an' gear"--Dan spoke as +though she were a whaleboat --"costs a heap. Think your dad 'u'd +give you one fer--fer a pet like?" + +"Shouldn't wonder. It would be 'most the ouly thing I haven't stuck +him for yet." + +"Must be an expensive kinder kid to home. Don't slitheroo thet +way, Harve. Short's the trick, because no sea's ever dead still, an' +the swells 'll--" + +Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and +knocked him backwards. + +"That was what I was goin' to say. I hed to learn too, but I wasn't +more than eight years old when I got my schoolin'." + +Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown. + +"No good gettin' mad at things, Dad says. It's our own fault ef we +can't handle 'em, he says. Le's try here. Manuel 'll give us the +water." + +The "Portugee" was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan +up-ended an oar he waved his left arm three times. + +"Thirty fathom," said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. +"Over with the doughboys. Bait same's I do, Harvey, an' don't snarl +your reel." + +Dan's line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of +baiting and heaving out the leads. The dory drifted along easily. It +was not worth while to anchor till they were sure of good ground. + +"Here we come!" Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on +Harvey's shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. +"Muckie, Harvey, muckle! Under your hand! Onick!" + +Evidently "muckle" could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed +over the maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he +pulled it inboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short +wooden stick he called a "gob-stick." Then Harvey felt a tug, and +pulled up zealously. + +"Why, these are strawberries!" he shouted. "Look!" + +The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one +side and white on the other--perfect reproductions of the land fruit, +except that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and +slimy. + +"Don't tech 'em. Slat 'em off. Don't--" + +The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the +hook, and was admiring them. + +"Ouch!" he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had +grasped many nettles. + +"Now ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothin' 'cep' fish +should be teched with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat 'em off +agin the guunel, an' bait up, Harve. Lookin' won't help any. It's all +in the wages." + +Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, +and wondered what his mother would say if she could see him +hanging over the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered +agonies whenever he went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way, +Harvey remembered distinctly that he used to laugh at her +anxieties. Suddenly the line flashed through his hand, stinging +even through the "nippers," the woolen circlets supposed to protect +it. + +"He's a logy. Give him room accordin' to his strength," cried Dan. +"I'll help ye." + +"No, you won't," Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. "It's +my first fish. I--is it a whale?" + +"Halibut, mebbe." Dan peered down into the water alongside, and +flourished the big "muckle," ready for all chances. Something +white and oval flickered and fluttered through the green. "I'll lay +my wage an' share he's over a hundred. Are you so everlastin' +anxious to land him alone?" + +Harvey's knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been +hanged against the gunwale; his face was purple-blue between +excitement and exertion; he dripped with sweat, and was +half-blinded from staring at the circling sunlit ripples about the +swiftly moving line. The boys were tired long ere the halibut, who +took charge of them and the dory for the next twenty minutes. But +the big flat fish was gaffed and hauled in at last. + +"Beginner's luck," said Dan, wiping his forehead. "He's all of a +hundred." + +Harvey looked at the huge gray-and-mottled creature with +unspeakable pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble +slabs ashore, but it had never occurred to him to ask how they +came inland. Now he knew; and every inch of his body ached with +fatigue. + +"Ef Dad was along," said Dan, hauling up, "he'd read the signs +plain's print. The fish are runnin' smaller an' smaller, an' you've +took 'baout as logy a halibut's we're apt to find this trip. Yesterday's +catch--did ye notice it?--was all big fish an' no halibut. Dad he'd read +them signs right off. Dad says everythin' on the Banks is signs, an' +can be read wrong er right. Dad's deeper'n the Whale-hole." + +Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the 'We're Here', and a +potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging. + +"What did I say, naow? That's the call fer the whole crowd. Dad's +onter something, er he'd never break fishin' this time o' day. Reel +up, Harve, an' we'll pull back." + +They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the dory +over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them to +Penn, who was careering around a fixed point for all the world like +a gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down +again with enormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his +dory swung round and snubbed herself on her rope. + +"We'll hev to help him, else he'll root an' seed here," said Dan. + +"What's the matter?" said Harvey. This was a new world, where he +could not lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions +humbly. And the sea was horribly big and unexcited. + +"Anchor's fouled. Penn's always losing 'em. Lost two this trip +a'ready--on sandy bottom too--an' Dad says next one he loses, sure's +fishin', he'll give him the kelleg. That 'u'd break Penn's heart." + +"What's a 'kelleg'?" said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be +some kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the storybooks. + +"Big stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridin' in the +bows fur's you can see a dory, an' all the fleet knows what it +means. They'd guy him dreadful. Penn couldn't stand that no +more'n a dog with a dipper to his tail. He's so everlastin' sensitive. +Hello, Penn! Stuck again? Don't try any more o' your patents. +Come up on her, and keep your rodin' straight up an' down." + +"It doesn't move," said the little man, panting. "It doesn't move at +all, and instead I tried everything." + +"What's all this hurrah's-nest for'ard?" said Dan, pointing to a wild +tangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by the +hand of inexperience. + +"Oh, that," said Penn proudly, "is a Spanish windlass. Mr. Salters +showed me how to make it; but even that doesn't move her." + +Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or +twice on the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once. + +"Haul up, Penn," he said laughing, "er she'll git stuck again." + +They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor +with big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely. + +"Oh, say, while I think of it, Harve," said Dan when they were out +of ear-shot, "Penn ain't quite all caulked. He ain't nowise dangerous, +but his mind's give out. See?" + +"Is that so, or is it one of your father's judgments?" + +Harvey asked as he bent to his oars. He felt he was learning to +handle them more easily. + +"Dad ain't mistook this time. Penn's a sure 'nuff loony." + +"No, he ain't thet exactly, so much ez a harmless ijut. It was this +way (you're rowin' quite so, Harve), an' I tell you 'cause it's right +you orter know. He was a Moravian preacher once. Jacob Boiler +wuz his name, Dad told me, an' he lived with his wife an' four +children somewheres out Pennsylvania way. Well, Penn he took +his folks along to a Moravian meetin'--camp-meetin' most like--an' +they stayed over jest one night in Johns-town. You've heered talk +o' Johnstown?" + +Harvey considered. "Yes, I have. But I don't know why. It sticks in +my head same as Ashtabula." + +"Both was big accidents--thet's why, Harve. Well, that one single +night Penn and his folks was to the hotel Johnstown was wiped +out. 'Dam bust an' flooded her, an' the houses struck adrift an' +bumped into each other an' sunk. I've seen the pictures, an' they're +dretful. Penn he saw his folk drowned all'n a heap 'fore he rightly +knew what was comin'. His mind give out from that on. He +mistrusted somethin' hed happened up to Johnstown, but for the +poor life of him he couldn't remember what, an' he jest drifted araound +smilin' an' wonderin'. He didn't know what he was, nor yit what +he hed bin, an' thet way he run agin Uncle Salters, who was visitin' +'n Allegheny City. Ha'af my mother's folks they live scattered +inside o' Pennsylvania, an' Uncle Salters he visits araound winters. +Uncle Salters he kinder adopted Penn, well knowin' what his +trouble wuz; an' he brought him East, an' he give him work on his +farm.', "Why, I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when +the boats bumped. Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?" + +"Farmer!" shouted Dan. "There ain't water enough 'tween here an' +Hatt'rus to wash the furrer-mold off'n his boots. He's jest everlastin' +farmer. Why, Harve, I've seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long +towards sundown, an' set twiddlin' the spigot to the scuttle-butt +same's ef 'twas a cow's bag. He's thet much farmer. Well, Penn an' +he they ran the farm--up Exeter way 'twur. Uncle Salters he sold it +this spring to a jay from Boston as wanted to build a +summer-haouse, an' he got a heap for it. Well, them two loonies +scratched along till, one day, Penn's church--he'd belonged to the +Moravians--found out where he wuz drifted an' layin', an' wrote to +Uncle Salters. 'Never heerd what they said exactly; but Uncle +Salters was mad. He's a 'piscopolian mostly--but he jest let 'em hev +it both sides o' the bow, 's if he was a Baptist; an' sez he warn't +goin' to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection in +Pennsylvania or anywheres else. Then he come to Dad, towin' +Penn,--thet was two trips back,--an' sez he an' Penn must fish a trip +fer their health. 'Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn't hunt the +Banks fer Jacob Boiler. Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he'd +been fishin' off an' on fer thirty years, when he warn't inventin' +patent manures, an' he took quarter-share in the 'We're Here'; an' the +trip done Penn so much good, Dad made a habit o' takin' him. +Some day, Dad sez, he'll remember his wife an' kids an' +Johnstown, an' then, like as not, he'll die, Dad sez. Don't ye talk +abaout Johnstown ner such things to Penn, 'r Uncle Salters he'll +heave ye overboard." + +"Poor Penn!" murmured Harvey. "I shouldn't ever have thought +Uncle Salters cared for him by the look of 'em together." + +"I like Penn, though; we all do," said Dan. "We ought to ha' give +him a tow, but I wanted to tell ye first." + +They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little +behind them. + +"You needn't heave in the dories till after dinner," said Troop from +the deck. "We'll dress daown right off. Fix table, boys!" + +"Deeper'n the Whale-deep," said Dan, with a wink, as he set the +gear for dressing down. "Look at them boats that hev edged up +sence mornin'. They're all waitin' on Dad. See 'em, Harve?" + +"They are all alike to me." And indeed to a landsman, the nodding +schooners around seemed run from the same mold. + +"They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit +steeved that way, she's the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her +skipper, the meanest man on the Banks. We'll tell him so when we +strike the Main Ledge. 'Way off yonder's the Day's Eye. The two +Jeraulds own her. She's from Harwich; fastish, too, an' hez good +luck; but Dad he'd find fish in a graveyard. Them other three, side +along, they're the Margie Smith, Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all +from home. 'Guess we'll see the Abbie M. Deering to-morrer, Dad, +won't we? They're all slippin' over from the shaol o' 'Oueereau." + +"You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny." When Troop +called his son Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. +"Boys, we're too crowded," he went on, addressing the crew as they +clambered inboard. "We'll leave 'em to bait big an' catch small." +He looked at the catch in the pen, and it was curious to see how +little and level the fish ran. Save for Harvey's halibut, there was +nothing over fifteen pounds on deck. + +"I'm waitin' on the weather," he added. + +"Ye'll have to make it yourself, Disko, for there's no sign I can +see," said Long Jack, sweeping the clear horizon. + +And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the Bank +fog dropped on them, "between fish and fish," as they say. It drove +steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourless +water. The men stopped dressing-down without a word. Long Jack +and Uncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets, +and began to heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet +hempen cable strained on the barrel. Manuel and Tom Platt gave a +hand at the last. The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail +bellied as Troop steadied her at the wheel. "Up jib and foresail," +said he. + +"Slip 'em in the smother," shouted Long Jack, making fast the +jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the +foresail; and the foreboom creaked as the 'We're Here' looked up +into the wind and dived off into blank, whirling white. + +"There's wind behind this fog," said Troop. + +It was wonderful beyond words to Harvey; and the most wonderful +part was that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from +Troop, ending with, "That's good, my son!" + +"Never seen anchor weighed before?" said Tom Platt, to Harvey +gaping at the damp canvas of the foresail. + +"No. Where are we going?" + +"Fish and make berth, as you'll find out 'fore you've been a week +aboard. It's all new to you, but we never know what may come to +us. Now, take me--Tom Platt--I'd never ha' thought--" + +"It's better than fourteen dollars a month an' a bullet in your belly," +said Troop, from the wheel. "Ease your jumbo a grind." + +"Dollars an' cents better," returned the man-o'-war's man, doing +something to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. "But we didn't +think o' that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the Miss +Jim Buck, 1 outside Beau-fort Harbor, with Fort Macon heavin' +hot shot at our stern, an' a livin' gale atop of all. Where was you +then, Disko?" + +"Jest here, or hereabouts," Disko replied, "earnin' my bread on the +deep waters, an' dodgin' Reb privateers. Sorry I can't accommodate +you with red-hot shot, Tom Platt; but I guess we'll come aout all +right on wind 'fore we see Eastern Point." + +There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the bows now, +varied by a solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered +down on the foc'sle. The rigging dripped clammy drops, and the +men lounged along the lee of the house--all save Uncle Salters, who +sat stiffly on the main-hatch nursing his stung hands. + +"Guess she'd carry stays'l," said Disko, rolling one eye at his +brother. + +"Guess she wouldn't to any sorter profit. What's the sense o' wastin' +canvas?" the farmer-sailor replied. + +The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands. A few +seconds later a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the +boat, smote Uncle Salters between the shoulders, and drenched +him from head to foot. He rose sputtering, and went forward only +to catch another. + +"See Dad chase him all around the deck," said Dan. "Uncle Salters +he thinks his quarter share's our canvas. Dad's put this duckin' act +up on him two trips runnin'. Hi! That found him where he feeds." +Uncle Salters had taken refuge by the foremast, but a wave +slapped him over the knees. Disko's face was as blank as the circle +of the wheel. + +"Guess she'd lie easier under stays'l, Salters," said Disko, as though +he had seen nothing. + +"Set your old kite, then," roared the victim through a cloud of +spray; "only don't lay it to me if anything happens. Penn, you go +below right off an' git your coffee. You ought to hev more sense +than to bum araound on deck this weather." + +"Now they'll swill coffee an' play checkers till the cows come +home," said Dan, as Uncle Salters hustled Penn into the fore-cabin. +"'Looks to me like's if we'd all be doin' so fer a spell. There's +nothin' in creation deader-limpsey-idler'n a Banker when she ain't +on fish." + +"I'm glad ye spoke, Danny," cried Long Jack, who had been casting +round in search of amusement. "I'd dean forgot we'd a passenger +under that T-wharf hat. There's no idleness for thim that don't +know their ropes. Pass him along, Tom Platt, an' we'll larn him." + +"'Tain't my trick this time," grinned Dan. "You've got to go it alone. +Dad learned me with a rope's end." + +For an hour Long Jack walked his prey up and down, teaching, as +he said, "things at the sea that ivry man must know, blind, dhrunk, +or asleep." There is not much gear to a seventy-ton schooner with a +stump-foremast, but Long Jack had a gift of expression. When he +wished to draw Harvey's attention to the peak-halyards, he dug his +knuckles into the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze for +half a minute. He emphasized the difference between fore and aft +generally by rubbing Harvey's nose along a few feet of the boom, +and the lead of each rope was fixed in Harvey's mind by the end of +the rope itself. + +The lesson would have been easier had the deck been at all free; +but there appeared to be a place on it for everything and anything +except a man. Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the +chain and hemp cables, all very unpleasant to trip over; the foc'sle +stovepipe, and the gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch to hold the +fish-livers. Aft of these the foreboom and booby of the main-hatch +took all the space that was not needed for the pumps and +dressing-pens. Then came the nests of dories lashed to ring-bolts +by the quarter-deck; the house, with tubs and oddments lashed all +around it; and, last, the sixty-foot main-boom in its crutch, splitting +things length-wise, to duck and dodge under every time. + +Tom Platt, of course, could not keep his oar out of the business, +but ranged alongside with enormous and unnecessary descriptions +of sails and spars on the old Ohio. + +"Niver mind fwhat he says; attind to me, Innocince. Tom Platt, this +bally-hoo's not the Ohio, an' you're mixing the bhoy bad." + +"He'll be ruined for life, beginnin' on a fore-an'-after this way," +Tom Platt pleaded. "Give him a chance to know a few leadin' +principles. Sailin's an art, Harvey, as I'd show you if I had ye in the +fore-top o' the--" + +"I know ut. Ye'd talk him dead an' cowld. Silince, Tom Platt! Now, +after all I've said, how'd you reef the foresail, Harve? Take your +time answerin'." + +"Haul that in," said Harvey, pointing to leeward. + +"Fwhat? The North Atlantuc?" + +"No, the boom. Then run that rope you showed me back there--" + +"That's no way," Tom Platt burst in. + +"Quiet! He's larnin', an' has not the names good yet. Go on, Harve." + +"Oh, it's the reef-pennant. I'd hook the tackle on to the +reef-pennant, and then let down--" + +"Lower the sail, child! Lower!" said Tom Platt, in a professional +agony. + +"Lower the throat and peak halyards," Harvey went on. Those +names stuck in his head. + +"Lay your hand on thim," said Long Jack. + +Harvey obeyed. "Lower till that rope-loop--on the after-leach-kris--no, +it's cringle--till the cringle was down on the boom. Then I'd tie her +up the way you said, and then I'd hoist up the peak and throat +halyards again." + +"You've forgot to pass the tack-earing, but wid time and help ye'll +larn. There's good and just reason for ivry rope aboard, or else +'twould be overboard. D'ye follow me? 'Tis dollars an' cents I'm +puttin' into your pocket, ye skinny little supercargo, so that fwhin +ye've filled out ye can ship from Boston to Cuba an' tell thim Long +Jack larned you. Now I'll chase ye around a piece, callin' the ropes, +an' you'll lay your hand on thim as I call." + +He began, and Harvey, who was feeling rather tired, walked slowly +to the rope named. A rope's end licked round his ribs, and nearly +knocked the breath out of him. + +"When you own a boat," said Tom Platt, with severe eyes, "you +can walk. Till then, take all orders at the run. Once more--to make +sure!" + +Harvey was in a glow with the exercise, and this last cut warmed +him thoroughly. Now he was a singularly smart boy, the son of a +very clever man and a very sensitive woman, with a fine resolute +temper that systematic spoiling had nearly turned to mulish +obstinacy. He looked at the other men, and saw that even Dan did +not smile. It was evidently all in the day's work, though it hurt +abominably; so he swallowed the hint with a gulp and a gasp and a +grin. The same smartness that led him to take such advantage of +his mother made him very sure that no one on the boat, except, +maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One learns a great +deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over half a dozen ropes, +and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide, one eye on +Tom Platt. + +"Ver' good. Ver' good don," said Manuel. "After supper I show you +a little schooner I make, with all her ropes. So we shall learn." + +"Fust-class fer--a passenger," said Dan. "Dad he's jest allowed you'll +be wuth your salt maybe 'fore you're draownded. Thet's a heap fer +Dad. I'll learn you more our next watch together." + +"Taller!" grunted Disko, peering through the fog as it smoked over +the bows. There was nothing to be seen ten feet beyond the surging +jib-boom, while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn, +pale waves whispering and lipping one to the other. + +"Now I'll learn you something Long Jack can't," shouted Tom +Platt, as from a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea +lead hollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of +mutton tallow, and went forward. "I'll learn you how to fly the +Blue Pigeon. Shooo!" + +Disko did something to the wheel that checked the schooner's way, +while Manuel, with Harvey to help (and a proud boy was Harvey), +let down the jib in a lump on the boom. The lead sung a deep +droning song as Tom Platt whirled it round and round. + +"Go ahead, man," said Long Jack, impatiently. "We're not drawin' +twenty-five fut off Fire Island in a fog. There's no trick to ut." + +"Don't be jealous, Galway." The released lead plopped into the sea +far ahead as the schooner surged slowly forward. + +"Soundin' is a trick, though," said Dan, "when your dipsey lead's all +the eye you're like to hev for a week. What d'you make it, Dad?" + +Disko's face relaxed. His skill and honour were involved in the +march he had stolen on the rest of the Fleet, and he had his +reputation as a master artist who knew the Banks blindfold. "Sixty, +mebbe--ef I'm any judge," he replied, with a glance at the tiny +compass in the window of the house. + +"Sixty," sung out Tom Platt, hauling in great wet coils. + +The schooner gathered way once more. "Heave!" said Disko, after +a quarter of an hour. + +"What d'you make it?" Dan whispered, and he looked at Harvey +proudly. But Harvey was too proud of his own performances to be +impressed just then. + +"Fifty," said the father. "I mistrust we're right over the nick o' +Green Bank on old Sixty-Fifty." + +"Fifty!" roared Tom Platt. They could scarcely see him through the +fog. "She's bust within a yard--like the shells at Fort Macon." + +"Bait up, Harve," said Dan, diving for a line on the reel. + +The schooner seemed to be straying promiscuously through the +smother, her headsail banging wildly. The men waited and looked +at the boys who began fishing. + +"Heugh!" Dan's lines twitched on the scored and scarred rail. "Now +haow in thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It's a big un. +Poke-hooked, too." They hauled together, and landed a +goggle-eyed twenty-pound cod. He had taken the bait right into his +stomach. + +"Why, he's all covered with little crabs," cried Harvey, turning him +over. + +"By the great hook-block, they're lousy already," said Long Jack. +"Disko, ye kape your spare eyes under the keel." + +Splash went the anchor, and they all heaved over the lines, each +man taking his own place at the bulwarks. + +"Are they good to eat?" Harvey panted, as he lugged in another +crab-covered cod. + +"Sure. When they're lousy it's a sign they've all been herdin' +together by the thousand, and when they take the bait that way +they're hungry. Never mind how the bait sets. They'll bite on the +bare hook." + +"Say, this is great!" Harvey cried, as the fish came in gasping and +splashing--nearly all poke-hooked, as Dan had said. "Why can't we +always fish from the boat instead of from the dories?" + +"Allus can, till we begin to dress daown. Efter thet, the heads and +offals 'u'd scare the fish to Fundy. Boatfishin' ain't reckoned +progressive, though, unless ye know as much as dad knows. Guess +we'll run aout aour trawl to-night. Harder on the back, this, than +frum the dory, ain't it?" + +It was rather back-breaking work, for in a dory the weight of a cod +is water-borne till the last minute, and you are, so to speak, abreast +of him; but the few feet of a schooner's freeboard make so much +extra dead-hauling, and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the +stomach. But it was wild and furious sport so long as it lasted; and +a big pile lay aboard when the fish ceased biting. + +"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters?" Harvey asked, slapping the +slime off his oilskins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation +of the others. + +"Git 's coffee and see." + +Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post, the foc'sle +table down and opened, utterly unconscious of fish or weather, sat +the two men, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters +snarling at Penn's every move. + +"What's the matter naow?" said the former, as Harvey, one hand in +the leather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the +cook. + +"Big fish and lousy--heaps and heaps," Harvey replied, quoting +Long Jack. "How's the game?" + +Little Penn's jaw dropped. "'Tweren't none o' his fault," snapped +Uncle Salters. "Penn's deef." + +"Checkers, weren't it?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with the +steaming coffee in a tin pail. "That lets us out o' cleanin' up +to-night. Dad's a jest man. They'll have to do it." + +"An' two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o' trawl, while +they're cleanin'," said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste. + +"Um! Guess I'd ruther clean up, Dad." + +"Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress daown! Dress daown! +Penn'll pitch while you two bait up." + +"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?" +said Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. "This knife's +gum-blunt, Dan." + +"Ef stickin' out cable don't wake ye, guess you'd better hire a boy +o' your own," said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs +full of trawl-line lashed to windward of the house. "Oh, Harve, +don't ye want to slip down an' git 's bait?" + +"Bait ez we are," said Disko. "I mistrust shag-fishin' will pay +better, ez things go." + +That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as +the fish were cleaned--an improvement on paddling bare-handed in +the little bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line +carrying a big hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of +every single hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it +should run clear when shot from the dory, was a scientific +business. Dan managed it in the dark, without looking, while +Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs and bewailed his fate. But +the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like tatting on an old maid's +lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore I could well walk," he said. +"But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh, Dad!" This shouted +towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt were salting. "How +many skates you reckon we'll need?" + +"'Baout three. Hurry!" + +"There's three hundred fathom to each tub," Dan explained; +"more'n enough to lay out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I did." +He stuck his finger in his mouth. "I tell you, Harve, there ain't +money in Gloucester 'u'd hire me to ship on a reg'lar trawler. It may +be progressive, but, barrin' that, it's the putterin'est, slimjammest +business top of earth." + +"I don't know what this is, if 'tisn't regular trawling," said Harvey +sulkily. "My fingers are all cut to frazzles." + +"Pshaw! This is just one o' Dad's blame experirnents. He don't +trawl 'less there's mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet's why +he's baitin' ez he is. We'll hev her saggin' full when we take her up +er we won't see a fin." + +Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the +boys profited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom +Platt and Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory +with a lantern, snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some +small, painted trawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what +Harvey regarded as an exceedingly rough sea. "They'll be drowned. +Why, the dory's loaded like a freight-car," he cried. + +"We'll be back," said Long Jack, "an' in case you'll not be lookin' +for us, we'll lay into you both if the trawl's snarled." + +The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemed +impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's +side, slid over the ridge, and was swallowed up in the damp dusk. + +"Take ahold here, an' keep ringin' steady," said Dan, passing +Harvey the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass. + +Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But +Disko in the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a +murderer, and when he went to supper he even smiled dryly at the +anxious Harvey. + +"This ain't no weather," said Dan. "Why, you an' me could set thet +trawl! They've only gone out jest far 'nough so's not to foul our +cable. They don't need no bell reelly." + +"Clang! clang! clang!" Harvey kept it up, varied with occasional +rub-a-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bump +alongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory-tackle; +Long Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together, it seemed, one +half the North Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them +in the air, landing with a clatter. + +"Nary snarl," said Tom Platt as he dripped. "Danny, you'll do yet." + +"The pleasure av your comp'ny to the banquit," said Long Jack, +squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant +and stuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey's face. "We do be +condescending to honour the second half wid our presence." And +off they all four rolled to supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to +the brim on fish-chowder and fried pies, and fell fast asleep just as +Manuel produced from a locker a lovely two-foot model of the +Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and was going to show Harvey the +ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingers as Penn pushed him +into his bunk. + +"It must be a sad thing--a very sad thing," said Penn, watching the +boy's face, "for his mother and his father, who think he is dead. To +lose a child--to lose a man-child!" + +"Git out o' this, Penn," said Dan. "Go aft and finish your game +with Uncle Salters. Tell Dad I'll stand Harve's watch ef he don't +keer. He's played aout." + +"Ver' good boy," said Manuel, slipping out of his boots and +disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. "Expec' he +make good man, Danny. I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he +says. Eh, wha-at?" + +Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore. + +It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder men +stretched their watches. The hour struck clear in the cabin; the +nosing bows slapped and scuffed with the seas; the foc'sle +stove-pipe hissed and sputtered as the spray caught it; and the boys +slept on, while Disko, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, +each in turn, stumped aft to look at the wheel, forward to see that +the anchor held, or to veer out a little more cable against chafing, +with a glance at the dim anchor-light between each round. + + +CHAPTER IV + +Harvey waked to find the "first half" at breakfast, the foc'sle door +drawn to a crack, and every square inch of the schooner singing its +own tune. The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny +galley over the glare of the stove, and the pots and pans in the +pierced wooden board before it jarred and racketed to each plunge. +Up and up the foc'sle climbed, yearning and surging and quivering, +and then, with a clear, sickle-like swoop, came down into the seas. +He could hear the flaring bows cut and squelch, and there was a +pause ere the divided waters came down on the deck above, like a +volley of buckshot. Followed the woolly sound of the cable in the +hawse-hole; and a grunt and squeal of the windlass; a yaw, a punt, +and a kick, and the 'We're Here' gathered herself together to repeat +the motions. + +"Now, ashore," he heard Long Jack saying, "ye've chores, an' ye +must do thim in any weather. Here we're well clear of the fleet, an' +we've no chores--an' that's a blessin'. Good night, all." He passed +like a big snake from the table to his bunk, and began to smoke. +Tom Platt followed his example; Uncle Salters, with Penn, fought +his way up the ladder to stand his watch, and the cook set for the +"second half." + +It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs, with a +shake and a yawn. It ate till it could eat no more; and then Manuel +filled his pipe with some terrible tobacco, crotched himself +between the pawl-post and a forward bunk, cocked his feet up on +the table, and smiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke. Dan +lay at length in his bunk, wrestling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped +accordion, whose tunes went up and down with the pitching of the +'We're Here'. The cook, his shoulders against the locker where he +kept the fried pies (Dan was fond of fried pies), peeled potatoes, +with one eye on the stove in event of too much water finding its +way down the pipe; and the general smell and smother were past +all description. + +Harvey considered affairs, wondered that he was not deathly sick, +and crawled into his bunk again, as the softest and safest place, +while Dan struck up, "I don't want to play in your yard," as +accurately as the wild jerks allowed. + +"How long is this for?" Harvey asked of Manuel. + +"Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl. Perhaps +to-night. Perhaps two days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?" + +"I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn't seem to +upset me now--much." + +"That is because we make you fisherman, these days. If I was you, +when I come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for +my good luck." + +"Give who?" + +"To be sure--the Virgin of our Church on the Hill. She is very good +to fishermen all the time. That is why so few of us Portugee men +ever are drowned." + +"You're a Roman Catholic, then?" + +"I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist, +then? Eh, wha-at? I always give candles--two, three more when I +come to Gloucester. The good Virgin she never forgets me, +Manuel." + +"I don't sense it that way," Tom Platt put in from his bunk, his +scarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe. +"It stands to reason the sea's the sea; and you'll get jest about what's +goin', candles or kerosene, fer that matter." + +"'Tis a mighty good thing," said Long Jack, "to have a friend at +coort, though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin' About tin years back +I was crew to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's +Ledge wid a northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. +The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez +to myself, 'If iver I stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show +the saints fwhat manner o' craft they saved me out av.' Now, I'm +here, as ye can well see, an' the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, +that took me a month to make, I gave ut to the priest, an' he hung +ut up forninst the altar. There's more sense in givin' a model that's +by way o' bein' a work av art than any candle. Ye can buy candles +at store, but a model shows the good saints ye've tuk trouble an' are +grateful." + +"D'you believe that, Irish?" said Tom Platt, turning on his elbow. + +"Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?" + +"Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o' the old Ohio, and she's +to Calem museum now. Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess +Enoch he never done it fer no sacrifice; an' the way I take it is--" + +There were the makings of an hour-long discussion of the kind that +fishermen love, where the talk runs in shouting circles and no one +proves anything at the end, had not Dan struck up this cheerful +rhyme: + +"Up jumped the mackerel with his stripe'd back. +Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack; For it's windy +weather--" + +Here Long Jack joined in: + + And it's blowy weather; + When the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together!" + +Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom Platt, holding the +accordion low in the bunk: + + "Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head, + Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead; + For it's windy weather," etc. + +Tom Platt seemed to be hunting for something. Dan crouched +lower, but sang louder: + + "Up jumped the flounder that swims to the ground. + Chuckle-head! Chuckle-head! Mind where ye sound!" + +Tom Platt's huge rubber boot whirled across the foc'sle and caught +Dan's uplifted arm. There was war between the man and the boy +ever since Dan had discovered that the mere whistling of that tune +would make him angry as he heaved the lead. + +"Thought I'd fetch yer," said Dan, returning the gift with precision. +"Ef you don't like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain't goin' to lie +here all day an' listen to you an' Long Jack arguin' 'baout candles. +Fiddle, Tom Platt; or I'll learn Harve here the tune!" + +Tom Platt leaned down to a locker and brought up an old white +fiddle. Manuel's eye glistened, and from somewhere behind the +pawl-post he drew out a tiny, guitar-like thing with wire strings, +which he called a machette. + +"'Tis a concert," said Long Jack, beaming through the smoke. "A +reg'lar Boston concert." + +There was a burst of spray as the hatch opened, and Disko, in +yellow oilskins, descended. + +"Ye're just in time, Disko. Fwhat's she doin' outside?" + +"Jest this!" He dropped on to the lockers with the push and heave +of the 'We're Here'. + +"We're singin' to kape our breakfasts down. Ye'll lead, av course, +Disko," said Long Jack. + +"Guess there ain't more'n 'baout two old songs I know, an' ye've +heerd them both." + +His excuses were cut short by Tom Platt launching into a most +dolorous tune, like unto the moaning of winds and the creaking of +masts. With his eyes fixed on the beams above, Disko began this +ancient, ancient ditty, Tom Platt flourishing all round him to make +the tune and words fit a little: + + "There is a crack packet--crack packet o' fame, + She hails from Noo York, an' the Dreadnought's her name. + + You may talk o' your fliers--Swallowtail and Black Ball-- + But the Dreadnought's the packet that can beat them all. + + "Now the Dreadnought she lies in the River Mersey, + Because of the tug-boat to take her to sea; + + But when she's off soundings you shortly will know + +(Chorus.) + + She's the Liverpool packet-- Lord, let her go! + + "Now the Dreadnought she's howlin' crost the Banks o'Newfoundland, + Where the water's all shallow and the bottom's all sand. + Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro: + +(Chorus.) + + 'She's the Liverpool packet-- Lord, let her go!'", + +There were scores of verses, for he worked the Dreadnought every +mile of the way between Liverpool and New York as +conscientiously as though he were on her deck, and the accordion +pumped and the fiddle squeaked beside him. Tom Platt followed +with something about "the rough and tough McGinn, who would +pilot the vessel in." Then they called on Harvey, who felt very +flattered, to contribute to the entertainment; but all that he could +remember were some pieces of "Skipper Ireson's Ride" that he had +been taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. It seemed that +they might be appropriate to the time and place, but he had no +more than mentioned the title when Disko brought down one foot +with a bang, and cried, "Don't go on, young feller. That's a +mistaken jedgment--one o' the worst kind, too, becaze it's catchin' to +the ear." + +"I orter ha' warned you," said Dan. "Thet allus fetches Dad." + +"What's wrong?" said Harvey, surprised and a little angry. + +"All you're goin' to say," said Disko. "All dead wrong from start to +finish, an' Whittier he's to blame. I have no special call to right any +Marblehead man, but 'tweren't no fault o' Ireson's. My father he +told me the tale time an' again, an' this is the way 'twuz." + +"For the wan hundredth time," put in Long Jack under his breath + +"Ben Ireson he was skipper o' the Betty, young feller, comin' home +frum the Banks--that was before the war of 1812, but jestice is +jestice at all times. They fund the Active o' Portland, an' Gibbons +o' that town he was her skipper; they fund her leakin' off Cape Cod +Light. There was a terr'ble gale on, an' they was gettin' the Betty +home 's fast as they could craowd her. Well, Ireson he said there +warn't any sense to reskin' a boat in that sea; the men they wouldn't +hev it; and he laid it before them to stay by the Active till the sea +run daown a piece. They wouldn't hev that either, hangin' araound +the Cape in any sech weather, leak or no leak. They jest up stays'l +an' quit, nat'rally takin' Ireson with 'em. Folks to Marblehead was +mad at him not runnin' the risk, and becaze nex' day, when the sea +was ca'am (they never stopped to think o' that), some of the +Active's folks was took off by a Truro man. They come into +Marblehead with their own tale to tell, sayin' how Ireson had +shamed his town, an' so forth an' so on, an' Ireson's men they was +scared, seein' public feelin' agin' 'em, an' they went back on Ireson, +an' swore he was respons'ble for the hull act. 'Tweren't the women +neither that tarred and feathered him--Marblehead women don't act +that way--'twas a passel o' men an' boys, an' they carted him +araound town in an old dory till the bottom fell aout, and Ireson he +told 'em they'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the facts come aout +later, same's they usually do, too late to be any ways useful to an +honest man; an' Whittier he come along an' picked up the slack +eend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over +onct more after he was dead. 'Twas the only tune Whittier ever +slipped up, an' 'tweren't fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought +that piece back from school. You don't know no better, o' course; +but I've give you the facts, hereafter an' evermore to be +remembered. Ben Ireson weren't no sech kind o' man as Whittier +makes aout; my father he knew him well, before an' after that +business, an' you beware o' hasty jedgments, young feller. Next!" + +Harvey had never heard Disko talk so long, and collapsed with +burning cheeks; but, as Dan said promptly, a boy could only learn +what he was taught at school, and life was too short to keep track +of every lie along the coast. + +Then Manuel touched the jangling, jarring little machette to a +queer tune, and sang something in Portuguese about "Nina, +innocente!" ending with a full-handed sweep that brought the song +up with a jerk. Then Disko obliged with his second song, to an +old-fashioned creaky tune, and all joined in the chorus. This is one +stanza: + + "Now Aprile is over and melted the snow, + And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow; + Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear, + We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear." + +Here the fiddle went very softly for a while by itself, and then: + + "Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin, + Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea; + Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin, + When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!" + +That made Harvey almost weep, though he could not tell why. But +it was much worse when the cook dropped the potatoes and held +out his hands for the fiddle. Still leaning against the locker door, +he struck into a tune that was like something very bad but sure to +happen whatever you did. After a little he sang, in an unknown +tongue, his big chin down on the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs +glaring in the lamplight. Harvey swung out of his bunk to hear +better; and amid the straining of the timbers and the wash of the +waters the tune crooned and moaned on, like lee surf in a blind +fog, till it ended with a wail. + +"Jimmy Christmas! Thet gives me the blue creevles," said Dan. +"What in thunder is it?" + +"The song of Fin McCoul," said the cook, "when he wass going to +Norway." His English was not thick, but all clear-cut, as though it +came from a phonograph. + +"Faith, I've been to Norway, but I didn't make that unwholesim +noise. 'Tis like some of the old songs, though," said Long Jack, +sighing. + +"Don't let's hev another 'thout somethin' between," said Dan; and +the accordion struck up a rattling, catchy tune that ended: + + "It's six an' twenty Sundays sence las' we saw the land, + With fifteen hunder quintal, + An' fifteen hunder quintal, + 'Teen hunder toppin' quintal, + 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand!" + +"Hold on!" roared Tom Platt. "D'ye want to nail the trip, Dan? +That's Jonah sure, 'less you sing it after all our salt's wet." + +"No, 'tain't, is it, Dad? Not unless you sing the very las' verse. You +can't learn me anything on Jonahs!" + +"What's that?" said Harvey. "What's a Jonah?" + +"A Jonah's anything that spoils the luck. Sometimes it's a +man--sometimes it's a boy--or a bucket. I've known a splittin'-knife +Jonah two trips till we was on to her," said Tom Platt. "There's all +sorts o' Jonahs. Jim Bourke was one till he was drowned on +Georges. I'd never ship with Jim Bourke, not if I was starvin'. There +wuz a green dory on the Ezra Flood. Thet was a Jonah, too, the +worst sort o' Jonah. Drowned four men, she did, an' used to shine +fiery O, nights in the nest" + +"And you believe that?" said Harvey, remembering what Tom Platt +had said about candles and models. "Haven't we all got to take +what's served?" + +A mutter of dissent ran round the bunks. "Outboard, yes; inboard, +things can happen," said Disko. "Don't you go makin' a mock of +Jonahs, young feller." + +"Well, Harve ain't no Jonah. Day after we catched him," Dan cut +in, "we had a toppin' good catch." + +The cook threw up his head and laughed suddenly--a queer, thin +laugh. He was a most disconcerting nigger. + +"Murder!" said Long Jack. "Don't do that again, doctor. We ain't +used to ut." + +"What's wrong?" said Dan. "Ain't he our mascot, and didn't they +strike on good after we'd struck him?" + +"Oh! yess," said the cook. "I know that, but the catch iss not finish +yet." + +"He ain't goin' to do us any harm," said Dan, hotly. "Where are ye +hintin' an' edgin' to? He's all right" + +"No harm. No. But one day he will be your master, Danny." + +"That all?" said Dan, placidly. "He wun't--not by a jugful." + +"Master!" said the cook, pointing to Harvey. "Man!" and he +pointed to Dan. + +"That's news. Haow soon?" said Dan, with a laugh. + +"In some years, and I shall see it. Master and man--man and +master." + +"How in thunder d'ye work that out?" said Tom Platt. + +"In my head, where I can see." + +"Haow?" This from all the others at once. + +"I do not know, but so it will be." He dropped his head, and went +on peeling the potatoes, and not another word could they get out of +him. + +"Well," said Dan, "a heap o' things'll hev to come abaout 'fore +Harve's any master o' mine; but I'm glad the doctor ain't choosen to +mark him for a Jonah. Now, I mistrust Uncle Salters fer the +Jonerest Jonah in the Fleet regardin' his own special luck. Dunno +ef it's spreadin' same's smallpox. He ought to be on the Carrie +Pitman. That boat's her own Jonah, sure--crews an' gear made no +differ to her driftin'. Jiminy Christmas! She'll etch loose in a flat +ca'am." + +"We're well clear o' the Fleet, anyway," said Disko. "Carrie +Pitman an' all." There was a rapping on the deck. + +"Uncle Salters has catched his luck," said Dan as his father +departed. + +"It's blown clear," Disko cried, and all the foc'sle tumbled up for a +bit of fresh air. The fog had gone, but a sullen sea ran in great +rollers behind it. The 'We're Here' slid, as it were, into long, sunk +avenues and ditches which felt quite sheltered and homelike if they +would only stay still; but they changed without rest or mercy, and +flung up the schooner to crown one peak of a thousand gray hills, +while the wind hooted through her rigging as she zigzagged down +the slopes. Far away a sea would burst into a sheet of foam, and +the others would follow suit as at a signal, till Harvey's eyes swam +with the vision of interlacing whites and grays. Four or five Mother +Carey's chickens stormed round in circles, shrieking as they swept +past the bows. A rain-squall or two strayed aimlessly over the +hopeless waste, ran down 'wind and back again, and melted away. + +"Seems to me I saw somethin' flicker jest naow over yonder," said +Uncle Salters, pointing to the northeast. + +"Can't be any of the fleet," said Disko, peering under his eyebrows, +a hand on the foc'sle gangway as the solid bows hatcheted into the +troughs. "Sea's oilin' over dretful fast. Danny, don't you want to +skip up a piece an' see how aour trawl-buoy lays?" + +Danny, in his big boots, trotted rather than climbed up the main +rigging (this consumed Harvey with envy), hitched himself around +the reeling cross-trees, and let his eye rove till it caught the tiny +black buoy-flag on the shoulder of a mile-away swell. + +"She's all right," he hailed. "Sail O! Dead to the no'th'ard, corain' +down like smoke! Schooner she be, too.'" + +They waited yet another half-hour, the sky clearing in patches, +with a flicker of sickly sun from time to time that made patches of +olive-green water. Then a stump-foremast lifted, ducked, and +disappeared, to be followed on the next wave by a high stern with +old-fashioned wooden snail's-horn davits. The snails were +red-tanned. + +"Frenchmen!" shouted Dan. "No, 'tain't, neither. Daad!" + +"That's no French," said Disko. "Salters, your blame luck holds +tighter'n a screw in a keg-head." + +"I've eyes. It's Uncle Abishai." + +"You can't nowise tell fer sure." + +"The head-king of all Jonahs," groaned Tom Platt. "Oh, Salters, +Salters, why wasn't you abed an' asleep?" + +"How could I tell?" said poor Salters, as the schooner swung up. + +She might have been the very Flying Dutchman, so foul, draggled, +and unkempt was every rope and stick aboard. Her old-style +quarterdeck was some or five feet high, and her rigging flew +knotted and tangled like weed at a wharf-end. She was running +before the wind--yawing frightfully--her staysail let down to act as a +sort of extra foresail,--"scandalized," they call it,--and her foreboom +guyed out over the side. Her bowsprit cocked up like an +old-fashioned frigate's; her jib-boom had been fished and spliced +and nailed and clamped beyond further repair; and as she hove +herself forward, and sat down on her broad tail, she looked for all +the world like a blouzy, frouzy, bad old woman sneering at a +decent girl. + +"That's Abishal," said Salters. "Full o' gin an' Judique men, an' the +judgments o' Providence layin' fer him an' never takin' good holt +He's run in to bait, Miquelon way." + +"He'll run her under," said Long Jack. "That's no rig fer this +weather." + +"Not he, 'r he'd'a done it long ago," Disko replied. "Looks 's if he +cal'lated to run us under. Ain't she daown by the head more 'n +natural, Tom Platt?" + +"Ef it's his style o' loadin' her she ain't safe," said the sailor slowly. +"Ef she's spewed her oakum he'd better git to his pumps mighty +quick." + +The creature threshed up, wore round with a clatter and raffle, and +lay head to wind within ear-shot. + +A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, and a thick voice yelled +something Harvey could not understand. But Disko's face +darkened. "He'd resk every stick he hez to carry bad news. Says +we're in fer a shift o' wind. He's in fer worse. Abishal! Abi-shal!" +He waved his arm up and down with the gesture of a man at the +pumps, and pointed forward. The crew mocked him and laughed. + +"Jounce ye, an' strip ye an' trip ye!" yelled Uncle Abishal. "A livin' +gale--a livin' gale. Yab! Cast up fer your last trip, all you Gloucester +haddocks. You won't see Gloucester no more, no more!" + +"Crazy full--as usual," said Tom Platt. "Wish he hadn't spied us, +though." + +She drifted out of hearing while the gray-head yelled something +about a dance at the Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc'sle. +Harvey shuddered. He had seen the sloven tilled decks and the +savage-eyed crew. + +"An' that's a fine little floatin' hell fer her draught," said Long Jack. +"I wondher what mischief he's been at ashore." + +"He's a trawler," Dan explained to Harvey, "an' he runs in fer bait +all along the coast. Oh, no, not home, he don't go. He deals along +the south an' east shore up yonder." He nodded in the direction of +the pitiless Newfoundland beaches. "Dad won't never take me +ashore there. They're a mighty tough crowd--an' Abishal's the +toughest. You saw his boat? Well, she's nigh seventy year old, they +say; the last o' the old Marblehead heel-tappers. They don't make +them quarterdecks any more. Abishal don't use Marblehead, +though. He ain't wanted there. He jes' drif's araound, in debt, +trawlin' an' cussin' like you've heard. Bin a Jonah fer years an' +years, he hez. 'Gits liquor frum the Feecamp boats fer makin' spells +an' selling winds an' such truck. Crazy, I guess." + +"'Twon't be any use underrunnin' the trawl to-night," said Tom Platt, +with quiet despair. "He come alongside special to cuss us. I'd give +my wage an' share to see him at the gangway o' the old Ohio 'fore +we quit floggin'. Jest abaout six dozen, an' Sam Mocatta layin' 'em +on criss-cross!" + +The disheveled "heel-tapper" danced drunkenly down wind, and +all eyes followed her. Suddenly the cook cried in his phonograph +voice: "It wass his own death made him speak so! He iss fey--fey, I +tell you! Look!" She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine three or +four miles distant. The patch dulled and faded out, and even as the +light passed so did the schooner. She dropped into a hollow +and--was not. + +"Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!" shouted Disko, jumping +aft. "Drunk or sober, we've got to help 'em. Heave short and break +her out! Smart!" + +Harvey was thrown on the deck by the shock that followed the +setting of the jib and foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and +to save time, jerked the anchor bodily from the bottom, heaving +in as they moved away. This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted +to except in matters of life and death, and the little 'We're Here' +complained like a human. They ran down to where Abishal's craft +had vanished; found two or three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a +stove-in dory, but nothing more. "Let 'em go," said Disko, though +no one had hinted at picking them up. "I wouldn't hev a match that +belonged to Abishai aboard. Guess she run clear under. Must ha' +been spewin' her oakum fer a week, an' they never thought to pump +her. That's one more boat gone along o' leavin' port all hands +drunk." + +"Glory be!" said Long Jack. "We'd ha' been obliged to help 'em if +they was top o' water." + +"'Thinkin' o' that myself," said Tom Platt. + +"Fey! Fey!" said the cook, rolling his eyes. "He haas taken his own +luck with him." + +"Ver' good thing, I think, to tell the Fleet when we see. Eh, +wha-at?" said Manuel. "If you runna that way before the 'wind, and +she work open her seams--" He threw out his hands with an +indescribable gesture, while Penn sat down on the house and +sobbed at the sheer horror and pity of it all. Harvey could not +realize that he had seen death on the open waters, but he felt very +sick. Then Dan went up the cross-trees, and Disko steered them +back to within sight of their own trawl-buoys just before the fog +blanketed the sea once again. + +"We go mighty quick hereabouts when we do go," was all he said +to Harvey. "You think on that fer a spell, young feller. That was +liquor." + +"After dinner it was calm enough to fish from the decks,--Penn and +Uncle Salters were very zealous this time,--and the catch was large +and large fish. + +"Abishal has shorely took his luck with him," said Salters. "The +wind hain't backed ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl? I +despise superstition, anyway." + +Tom Platt insisted that they had much better haul the thing and +make a new berth. But the cook said: "The luck iss in two pieces. +You will find it so when you look. I know." This so tickled Long +Jack that he overbore Tom Platt and the two went out together. + +Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in on one side of the dory, +picking off the fish, rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to +the sea again--something like pinning and unpinning linen on a +wash-line. It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the +long, sagging line may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when +they heard, "And naow to thee, 0 Capting," booming out of the fog, +the crew of the 'We're Here' took heart. The dory swirled alongside +well loaded, Tom Platt yelling for Manuel to act as relief-boat. + +"The luck's cut square in two pieces," said Long Jack, forking in the +fish, while Harvey stood open-mouthed at the skill with which the +plunging dory was saved from destruction. "One half was jest +punkins. Tom Platt wanted to haul her an' ha' done wid ut; but I +said, "I'll back the doctor that has the second sight, an' the other +half come up sagging full o' big uns. Hurry, Man'nle, an' bring's a +tub o' bait. There's luck afloat to-night." + +The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from which their brethren +had just been taken, and Tom Platt and Long Jack moved +methodically up and down the length of the trawl, the boat's nose +surging under the wet line of hooks, stripping the sea-cucumbers +that they called pumpkins, slatting off the fresh-caught cod against +the gunwale, rebaiting, and loading Manuel's dory till dusk. + +"I'll take no risks," said Disko then--"not with him floatin' around so +near. Abishal won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories an' we'll +dress daown after supper." + +That was a mighty dressing-down, attended by three or four +blowing grampuses. It lasted till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice +heard to chuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish into the hold. + +"Say, you're haulin' ahead dretful fast," said Dan, when they +ground the knives after the men had turned in. "There's somethin' +of a sea to-night, an' I hain't heard you make no remarks on it." + +"Too busy," Harvey replied, testing a blade's edge. "Come to think +of it, she is a high-kicker." + +The little schooner was gambolling all around her anchor among +the silver-tipped waves. Backing with a start of affected surprise at +the sight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, +while the spray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with +the report of a gun. Shaking her head, she would say: "Well, I'm +sorry I can't stay any longer with you. I'm going North," and would +sidle off, halting suddenly with a dramatic rattle of her rigging. +"As I was just going to observe," she would begin, as gravely as a +drunken man addressing a lamp-post. The rest of the sentence (she +acted her words in dumb-show, of course) was lost in a fit of the +fidgets, when she behaved like a puppy chewing a string, a clumsy +woman in a side-saddle, a hen with her head cut off, or a cow stung +by a hornet, exactly as the whims of the sea took her. + +"See her sayin' her piece. She's Patrick Henry naow," said Dan. + +She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her +jib-boom from port to starboard. + +"But-ez-fer me, give me liberty-er give me-death!" + +Wop! She sat down in the moon-path on the water, courtesying +with a flourish of pride impressive enough had not the wheel-gear +sniggered mockingly in its box. + +Harvey laughed aloud. "Why, it's just as if she was alive," he said. + +"She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin'," said Dan +enthusiastically, as he was slung across the deck in a batter of +spray. "Fends 'em off an' fends 'em off, an' 'Don't ye come anigh +me,' she sez. Look at her--jest look at her! Sakes! You should see +one o' them toothpicks histin' up her anchor on her spike outer +fifteen-fathom water." + +"What's a toothpick, Dan?" + +"Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats. Fine's a yacht forward, +with yacht sterns to 'em, an' spike bowsprits, an' a haouse that 'u'd +take our hold. I've heard that Burgess himself he made the models +fer three or four of 'em. Dad's sot agin 'em on account o' their +pitchin' an' joltin', but there's heaps o' money in 'em. Dad can find +fish, but he ain't no ways progressive--he don't go with the march +o' the times. They're chock-full o' labour-savin' jigs an' sech all. +'Ever seed the Elector o' Gloucester? She's a daisy, ef she is a +toothpick." + +"What do they cost, Dan?" + +"Hills o' dollars. Fifteen thousand, p'haps; more, mebbe. There's +gold-leaf an' everything you kin think of." Then to himself, half +under his breath, "Guess I'd call her Hattie S., too." + + +CHAPTER V + +That was the first of many talks with Dan, who told Harvey why he +would transfer his dory's name to the imaginary Burgess-modelled +haddocker. Harvey heard a good deal about the real Hattie at +Gloucester; saw a lock of her hair--which Dan, finding fair words +of no avail, had "hooked" as she sat in front of him at school that +winter--and a photograph. Hattie was about fourteen years old, with +an awful contempt for boys, and had been trampling on Dan's heart +through the winter. All this was revealed under oath of solemn +secrecy on moonlit decks, in the dead dark, or in choking fog; the +whining wheel behind them, the climbing deck before, and +without, the unresting, clamorous sea. Once, of course, as the boys +came to know each other, there was a fight, which raged from bow +to stern till Penn came up and separated them, but promised not to +tell Disko, who thought fighting on watch rather worse than +sleeping. Harvey was no match for Dan physically, but it says a +great deal for his new training that he took his defeat and did not +try to get even with his conqueror by underhand methods. + +That was after he had been cured of a string of boils between his +elbows and wrists, where the wet jersey and oilskins cut into the +flesh. The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they were +ripe Dan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that +now he was a "blooded Banker"; the affliction of gurry-sores being +the mark of the caste that claimed him. + +Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head with +too much thinking. He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, and +often longed to see her and above all to tell her of this wonderful +new life, and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it. +Otherwise he preferred not to wonder too much how she was +bearing the shock of his supposed death. But one day, as he stood +on the foc'sle ladder, guying the cook, who had accused him and +Dan of hooking fried pies, it occurred to him that this was a vast +improvement on being snubbed by strangers in the smoking-room +of a hired liner. + +He was a recognized part of the scheme of things on the We're +Here; had his place at the table and among the bunks; and could +hold his own in the long talks on stormy days, when the others +were always ready to listen to what they called his "fairy-tales" of +his life ashore. It did not take him more than two days and a +quarter to feel that if he spoke of his own life--it seemed very far +away--no one except Dan (and even Dan's belief was sorely tried) +credited him. So he invented a friend, a boy he had heard of, who +drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, Ohio, and ordered +five suits of clothes at a time and led things called "germans" at +parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen, but all the +presents were solid silver. Salters protested that this kind of yarn +was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, but +he listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the end +gave Harvey entirely new notions on "germans," clothes, cigarettes +with gold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, +champagne, card-playing, and hotel accommodation. Little by little +he changed his tone when speaking of his "friend," whom Long +Jack had christened "the Crazy Kid," "the Gilt-edged Baby," "the +Suckin' Vanderpoop," and other pet names; and with his +sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would even invent histories +about silk pajamas and specially imported neckwear, to the +"friend's" discredit. Harvey was a very adaptable person, with a +keen eye and ear for every face and tone about him. + +Before long he knew where Disko kept the old greencrusted +quadrant that they called the "hog-yoke"--under the bed-bag in his +bunk. When he took the sun, and with the help of "The Old +Farmer's" almanac found the latitude, Harvey would jump down +into the cabin and scratch the reckoning and date with a nail on the +rust of the stove-pipe. Now, the chief engineer of the liner could +have done no more, and no engineer of thirty years' service could +have assumed one half of the ancient-mariner air with which +Harvey, first careful to spit over the side, made public the +schooner's position for that day, and then and not till then relieved +Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette in all these things. + +The said "hog-yoke," an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac, +Blunt's "Coast Pilot," and Bowditch's "Navigator" were all the +weapons Disko needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that +was his spare eye. Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platt +taught him first how to "fly the blue pigeon"; and, though his +strength was not equal to continuous sounding in any sort of a sea, +for calm weather with a seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko +used him freely. As Dan said: + +"'Tain't soundin's dad wants. It's samples. Grease her up good, +Harve." Harvey would tallow the cup at the end, and carefully +bring the sand, shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to Disko, +who fingered and smelt it and gave judgment As has been said, +when Disko thought of cod he thought as a cod; and by some +long-tested mixture of instinct and experience, moved the We're +Here from berth to berth, always with the fish, as a blindfolded +chess-player moves on the unseen board. + +But Disko's board was the Grand Bank--a triangle two hundred and +fifty miles on each side--a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with +dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the +tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the +fishing-fleet. + +For days they worked in fog--Harvey at the bell--till, grown familiar +with the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, his heart rather in +his mouth. But the fog would not lift, and the fish were biting, and +no one can stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. Harvey +devoted himself to his lines and the gaff or gob-stick as Tom Platt +called for them; and they rowed back to the schooner guided by +the bell and Tom's instinct; Manuel's conch sounding thin and faint +beside them. But it was an unearthly experience, and, for the first +time in a month, Harvey dreamed of the shifting, smoking floors of +water round the dory, the lines that strayed away into nothing, and +the air above that melted on the sea below ten feet from his +straining eyes. A few days later he was out with Manuel on what +should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the whole length of the +roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing, and Harvey +grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth was lost. +"Whale-hole," said Manuel, hauling in. "That is good joke on +Disko. Come!" and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and +the others jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them +to the edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand +Bank. They made another berth through the fog, and that time the +hair of Harvey's head stood up when he went out in Manuel's dory. +A whiteness moved in the whiteness of the fog with a breath like +the breath of the grave, and there was a roaring, a plunging, and +spouting. It was his first introduction to the dread summer berg of +the Banks, and he cowered in the bottom of the boat while Manuel +laughed. There were days, though, clear and soft and warm, when +it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf over the hand-lines and +spank the drifting "sun-scalds" with an oar; and there were days of +light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steer the schooner from +one berth to another. + +It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his +band on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail +scythed back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, +in spite of Disko saying that it would break a snake's back to +follow his wake. But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were +sailing on the wind with the staysail--an old one, luckily--set, and +Harvey jammed her right into it to show Dan how completely he +had mastered the art. The foresail went over with a bang, and the +foregaff stabbed and ripped through the staysail, which was, of +course, prevented from going over by the mainstay. They lowered +the wreck in awful silence, and Harvey spent his leisure hours for +the next few days under Tom Platt's lee, learning to use a needle +and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he said, he had made the +very same blunder himself in his early days. + +Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had +combined Disko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's +swinging overhand when the lines were hauled, Manuel's +round-shouldered but effective stroke in a dory, and Tom Platt's +generous Ohio stride along the deck. + +"'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut," said Long Jack, when +Harvey was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. "I'll lay +my wage an' share 'tis more'n half play-actin' to him, an' he +consates himself he's a bowld mariner. Watch his little bit av a +back now!" + +"That's the way we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they make +believe all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, +an' so till they die--pretendin' an' pretendin'. I done it on the old +Ohio, I know. Stood my first watch--harbor-watch--feelin' finer'n +Farragut. Dan's full o' the same kind o' notions. See 'em now, +actin' to be genewine moss-backs--very hair a rope-yarn an' blood +Stockholm tar." He spoke down the cabin stairs. "Guess you're +mistook in your judgments fer once, Disko. What in Rome made +ye tell us all here the kid was crazy?" + +"He wuz," Disko replied. "Crazy ez a loon when he come aboard; +but I'll say he's sobered up consid'ble sence. I cured him." + +"He yarns good," said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaout a +kid of his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up an' +down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppers to a crowd o' +sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. He +knows scores of 'em." + +"Guess he strikes 'em outen his own head," Disko called from the +cabin, where he was busy with the logbook. "Stands to reason that +sort is all made up. It don't take in no one but Dan, an' he laughs at +it. I've heard him, behind my back." + +"Yever hear what Sim'on Peter Ca'houn said when they whacked +up a match 'twix' his sister Hitty an' Lorin' Jerauld, an' the boys put +up that joke on him daown to Georges?" drawled Uncle Salters, +who was dripping peaceably under the lee of the starboard +dory-nest. + +Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a Cape +Cod man, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. +Uncle Salters went on with a rasping chuckie: + +"Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he said, an' he was jest right, abaout Lorin', +'Ha'af on the taown,' he said, 'an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' they +told me she's married a 'ich man.' Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he hedn't +no roof to his mouth, an' talked that way." + +"He didn't talk any Pennsylvania Dutch," Tom Platt replied. "You'd +better leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Ca'houns was gypsies +frum 'way back." + +"Wal, I don't profess to be any elocutionist," Salters said. "I'm +comin' to the moral o' things. That's jest abaout what aour Harve +be! Ha'af on the taown, an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' there's +some'll believe he's a rich man. Yah!" + +"Did ye ever think how sweet 'twould be to sail wid a full crew o' +Salterses?" said Long Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'af in the +muck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' makes out he's a +fisherman!" + +A little laugh went round at Salters's expense. + +Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the log-book that he kept +in a hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that ran +on, page after soiled page: + +"July 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to +northward. So ends this day. + +"July 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish. + +"July 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N.E. and fine +weather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish. + +"July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So +ends this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478." + +They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed +themselves if it were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or +twice he suggested that, if ft was not an impertinence, he thought +he could preach a little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his +throat at the mere notion, reminding him that he was not a +preacher and mustn't think of such things. "We'd hev him +rememberin' Johns-town next," Salters explained, "an' what would +happen then?" so they compromised on his reading aloud from a +book called "Josephus." It was an old leather-bound volume, +smelling of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like the Bible, +but enlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it +nearly from cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a silent little +body. He would not utter a word for three days on end sometimes, +though he played checkers, listened to the songs, and laughed at +the stories. When they tried to stir him up, he would answer: "I +don't wish to seem unneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing +to say. My head feels quite empty. I've almost forgotten my name." +He would turn to Uncle Salters with an expectant smile. + +"Why, Pennsylvania Pratt," Salters would shout "You'll fergit me +next!" + +"No--never," Penn would say, shutting his lips firmly. +"Pennsylvania Pratt, of course," he would repeat over and over. +Sometimes it was Uncle Salters who forgot, and told him he was +Haskins or Rich or McVitty; but Penn was equally content--till next +time. + +He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as a +lost child and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn liked +the boy, he relaxed, too. Salters was not an amiable person (He +esteemed it his business to keep the boys in order); and the first +time Harvey, in fear and trembling, on a still day, managed to shin +up to the main-truck (Dan was behind him ready to help), he +esteemed it his duty to hang Salters's big sea-boots up there--a sight +of shame and derision to the nearest schooner. With Disko, Harvey +took no liberties; not even when the old man dropped direct +orders, and treated him, like the rest of the crew, to "Don't you +want to do so and so?" and "Guess you'd better," and so forth. +There was something about the clean-shaven lips and the puckered +corners of the eyes that was mightily sobering to young blood. + +Disko showed him the meaning of the thumbed and pricked chart, +which, he said, laid over any government publication whatsoever; +led him, pencil in hand, from berth to berth over the whole string +of banks--Le Have, Western, Banquereau, St. Pierre, Green, and +Grand--talking "cod" meantime. Taught him, too, the principle on +which the "hog-yoke" was worked. + +In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head for +figures, and the notion of stealing information from one glimpse of +the sullen Bank sun appealed to all his keen wits. For other +sea-matters his age handicapped him. As Disko said, he should +have begun when he was ten. Dan could bait up trawl or lay his +hand on any rope in the dark; and at a pinch, when Uncle Salters +had a gurry-score on his palm, could dress down by sense of touch. +He could steer in anything short of half a gale from the feel of the +wind on his face, humouring the 'We're Here' just when she needed +it. These things he did as automatically as he skipped about the +rigging, or made his dory a part of his own will and body. But he +could not communicate his knowledge to Harvey. + +Still there was a good deal of general information flying about the +schooner on stormy days, when they lay up in the foc'sle or sat on +the cabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, leads, and rings rolled and +rattled in the pauses of the talk. Disko spoke of whaling voyages in +the Fifties; of great she-whales slain beside their young; of death +agonies on the black tossing seas, and blood that spurted forty feet +in the air; of boats smashed to splinters; of patent rockets that went +off wrong-end-first and bombarded the trembling crews; of +cutting-in and boiling-down, and that terrible "nip" of '71, when +twelve hundred men were made homeless on the ice in three +days--wonderful tales, all true. But more wonderful still were his +stories of the cod, and how they argued and reasoned on their +private businesses deep down below the keel. + +Long Jack's tastes ran more to the supernatural. He held them +silent with ghastly stories of the "Yo-hoes" on Monomoy Beach, +that mock and terrify lonely clam-diggers; of sand-walkers and +dune-haunters who were never properly buried; of hidden treasure +on Fire Island guarded by the spirits of Kidd's men; of ships that +sailed in the fog straight over Truro township; of that harbor in +Maine where no one but a stranger will lie at anchor twice in a +certain place because of a dead crew who row alongside at +midnight with the anchor in the bow of their old-fashioned boat, +whistling--not calling, but whistling--for the soul of the man who +broke their rest. + +Harvey had a notion that the east coast of his native land, from +Mount Desert south, was populated chiefly by people who took +their horses there in the summer and entertained in country-houses +with hardwood floors and Vantine portires. He laughed at the +ghost-tales,--not as much as he would have done a month +before,--but ended by sitting still and shuddering. + +Tom Platt dealt with his interminable trip round the Horn on the +old Ohio in flogging days, with a navy more extinct than the +dodo--the navy that passed away in the great war. He told them how +red-hot shot are dropped into a cannon, a wad of wet clay between +them and the cartridge; how they sizzle and reek when they strike +wood, and how the little ship-boys of the Miss Jim Buck hove +water over them and shouted to the fort to try again. And he told +tales of blockade--long weeks of swaying at anchor, varied only by +the departure and return of steamers that had used up their coal +(there was no chance for the sailing-ships); of gales and cold +that kept two hundred men, night and day, pounding and chopping +at the ice on cable, blocks, and rigging, when the galley was as +red-hot as the fort's shot, and men drank cocoa by the bucket. Tom +Platt had no use for steam. His service closed when that thing was +comparatively new. He admitted that it was a specious invention in +time of peace, but looked hopefully for the day when sails should +come back again on ten-thousand-ton frigates with +hundred-and-ninety-foot booms. + +Manuel's talk was slow and gentle--all about pretty girls in Madeira +washing clothes in the dry beds of streams, by moonlight, under +waving bananas; legends of saints, and tales of queer dances or +fights away in the cold Newfoundland baiting-ports Salters was +mainly agricultural; for, though he read "Josephus" and expounded +it, his mission in life was to prove the value of green manures, and +specially of clover, against every form of phosphate whatsoever. +He grew libellous about phosphates; he dragged greasy "Orange +Judd" books from his bunk and intoned them, wagging his finger at +Harvey, to whom it was all Greek. Little Penn was so genuinely +pained when Harvey made fun of Salters's lectures that the boy +gave it up, and suffered in polite silence. That was very good for +Harvey. + +The cook naturally did not join in these conversations. As a rule, +he spoke only when it was absolutely necessary; but at times a +queer gift of speech descended on him, and he held forth, half in +Gaelic, half in broken English, an hour at a time. He was +especially communicative with the boys, and he never withdrew +his prophecy that one day Harvey would be Dan's master, and that +he would see it. He told them of mail-carrying in the winter up +Cape Breton way, of the dog-train that goes to Coudray, and of the +ram-steamer Arctic, that breaks the ice between the mainland and +Prince Edward Island. Then he told them stories that his mother +had told him, of life far to the southward, where water never froze; +and he said that when he died his soul would go to lie down on a +warm white beach of sand with palm-trees waving above. That +seemed to the boys a very odd idea for a man who had never seen a +palm in his life. Then, too, regularly at each meal, he would ask +Harvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cooking was to his taste; +and this always made the "second half" laugh. Yet they had a great +respect for the cook's judgment, and in their hearts considered +Harvey something of a mascot by consequence. + +And while Harvey was taking in knowledge of new things at each +pore and hard health with every gulp of the good air, the We're +Here went her ways and did her business on the Bank, and the +silvery-gray kenches of well-pressed fish mounted higher and +higher in the hold. No one day's work was out of common, but the +average days were many and close together. + +Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was closely +watched--"scrowged upon," Dan called it--by his neighbours, but he +had a very pretty knack of giving them the slip through the +curdling, glidy fog-banks. Disko avoided company for two reasons. +He wished to make his own experirnents, in the first place; and in +the second, he objected to the mixed gatherings of a fleet of all +nations. The bulk of them were mainly Gloucester boats, +with a scattering from Provincetown, Harwich, Chatham, and +some of the Maine ports, but the crews drew from goodness knows +where. Risk breeds recklessness, and when greed is added there +are fine chances for every kind of accident in the crowded fleet, +which, like a mob of sheep, is huddled round some unrecognized +leader. "Let the two Jeraulds lead 'em," said Disko. "We're baound +to lay among 'em for a spell on the Eastern Shoals; though ef luck +holds, we won't hev to lay long. Where we are naow, Harve, ain't +considered noways good graound." + +"Ain't it?" said Harvey, who was drawing water (he had learned +just how to wiggle the bucket), after an unusually long +dressing-down. "Shouldn't mind striking some poor ground for a +change, then." + +"All the graound I want to see--don't want to strike her--is Eastern +Point," said Dan. "Say, Dad, it looks's if we wouldn't hev to lay +more'n two weeks on the Shoals. You'll meet all the comp'ny you +want then, Harve. That's the time we begin to work. No reg'lar +meals fer no one then. 'Mug-up when ye're hungry, an' sleep when +ye can't keep awake. Good job you wasn't picked up a month later +than you was, or we'd never ha' had you dressed in shape fer the +Old Virgin." + +Harvey understood from the Eldridge chart that the Old Virgin and +a nest of curiously named shoals were the turning-point of the +cruise, and that with good luck they would wet the balance of their +salt there. But seeing the size of the Virgin (it was one tiny dot), he +wondered how even Disko with the hog-yoke and the lead could +find her. He learned later that Disko was entirely equal to that and +any other business and could even help others. A big four-by-five +blackboard hung in the cabin, and Harvey never understood the +need of it till, after some blinding thick days, they heard the +unmelodious tooting of a foot-power fog-horn--a machine whose +note is as that of a consumptive elephant. + +They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their +foot to save trouble. "Square-rigger bellowin' fer his latitude," said +Long Jack. The dripping red head-sails of a bark glided out of the +fog, and the 'We're Here' rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand. + +The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings. + +"Frenchman," said Uncle Salters, scornfully. "Miquelon boat from +St. Malo." The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I'm 'most outer +'baccy, too, Disko." + +"Same here," said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vous--backez vous! +Standez awayez, you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from-- +St. Malo, eh?" + +"Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet--St. Malo! St. Pierre +et Miquelon," cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps and +laughing. Then all together, "Bord! Bord!" + +"Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetch +anywheres, exceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six +forty-nine's good enough fer them; an' I guess it's abaout +right, too." + +Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in the +main-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark. + +"Seems kinder uneighbourly to let 'em swedge off like this," +Salters suggested, feeling in his pockets. + +"Hev ye learned French then sence last trip?" said Disko. "I don't +want no more stone-ballast hove at us 'long o' your callin' +Miquelon boats 'footy cochins,' same's you did off Le Have." + +"Harmon Rush he said that was the way to rise 'em. Plain United +States is good enough fer me. We're all dretful short on tearakker. +Young feller, don't you speak French?" + +"Oh, yes," said Harvey valiantly; and he bawled: +"Hi! Say! Arretez vous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour +tabac." + +"Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed again. + +"That hit 'em. Let's heave a dory over, anyway," said Tom Platt. "I +don't exactly hold no certificates on French, but I know another +lingo that goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, an' interpret." + +The raffle and confusion when he and Harvey were hauled up the +bark's black side was indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck round +with glaring coloured prints of the Virgin--the Virgin of +Newfoundland, they called her. Harvey found his French of no +recognized Bank brand, and his conversation was limited to nods and +grins. But Tom Platt waved his arms and got along swimmingly. The +captain gave him a drink of unspeakable gin, and the opera-comique +crew, with their hairy throats, red caps, and long knives, greeted +him as a brother. Then the trade began. They had tobacco, plenty of +it--American, that had never paid duty to France. They wanted +chocolate and crackers. Harvey rowed back to arrange with the cook +and Disko, who owned the stores, and on his return the cocoa-tins +and cracker-bags were counted out by the Frenchman's wheel. It +looked like a piratical division of loot; but Tom Platt came out of +it roped with black pigtail and stuffed with cakes of chewing and +smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners swung off into the mist, +and the last Harvey heard was a gay chorus: + + "Par derriere chez ma tante, il'y a un bois joli, + Et le rossignol y chante + Et le jour et la nuit.... + + Que donneriez vous, belle, + Qui l'arnenerait ici? + Je donnerai Quebec, + Sorel et Saint Denis." + +"How was it my French didn't go, and your sign-talk did?" Harvey +demanded when the barter had been distributed among the We're +Heres. + +"Sign-talk!" Platt guffawed. "Well, yes, 'twas sign-talk, but a heap +older'n your French, Harve. Them French boats are chockfull o' +Freemasons, an' that's why." + +"Are you a Freemason, then?" + +"Looks that way, don't it?" said the man-o'-war's man, stuffing his +pipe; and Harvey had another mystery of the deep sea to brood +upon. + + +CHAPTER VI + +The thing that struck him most was the exceedingly casual way in +which some craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fishing-boats, as +Dan said, were naturally dependent on the courtesy and wisdom of +their neighbours; but one expected better things of steamers. That +was after another interesting interview, when they had been chased +for three miles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, all boarded over +on the upper deck, that smelt like a thousand cattle-pens. A very +excited officer yelled at them through a speaking-trumpet, and she +lay and lollopped helplessly on the water while Disko ran the +'We're Here' under her lee and gave the skipper a piece of his mind. +"Where might ye be--eh? Ye don't deserve to be anywheres. You +barn-yard tramps go hoggin' the road on the high seas with no +blame consideration fer your neighbours, an' your eyes in your +coffee-cups instid o' in your silly heads." + +At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something about +Disko's own eyes. "We haven't had an observation for three days. +D'you suppose we can run her blind?" he shouted. + +"Wa-al, I can," Disko retorted. "What's come to your lead? Et it? +Can't ye smell bottom, or are them cattle too rank?" + +"What d' ye feed 'em?" said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness, +for the smell of the pens woke all the farmer in him. "They say +they fall off dretful on a v'yage. Dunno as it's any o' my business, +but I've a kind o' notion that oil-cake broke small an' sprinkled--" + +"Thunder!" said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over the +side. "What asylum did they let His Whiskers out of?" + +"Young feller," Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging, "let +me tell yeou 'fore we go any further that I've--" + +The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense +politeness. "Excuse me," he said, "but I've asked for my reckoning. +If the agricultural person with the hair will kindly shut his head, +the sea-green barnacle 'with the wall-eye may per-haps condescend +to enlighten us." + +"Naow you've made a show o' me, Salters," said Disko, angrily. He +could not stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped out +the latitude and longitude without more lectures. + +"Well, that's a boat-load of lunatics, sure," said the skipper, as he +rang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into +the schooner. + +"Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him an' his crowd are +abaout the likeliest I've ever seen," said Disko as the 'We're Here' +slid away. "I was jest givin' him my jedgment on lullsikin' round +these waters like a lost child, an' you must cut in with your fool +farmin'. Can't ye never keep things sep'rate?" + +Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, winking one to the other +and full of joy; but Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till +evening, Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was practically a barn on +blue water, and Disko insisting that, even if this were the case, +decency and fisher-pride demanded that he should have kept +"things sep'rate." Long Jack stood it in silence for a time,--an angry +skipper makes an unhappy crew,--and then he spoke across the +table after supper: + +"Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?" said he. + +"They'll tell that tale agin us fer years--that's all," said Disko. +"Oil-cake sprinkled!" + +"With salt, o' course," said Salters, Impenitent, reading the +farming reports from a week-old New York paper. + +"It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's," the skipper went on. + +"Can't see ut that way," said Long Jack, the peacemaker "Look at +here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather +cud ha' met a tramp an' over an' above givin' her her reckonin', +--over an' above that, I say,--cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent +on the management av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they +will not. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. +Double game an' twice runnin'--all to us." Dan kicked Harvey under +the table, and Harvey choked in his cup. + +"Well," said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat +plastered, "I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' mine, 'fore +I spoke." + +"An' right there," said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline and +etiquette--"right there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked him to +stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to be +anyways--what it shouldn't." + +"Dunno but that's so," said Disko, who saw his way to an +honourable retreat from a fit of the dignities. + +"Why, o' course it was so," said Salters, "you bein' skipper here; +an' I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint--not from any leadin' or +conviction, but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two +blame boys of aours." + +"Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd +done? Always those blame boys. But I wouldn't have missed the +show fer a half-share in a halibutter," Dan whispered. + +"Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate," said Disko, and the +light of new argument lit in Salters's eye as he crumbled cut plug +into his pipe. + +"There's a power av vartue in keepin' things sep'rate," said Long +Jack, intent on stilling the storm. "That's fwhat Steyning of +Steyning and Hare's f'und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on +the Manila D. Kuhn, instid o' Cap. Newton that was took with +inflam'try rheumatism an' couldn't go. Counahan the Navigator we +called him." + +"Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night 'thout a pond o' +rum somewheres in the manifest," said Tom Platt, playing up to +the lead. "He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston +lookin' fer the Lord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his +merits. Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free +fer a year or more on account of his stories. + +"Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't +he?" + +"Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the Caspar McVeagh was +built; but he could niver keep things sep'rate. Steyning tuk him fer +the reason the thief tuk the hot stove--bekaze there was nothin' else +that season. The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he +whacked up an iverlastin' hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha' +floated the Manila, insurance an' all, in fwhat they stowed aboard +her. They lef' Boston Harbour for the great Grand Bank wid a +roarin' nor'wester behind 'em an' all hands full to the bung. An' the +hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did they set, an' divil a +rope did they lay hand to, till they'd seen the bottom av a +fifteen-gallon cask o' bug-juice. That was about wan week, so far +as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he told ut!) +All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an' the Marilla--'twas +summer, and they'd give her a foretopmast--struck her gait and kept +ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' thrembled over it for a +whoile, an' made out, betwix' that an' the chart an' the singin' in his +head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable Island, gettin' along +glorious, but speakin' nothin'. Then they broached another keg, an' +quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another spell. The Marilla she +lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her +lee-rail up to that time--hustlin' on one an' the same slant. But they +saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintly they obsarved +they'd bin out a matter o' fourteen days and they mis-trusted the +Bank has suspinded payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty +fathom. 'That's me,' sez Counahan. 'That's me iv'ry time! I've run +her slat on the Bank fer you, an' when we get thirty fathom we'll +turn in like little men. Counahan is the b'y,' sez he. 'Counahan the +Navigator!' + +"Nex' cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan: 'Either the lead-line's tuk +to stretchin' or else the Bank's sunk.' + +"They hauled ut up, bein' just about in that state when ut seemed +right an' reasonable, and sat down on the deck countin' the knots, +an' gettin' her snarled up hijjus. The Marilla she'd struck her gait, +an' she hild ut, an' prisintly along came a tramp, an' Counahan +spoke her. + +"'Hev ye seen any fishin'-boats now?' sez he, quite casual. + +"'There's lashin's av them off the Irish coast,' sez the tramp. + +"'Aah! go shake yerseif,' sez Counahan. 'Fwhat have I to do wid the +Irish coast?' + +"'Then fwhat are ye doin' here?' sez the tramp. + +"'Sufferin' Christianity!' sez Counahan (he always said that whin his +pumps sucked an' he was not feelin' good)--'Sufferin' Christianity!' +he sez, 'where am I at?' + +"'Thirty-five mile west-sou'west o' Cape Clear,' sez the tramp, 'if +that's any consolation to you.' + +"Counahan fetched wan jump, four feet sivin inches, measured by +the cook. + +"'Consolation!' sez he, bould as brass. 'D'ye take me fer a dialect? +Thirty-five mile from Cape Clear, an' fourteen days from Boston +Light. Sufferin' Christianity, 'tis a record, an' by the same token I've +a mother to Skibbereen!' Think av ut! The gall av um! But ye see +he could niver keep things sep'rate. + +"The crew was mostly Cork an' Kerry men, barrin' one Marylander +that wanted to go back, but they called him a mutineer, an' they ran +the ould Marilla into Skibbereen, an' they had an illigant time +visitin' around with frinds on the ould sod fer a week. Thin they +wint back, an' it cost 'em two an' thirty days to beat to the Banks +again. 'Twas gettin' on towards fall, and grub was low, so +Counahan ran her back to Boston, wid no more bones to ut." + +"And what did the firm say?" Harvey demanded. + +"Fwhat could they? The fish was on the Banks, an' Counahan was +at T-wharf talkin' av his record trip east! They tuk their +satisfaction out av that, an' ut all came av not keepin' the crew and +the rum sep'rate in the first place; an' confusin' Skibbereen wid +'Queereau, in the second. Counahan the Navigator, rest his sowl! +He was an imprompju citizen!" + +"Once I was in the Lucy Holmes," said Manuel, in his gentle voice. +"They not want any of her feesh in Gloucester. Eh, wha-at? Give us +no price. So we go across the water, and think to sell to some Fayal +man. Then it blow fresh, and we cannot see well. Eh, wha-at? Then +it blow some more fresh, and we go down below and drive very +fast--no one know where. By and by we see a land, and it get some +hot. Then come two, three nigger in a brick. Eh, wha-at? We ask +where we are, and they say--now, what you all think?" + +"Grand Canary," said Disko, after a moment. Manuel shook his +head, smiling. + +"Blanco," said Tom Platt. + +"No. Worse than that. We was below Bezagos, and the brick she +was from Liberia! So we sell our feesh there! Not bad, so? Eh, +wha-at?" + +"Can a schooner like this go right across to Africa?" said Harvey. + +"Go araound the Horn ef there's anythin' worth goin' fer, and the +grub holds aout," said Disko. "My father he run his packet, an' she +was a kind o' pinkey, abaout fifty ton, I guess,--the Rupert,--he run +her over to Greenland's icy mountains the year ha'af our fleet was +tryin' after cod there. An' what's more, he took my mother along +with him,--to show her haow the money was earned, I presoom,--an' +they was all iced up, an' I was born at Disko. Don't remember +nothin' abaout it, o' course. We come back when the ice eased in +the spring, but they named me fer the place. Kinder mean trick to +put up on a baby, but we're all baound to make mistakes in aour +lives." + +"Sure! Sure!" said Salters, wagging his head. "All baound to make +mistakes, an' I tell you two boys here thet after you've made a +mistake--ye don't make fewer'n a hundred a day--the next best +thing's to own up to it like men." + +Long Jack winked one tremendous wink that embraced all hands +except Disko and Salters, and the incident was closed. + +Then they made berth after berth to the northward, the dories out +almost every day, running along the east edge of the Grand Bank in +thirty- to forty-fathom water, and fishing steadily. + +It was here Harvey first met the squid, who is one of the best +cod-baits, but uncertain in his moods. They were waked out of their +bunks one black night by yells of "Squid O!" from Salters, and for +an hour and a half every soul aboard hung over his squid-jig--a +piece of lead painted red and armed at the lower end with a circle +of pins bent backward like half-opened umbrella ribs. The squid--for +some unknown reason--likes, and wraps himself round, this thing, and +is hauled up ere he can escape from the pins. But as he leaves his +home he squirts first water and next ink into his captor's face; and +it was curious to see the men weaving their heads from side to side +to dodge the shot. They were as black as sweeps when the flurry +ended; but a pile of fresh squid lay on the deck, and the large cod +thinks very well of a little shiny piece of squid tentacle at the +tip of a clam-baited hook. Next day they caught many fish, and met +the Carrie Pitman, to whom they shouted their luck, and she wanted +to trade--seven cod for one fair-sized squid; but Disko would not +agree at the price, and the Carrie dropped sullenly to leeward and +anchored half a mile away, in the hope of striking on to some for +herself. + +Disco said nothing till after supper, when he sent Dan and Manuel +out to buoy the 'We're Here's' cable and announced his intention of +turning in with the broad-axe. Dan naturally repeated these +remarks to the dory from the Carrie, who wanted to know why +they were buoying their cable, since they were not on rocky +bottom. + +"Dad sez he wouldn't trust a ferryboat within five mile o' you," +Dan howled cheerfully. + +"Why don't he git out, then? Who's hinderin'?" said the other. + +"'Cause you've jest the same ez lee-bowed him, an' he don't take that +from any boat, not to speak o' sech a driftin' gurry-butt as you be." + +"She ain't driftin' any this trip," said the man angrily, for the Carrie +Pitman had an unsavory reputation for breaking her ground-tackle. + +"Then haow d'you make berths?" said Dan. "It's her best p'int o' +sailin'. An' ef she's quit driftin', what in thunder are you doin' with +a new jib-boom?" That shot went home. + +"Hey, you Portugoosy organ-grinder, take your monkey back to +Gloucester. Go back to school, Dan Troop," was the answer. + +"0-ver-alls! 0-ver-alls!" yelled Dan, who knew that one of the +Carrie's crew had worked in an overall factory the winter before. + +"Shrimp! Gloucester shrimp! Git aout, you Novy!" + +To call a Gloucester man a Nova Scotian is not well received. Dan +answered in kind. + +"Novy yourself, ye Scrabble-towners! ye Chatham wreckers! Git +aout with your brick in your stockin'!" And the forces separated, +but Chatharn had the worst of it. + +"I knew haow 'twould be," said Disko. "She's drawed the wind +raound already. Some one oughter put a deesist on thet packet. +She'll snore till midnight, an' jest when we're gettin' our sleep she'll +strike adrift. Good job we ain't crowded with craft hereaways. But +I ain't goin' to up anchor fer Chatham. She may hold." + +The wind, which had hauled round, rose at sundown and blew +steadily. There was not enough sea, though, to disturb even a +dory's tackle, but the Carrie Pitman was a law unto herself. At the +end of the boys' watch they heard the crack-crack-crack of a huge +muzzle-loading revolver aboard her. + +"Gory, glory, hallelujah!" sung Dan. "Here she comes, Dad; +butt-end first, walkin' in her sleep same's she done on 'Queereau." + +Had she been any other boat Disko would have taken his chances, +but now he cut the cable as the Carrie Pitman, with all the North +Atlantic to play in, lurched down directly upon them. The 'We're +Here', under jib and riding-sail, gave her no more room than was +absolutely necessary,--Disko did not wish to spend a week hunting +for his cable,--but scuttled up into the wind as the Carrie passed +within easy hail, a silent and angry boat, at the mercy of a raking +broadside of Bank chaff. + +"Good evenin'," said Disko, raising his head-gear, "an' haow does +your garden grow?" + +"Go to Ohio an' hire a mule," said Uncle Salters. "We don't want +no farmers here." + +"Will I lend YOU my dory-anchor?" cried Long Jack. + +"Unship your rudder an' stick it in the mud," bawled Tom Platt. + +"Say!" Dan's voice rose shrill and high, as he stood on the +wheel-box. "Sa-ay! Is there a strike in the o-ver-all factory; or hev +they hired girls, ye Shackamaxons?" + +"Veer out the tiller-lines," cried Harvey, "and nail 'em to the +bottom!" That was a salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by +Tom Platt. Manuel leaned over the stern and yelled: "Johanna +Morgan play the organ! Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb +with a gesture of unspeakable contempt and derision, while little +Penn covered himself with glory by piping up: "Gee a little! Hssh! +Come here. Haw!" + +They rode on their chain for the rest of the night, a short, snappy, +uneasy motion, as Harvey found, and wasted half the forenoon +recovering the cable. But the boys agreed the trouble was cheap at +the price of triumph and glory, and they thought with grief over all +the beautiful things that they might have said to the discomfited +Carrie. + + +CHAPTER VII + +Next day they fell in with more sails, all circling slowly from the +east northerly towards the west. But just when they expected to +make the shoals by the Virgin the fog shut down, and they +anchored, surrounded by the tinklings of invisible bells. There was +not much fishing, but occasionally dory met dory in the fog and +exchanged news. + +That night, a little before dawn, Dan and Harvey, who had been +sleeping most of the day, tumbled out to "hook" fried pies. There +was no reason why they should not have taken them openly; but +they tasted better so, and it made the cook angry. The heat and +smell below drove them on deck with their plunder, and they +found Disko at the bell, which he handed over to Harvey. + +"Keep her goin'," said he. "I mistrust I hear somethin'. Ef it's +anything, I'm best where I am so's to get at things." + +It was a forlorn little jingle; the thick air seemed to pinch it off, +and in the pauses Harvey heard the muffled shriek of a liner's +siren, and he knew enough of the Banks to know what that meant. +It came to him, with horrible distinctness, how a boy in a +cherry-coloured jersey--he despised fancy blazers now with all a +fisher-man's contempt--how an ignorant, rowdy boy had once +said it would be "great" if a steamer ran down a fishing-boat. +That boy had a stateroom with a hot and cold bath, and spent +ten minutes each morning picking over a gilt-edged bill of fare. +And that same boy--no, his very much older brother--was up at +four of the dim dawn in streaming, crackling oilskins, hammering, +literally for the dear life, on a bell smaller than the steward's +breakfast-bell, while somewhere close at hand a thirty-foot steel +stem was storming along at twenty miles an hour! The bitterest +thought of all was that there were folks asleep in dry, +upholstered cabins who would never learn that they had +massacred a boat before breakfast. So Harvey rang the bell. + +"Yes, they slow daown one turn o' their blame propeller," said +Dan, applying himself to Manuel's conch, "fer to keep inside the +law, an' that's consolin' when we're all at the bottom. Hark to her! +She's a humper!" + +"Aooo-whoo-whupp!" went the siren. "Wingle-tingle-tink," went +the bell. "Graaa-ouch!" went the conch, while sea and +sky were all mired up in milky fog. Then Harvey felt that +he was near a moving body, and found himself looking up +and up at the wet edge of a cliff-like bow, leaping, it seemed, +directly over the schooner. A jaunty little feather of water curled in +front of it, and as it lifted it showed a long ladder of Roman +numerals-XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., and so forth--on a +salmon-coloured gleaming side. It tilted forward and downward +with a heart-stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a line of +brass-rimmed port-holes flashed past; a jet of steam puffed in +Harvey's helplessly uplifted hands; a spout of hot water roared +along the rail of the 'We're Here', and the little schooner staggered +and shook in a rush of screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished +in the fog. Harvey got ready to faint or be sick, or both, when he +heard a crack like a trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in +his ear, a far-away telephone voice drawling: "Heave to! You've +sunk us!" + +"Is it us?" he gasped. + +"No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're goin' to look," said Dan, +running out a dory. + +In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, and the cook were +overside and away. Presently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped +clean across, drifted past the bows. Then an empty green dory +came by, knocking on the 'We're Here's' side, as though she wished +to be taken in. Then followed something, face down, in a blue +jersey, but--it was not the whole of a man. Penn changed colour and +caught his breath with a click. Harvey pounded despairingly at the +bell, for he feared they might be sunk at any minute, and he +jumped at Dan's hail as the crew came back. + +"The Jennie Cushman," said Dan, hysterically, "cut clean in +half--graound up an' trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile +away. Dad's got the old man. There ain't any one else, and--there +was his son, too. Oh, Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I've seen--" He +dropped his head on his arms and sobbed while the others dragged +a gray-headed man aboard. + +"What did you pick me up for?" the stranger groaned. "Disko, what +did you pick me up for?" + +Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man's eyes +were wild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew. +Then up and spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or +Rich or McVitty when Uncle Salters forgot; and his face was +changed on him from the face of a fool to the countenance of an +old, wise man, and he said in a strong voice: "The Lord gave, and +the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord! I was--I +am a minister of the Gospel. Leave him to me." + +"Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then pray my son back to +me! Pray back a nine-thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of +fish. If you'd left me alone my widow could ha' gone on to the +Provident an' worked fer her board, an' never known--an' never +known. Now I'll hev to tell her." + +"There ain't nothin' to say," said Disko. "Better lie down a piece, +Jason Olley." + +When a man has lost his only son, his summer's work, and his +means of livelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give +consolation. + +"All Gloucester men, wasn't they?" said Tom Platt, fiddling +helplessly with a dory-becket. + +"Oh, that don't make no odds," said Jason, wringing the wet from +his beard. "I'll be rowin' summer boarders araound East Gloucester +this fall." He rolled heavily to the rail, singing: + +"Happy birds that sing and fly +Round thine altars, 0 Most High!" + +"Come with me. Come below!" said Penn, as though he had a right +to give orders. Their eyes met and fought for a quarter of +a minute. + +"I dunno who you be, but I'll come," said Jason submissively. +"Mebbe I'll get back some o' the--some o' the-nine thousand +dollars." Penn led him into the cabin and slid the door behind. + +"That ain't Penn," cried Uncle Salters. "It's Jacob Boiler, an'--he's +remembered Johnstown! I never seed stich eyes in any livin' man's +head. What's to do naow? What'll I do naow?" + +They could hear Penn's voice and Jason's together. Then Penn's +went on alone, and Salters slipped off his hat, for Penn was +praying. Presently the little man came up the steps, huge drops of +sweat on his face, and looked at the crew. Dan was still sobbing by +the wheel. + +"He don't know us," Salters groaned. "It's all to do over again, +checkers and everything--an' what'll he say to me?" + +Penn spoke; they could hear that it was to strangers. "I have +prayed," said he. "Our people believe in prayer. I have prayed for +the life of this man's son. Mine were drowned before my eyes--she +and my eldest and--the others. Shall a man be more wise than his +Maker? I prayed never for their lives, but I have prayed for this +man's son, and he will surely be sent him." + +Salters looked pleadingly at Penn to see if he remembered. + +"How long have I been mad?" Penn asked suddenly. His mouth +was twitching. + +"Pshaw, Penn! You weren't never mad," Salters began "Only a +little distracted like." + +"I saw the houses strike the bridge before the fires broke out. I do +not remember any more. How long ago is that?" + +"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" cried Dan, and Harvey whimpered +in sympathy. + +"Abaout five year," said Disko, in a shaking voice. + +"Then I have been a charge on some one for every day of that time. +Who was the man?" + +Disko pointed to Salters. + +"Ye hain't--ye hain't!" cried the sea-farmer, twisting his hands +together. "Ye've more'n earned your keep twice-told; an' there's +money owin' you, Penn, besides ha'af o' my quarter-share in +the boat, which is yours fer value received." + +"You are good men. I can see that in your faces. But--" + +"Mother av Mercy," whispered Long Jack, "an' he's been wid +us all these trips! He's clean bewitched." + +A schooner's bell struck up alongside, and a voice hailed through +the fog: "0 Disko! 'Heard abaout the Jennie Cushman?" + +"They have found his son," cried Penn. "Stand you still and see the +salvation of the Lord!" + +"Got Jason aboard here," Disko answered, but his voice quavered. +"There--warn't any one else?" + +"We've fund one, though. 'Run acrost him snarled up in a mess o' +lumber thet might ha' bin a foc'sle. His head's cut some." + +"Who is he?" + +The 'We're Here's' heart-beats answered one another. + +"Guess it's young Olley," the voice drawled. + +Penn raised his hands and said something in German. Harvey +could have sworn that a bright sun was shining upon his lifted +face; but the drawl went on: "Sa-ay! You fellers guyed us +consid'rable t'other night." + +"We don't feel like guyin' any now," said Disko. + +"I know it; but to tell the honest truth we was kinder--kinder driftin' +when we run agin young Olley." + +It was the irrepressible Carrie Pitman, and a roar of unsteady +laughter went up from the deck of the 'We're Here'. + +"Hedn't you 'baout's well send the old man aboard? We're runnin' +in fer more bait an' graound-tackle. Guess you won't want him, +anyway, an' this blame windlass work makes us short-handed. +We'll take care of him. He married my woman's aunt." + +"I'll give you anything in the boat," said Troop. + +"Don't want nothin', 'less, mebbe, an anchor that'll hold. Say! +Young Olley's gittin' kinder baulky an' excited. Send the old man +along." + +Penn waked him from his stupor of despair, and Tom Platt rowed +him over. He went away without a word of thanks, not knowing +what was to come; and the fog closed over all. + +"And now," said Penn, drawing a deep breath as though about to +preach. "And now"--the erect body sank like a sword driven home +into the scabbard; the light faded from the overbright eyes; the +voice returned to its usual pitiful little titter--"and now," said +Pennsylvania Pratt, "do you think it's too early for a little game of +checkers, Mr. Salters?" + +"The very thing--the very thing I was goin' to say myself," cried +Salters promptly. "It beats all, Penn, how ye git on to what's in a +man's mind." + +The little fellow blushed and meekly followed Salters forward. + +"Up anchor! Hurry! Let's quit these crazy waters," shouted Disko, +and never was he more swiftly obeyed. + +"Now what in creation d'ye suppose is the meanin' o' that all?" said +Long Jack, when they were working through the fog once more, +damp, dripping, and bewildered. + +"The way I sense it," said Disko, at the wheel, "is this: The Jennie +Cushman business comin' on an empty stummick--" + +"H-he saw one of them go by," sobbed Harvey. + +"An' that, o' course, kinder hove him outer water, julluk runnin' a +craft ashore; hove him right aout, I take it, to rememberin' +Johnstown an' Jacob Boiler an' such-like reminiscences. Well, +consolin' Jason there held him up a piece, same's shorin' up a boat. +Then, bein' weak, them props slipped an' slipped, an' he slided +down the ways, an' naow he's water-borne agin. That's haow I +sense it." + +They decided that Disko was entirely correct. + +"'Twould ha' bruk Salters all up," said Long Jack, "if Penn had +stayed Jacob Boilerin'. Did ye see his face when Penn asked who +he'd been charged on all these years? How is ut, Salters?" + +"Asleep--dead asleep. Turned in like a child," Salters replied, +tiptoeing aft. "There won't be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did ye +ever see sech a gift in prayer? He everlastin'ly hiked young Olley +outer the ocean. Thet's my belief. Jason was tur'ble praoud of his +boy, an' I mistrusted all along 'twas a jedgment on worshippin' vain +idols." + +"There's others jes as sot," said Disko. + +"That's difrunt," Salters retorted quickly. "Penn's not all caulked, +an' I ain't only but doin' my duty by him." + +They waited, those hungry men, three hours, till Penn reappeared +with a smooth face and a blank mind. He said he believed that he +had been dreaming. Then he wanted to know why they were so +silent, and they could not tell him. + + +Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the next three or four days; +and when they could not go out, turned them into the hold to stack +the ship's stores into smaller compass, to make more room for the +fish. The packed mass ran from the cabin partition to the sliding +door behind the foc'sle stove; and Disko showed how there is great +art in stowing cargo so as to bring a schooner to her best draft. The +crew were thus kept lively till they recovered their spirits; and +Harvey was tickled with a rope's end by Long Jack for being, as the +Galway man said, "sorrowful as a sick cat over fwhat couldn't be +helped." He did a great deal of thinking in those weary days, and +told Dan what he thought, and Dan agreed with him--even to the +extent of asking for fried pies instead of hooking them. + +But a week later the two nearly upset the Hattie S. in a wild +attempt to stab a shark with an old bayonet tied to a stick. The +grim brute rubbed alongside the dory begging for small fish, and +between the three of them it was a mercy they all got off alive. + +At last, after playing blindman's-buff in the fog, there came a +morning when Disko shouted down the foc'sle: "Hurry, boys! +We're in taown!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +To the end of his days, Harvey will never forget that sight. The +sun was just clear of the horizon they had not seen for nearly a +week, and his low red light struck into the riding-sails of three +fleets of anchored schooners--one to the north, one to the westward, +and one to the south. There must have been nearly a hundred of +them, of every possible make and build, with, far away, a +square-rigged Frenchman, all bowing and courtesying one to the +other. From every boat dories were dropping away like bees from a +crowded hive, and the clamour of voices, the rattling of ropes and +blocks, and the splash of the oars carried for miles across the +heaving water. The sails turned all colours, black, pearly-gray, and +white, as the sun mounted; and more boats swung up through the +mists to the southward. + +The dories gathered in clusters, separated, reformed, and broke +again, all heading one way; while men hailed and whistled and +cat-called and sang, and the water was speckled with rubbish +thrown overboard. + +"It's a town," said Harvey. "Disko was right. It IS a town!" + +"I've seen smaller," said Disko. "There's about a thousand men +here; an' yonder's the Virgin." He pointed to a vacant space of +greenish sea, where there were no dories. + +The 'We're Here' skirted round the northern squadron, Disko +waving his hand to friend after friend, and anchored as nearly as a +racing yacht at the end of the season. The Bank fleet pass good +seamanship in silence; but a bungler is jeered all along the line. + +"Jest in time fer the caplin," cried the Mary Chilton. + +"'Salt 'most wet?" asked the King Philip. + +"Hey, Tom Platt! Come t' supper to-night?" said the Henry Clay; +and so questions and answers flew back and forth. Men had met +one another before, dory-fishing in the fog, and there is no place +for gossip like the Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about +Harvey's rescue, and asked if be were worth his salt yet. The young +bloods jested with Dan, who had a lively tongue of his own, and +inquired after their health by the town-nicknames they least liked. +Manuel's countrymen jabbered at him in their own language; and +even the silent cook was seen riding the jib-boom and shouting +Gaelic to a friend as black as himself. After they had buoyed the +cable--all around the Virgin is rocky bottom, and carelessness +means chafed ground-tackle and danger from drifting--after they +had buoyed the cable, their dories went forth to join the mob of +boats anchored about a mile away. The schooners rocked and +dipped at a safe distance, like mother ducks watching their brood, +while the dories behaved like mannerless ducklings. + +As they drove into the confusion, boat banging boat, Harvey's ears +tingled at the comments on his rowing. Every dialect from +Labrador to Long Island, with Portuguese, Neapolitan, Lingua +Franca, French, and Gaelic, with songs and shoutings and new +oaths, rattled round him, and he seemed to be the butt of it all. For +the first time in his life he felt shy--perhaps that came from living +so long with only the 'We're Heres'--among the scores of wild faces +that rose and fell with the reeling small craft. A gentle, breathing +swell, three furlongs from trough to barrel, would quietly shoulder +up a string of variously painted dories. They hung for an instant, a +wonderful frieze against the sky-line, and their men pointed and +hailed. Next moment the open mouths, waving arms, and bare +chests disappeared, while on another swell came up an entirely +new line of characters like paper figures in a toy theatre. So +Harvey stared. "Watch out!" said Dan, flourishing a dip-net "When +I tell you dip, you dip. The caplin'll school any time from naow on. +Where'll we lay, Tom Platt?" + +Pushing, shoving, and hauling, greeting old friends here and warning +old enemies there, Commodore Tom Platt led his little fleet well to +leeward of the general crowd, and immediately three or four men +began to haul on their anchors with intent to lee-bow the 'We're +Heres'. But a yell of laughter went up as a dory shot from her +station with exceeding speed, its occupant pulling madly on the +roding. + +"Give her slack!" roared twenty voices. "Let him shake it out." + +"What's the matter?" said Harvey, as the boat flashed away to +the southward. "He's anchored, isn't he?" + +"Anchored, sure enough, but his graound-tackle's kinder shifty," +said Dan, laughing. "Whale's fouled it. . . . Dip Harve! Here they +come!" + +The sea round them clouded and darkened, and then frizzed up in +showers of tiny silver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the +cod began to leap like trout in May; while behind the cod three or +four broad gray-backs broke the water into boils. + +Then everybody shouted and tried to haul up his anchor to get +among the school, and fouled his neighbour's line and said what +was in his heart, and dipped furiously with his dip-net, and shrieked +cautions and advice to his companions, while the deep fizzed like +freshly opened soda-water, and cod, men, and whales together +flung in upon the luckless bait. Harvey was nearly knocked +overboard by the handle of Dan's net. But in all the wild tumult he +noticed, and never forgot, the wicked, set little eye--something like +a circus elephant's eye--of a whale that drove along almost level with +the water, and, so he said, winked at him. Three boats found their +rodings fouled by these reckless mid-sea hunters, and were towed +half a mile ere their horses shook the line free. + +Then the caplin moved off, and five minutes later there was no +sound except the splash of the sinkers overside, the flapping of the +cod, and the whack of the muckles as the men stunned them. It +was wonderful fishing. Harvey could see the glimmering cod +below, swimming slowly in droves, biting as steadily as they +swam. Bank law strictly forbids more than one hook on one line +when the dories are on the Virgin or the Eastern Shoals; but so +close lay the boats that even single hooks snarled, and Harvey +found himself in hot argument with a gentle, hairy Newfoundlander +on one side and a howling Portuguese on the other. + +Worse than any tangle of fishing-lines was the confusion of the +dory-rodings below water. Each man had anchored where it +seemed good to him, drifting and rowing round his fixed point. As +the fish struck on less quickly, each man wanted to haul up and get +to better ground; but every third man found himself intimately +connected with some four or five neighbours. To cut another's +roding is crime unspeakable on the Banks; yet it was done, and +done without detection, three or four times that day. Tom Platt +caught a Maine man in the black act and knocked him over the +gunwale with an oar, and Manuel served a fellow-countryman in +the same way. But Harvey's anchor-line was cut, and so was +Penn's, and they were turned into relief-boats to carry fish to the +'We're Here' as the dories filled. The caplin schooled once more at +twilight, when the mad clamour was repeated; and at dusk they +rowed back to dress down by the light of kerosene-lamps on the +edge of the pen. + +It was a huge pile, and they went to sleep while they were dressing. +Next day several boats fished right above the cap of the Virgin; +and Harvey, with them, looked down on the very weed of that +lonely rock, which rises to within twenty feet of the surface. The +cod were there in legions, marching solemnly over the leathery +kelp. When they bit, they bit all together; and so when they +stopped. There was a slack time at noon, and the dories began to +search for amusement. It was Dan who sighted the Hope Of Prague +just coming up, and as her boats joined the company they were +greeted with the question: "Who's the meanest man in the Fleet?" + +Three hundred voices answered cheerily: "Nick Bra-ady." It +sounded like an organ chant. + +"Who stole the lampwicks?" That was Dan's contribution. + +"Nick Bra-ady," sang the boats. + +"Who biled the salt bait fer soup?" This was an unknown backbiter +a quarter of a mile away. + +Again the joyful chorus. Now, Brady was not especially mean, +but he had that reputation, and the Fleet made the most of it. +Then they discovered a man from a Truro boat who, six years +before, had been convicted of using a tackle with five or six +hooks--a "scrowger," they call it--in the Shoals. Naturally, he had +been christened "Scrowger Jim"; and though he had hidden +himself on the Georges ever since, he found his honours waiting for +him full blown. They took it up in a sort of firecracker chorus: +"Jim! 0 Jim! Jim! 0 Jim! Sssscrowger Jim!" That pleased +everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man--he had been making +it up all day, and talked about it for weeks--sang, "The Carrie +Pitman's anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that they +were indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how +he was off for beans, because even poets must not have things all +their own way. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. +Was there a careless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang +about him and his food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet +was told at full length. Had a man hooked tobacco from a +mess-mate? He was named in meeting; the name tossed from roller +to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, Long Jack's market-boat that +he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh, but Dan was an angry +boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter's views on +manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey's +ladylike handling of the oar--all were laid before the public; and as +the fog fell around them in silvery sheets beneath the sun, the +voices sounded like a bench of invisible judges pronouncing +sentence. + +The dories roved and fished and squabbled till a swell underran the +sea. Then they drew more apart to save their sides, and some one +called that if the swell continued the Virgin would break. A +reckless Galway man with his nephew denied this, hauled up +anchor, and rowed over the very rock itself. Many voices called +them to come away, while others dared them to hold on. As the +smooth-backed rollers passed to the southward, they hove the dory +high and high into the mist, and dropped her in ugly, sucking, +dimpled water, where she spun round her anchor, within a foot or +two of the hidden rock. It was playing with death for mere +bravado; and the boats looked on in uneasy silence till Long +Jack rowed up behind his countrymen and quietly cut their roding. + +"Can't ye hear ut knockin'?" he cried. "Pull for you miserable +lives! Pull!" + +The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the next +swell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There was a +deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of +acres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal +sea. Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the +Galway men held their tongue. + +"Ain't it elegant?" said Dan, bobbing like a young seal at home. +"She'll break about once every ha'af hour now, 'les the swell piles +up good. What's her reg'lar time when she's at work, Tom Platt?" + +"Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. Harve, you've seen the +greatest thing on the Banks; an' but for Long Jack you'd seen some +dead men too." + +There came a sound of merriment where the fog lay thicker and +the schooners were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously +out of the mist, and was received with shouts and cries of, "Come +along, darlin'," from the Irishry. + +"Another Frenchman?" said Harvey. + +"Hain't you eyes? She's a Baltimore boat; goin' in fear an' +tremblin'," said Dan. "We'll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess +it's the fust time her skipper ever met up with the Fleet this way." + +She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail was +looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind +was moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of +the sea, and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt +figurehead, looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her +skirts to cross a muddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. +That was very much her situation. She knew she was somewhere +in the neighbourhood of the Virgin, had caught the roar of it, and +was, therefore, asking her way. This is a small part of what she +heard from the dancing dories: + +"The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin' of? 'This is Le Have on a Sunday +mornin'. Go home an' sober up." + +"Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an' tell 'em we're comin'." + +Half a dozen voices together, in a most tuneful chorus, as her stern +went down with a roll and a bubble into the troughs: +"Thay-aah-she-strikes!" + +"Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You're on top of her now." + +"Daown! Hard daown! Let go everything!" + +"All hands to the pumps!" + +"Daown jib an' pole her!" + +Here the skipper lost his temper and said things. Instantly fishing +was suspended to answer him, and he heard many curious facts +about his boat and her next port of call. They asked him if he were +insured; and whence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it +belonged to the Carrie Pitman; they called his boat a mud-scow, +and accused him of dumping garbage to frighten the fish; they +offered to tow him and charge it to his wife; and one audacious +youth slipped up almost under the counter, smacked it with his +open palm, and yelled: "Gid up, Buck!" + +The cook emptied a pan of ashes on him, and he replied with +cod-heads. The bark's crew fired small coal from the galley, and +the dories threatened to come aboard and "razee" her. They would +have warned her at once had she been in real peril; but, seeing her +well clear of the Virgin, they made the most of their chances. The +fun was spoilt when the rock spoke again, a half-mile to windward, +and the tormented bark set everything that would draw and went +her ways; but the dories felt that the honours lay with them. + +All that night the Virgin roared hoarsely; and next morning, over +an angry, white-headed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering +masts waiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove out till ten o'clock, +when the two Jeraulds of the Day's Eye, imagining a lull which did +not exist, set the example. In a minute half the boats were out and +bobbing in the cockly swells, but Troop kept the 'We're Heres' at +work dressing down. He saw no sense in "dares"; and as the storm +grew that evening they had the pleasure of receiving wet strangers +only too glad to make any refuge in the gale. The boys stood by the +dory-tackles with lanterns, the men ready to haul, one eye cocked +for the sweeping wave that would make them drop everything and +hold on for dear life. Out of the dark would come a yell of "Dory, +dory!" They would hook up and haul in a drenched man and a +half-sunk boat, till their decks were littered down with nests of +dories and the bunks were full. Five times in their watch did +Harvey, with Dan, jump at the foregaff where it lay lashed on the +boom, and cling with arms, legs, and teeth to rope and spar and +sodden canvas as a big wave filled the decks. One dory was +smashed to pieces, and the sea pitched the man head first on to the +decks, cutting his forehead open; and about dawn, when the racing +seas glimmered white all along their cold edges, another man, blue +and ghastly, crawled in with a broken hand, asking news of his +brother. Seven extra mouths sat down to breakfast: A Swede; a +Chatham skipper; a boy from Hancock, Maine; one Duxbury, and +three Provincetown men. + +There was a general sorting out among the Fleet next day; and +though no one said anything, all ate with better appetites when +boat after boat reported full crews aboard. Only a couple of +Portuguese and an old man from Gloucester were drowned, but +many were cut or bruised; and two schooners had parted their +tackle and been blown to the southward, three days' sail. A man +died on a Frenchman--it was the same bark that had traded tobacco +with the 'We're Heres'. She slipped away quite quietly one wet, +white morning, moved to a patch of deep water, her sails all +hanging anyhow, and Harvey saw the funeral through Disko's +spy-glass. It was only an oblong bundle slid overside. They did not +seem to have any form of service, but in the night, at anchor, +Harvey heard them across the star-powdered black water, singing +something that sounded like a hymn. it went to a very slow tune. + + "La brigantine + Qui va tourner, + Roule et s'incline + Pour m'entrainer. + Oh, Vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, patrie; + Quebec, adieu!" + +Tom Platt visited her, because, he said, the dead man was his +brother as a Freemason. It came out that a wave had doubled the +poor fellow over the heel of the bowsprit and broken his back. The +news spread like a flash, for, contrary to general custom, the +Frenchman held an auction of the dead man's kit,--he had no friends +at St Malo or Miquelon,--and everything was spread out on the top +of the house, from his red knitted cap to the leather belt with the +sheath-knife at the back. Dan and Harvey were out on +twenty-fathom water in the Hattie S., and naturally rowed over to +join the crowd. It was a long pull, and they stayed some little time +while Dan bought the knife, which had a curious brass handle. +When they dropped overside and pushed off into a drizzle of rain +and a lop of sea, it occurred to them that they might get into +trouble for neglecting the lines. + +"Guess 'twon't hurt us any to be warmed up," said Dan, shivering +under his oilskins, and they rowed on into the heart of a white fog, +which, as usual, dropped on them without warning. + +"There's too much blame tide hereabouts to trust to your instinks," +he said. "Heave over the anchor, Harve, and we'll fish a piece till +the thing lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. Three pound ain't any +too much in this water. See how she's tightened on her rodin' +already." + +There was quite a little bubble at the bows, where some +irresponsible Bank current held the dory full stretch on her rope; +but they could not see a boat's length in any direction. Harvey +turned up his collar and bunched himself over his reel with the air +of a wearied navigator. Fog had no special terrors for him now. +They fished a while in silence, and found the cod struck on well. +Then Dan drew the sheath-knife and tested the edge of it on the +gunwale. + +"That's a daisy," said Harvey. "How did you get it so cheap?" + +"On account o' their blame Cath'lic superstitions," said Dan, +jabbing with the bright blade. "They don't fancy takin' +iron from off a dead man, so to speak. 'See them Arichat +Frenchmen step back when I bid?" + +"But an auction ain't taking anythink off a dead man. It's business." + +"We know it ain't, but there's no goin' in the teeth o' superstition. +That's one o' the advantages o' livin' in a progressive country." +And Dan began whistling: + + + "Oh, Double Thatcher, how are you? + Now Eastern Point comes inter view. + The girls an' boys we soon shall see, + At anchor off Cape Ann!" + +"Why didn't that Eastport man bid, then? He bought his boots. +Ain't Maine progressive?" + +"Maine? Pshaw! They don't know enough, or they hain't got +money enough, to paint their haouses in Maine. I've seen 'em. The +Eastport man he told me that the knife had been used--so the +French captain told him--used up on the French coast last year." + +"Cut a man? Heave 's the muckle." Harvey hauled in his fish, +rebaited, and threw over. + +"Killed him! Course, when I heard that I was keener'n ever to get +it." + +"Christmas! I didn't know it," said Harvey, turning round. "I'll give +you a dollar for it when I--get my wages. Say, I'll give you two +dollars." + +"Honest? D'you like it as much as all that?" said Dan, flushing. +"Well, to tell the truth, I kinder got it for you--to give; but I didn't +let on till I saw how you'd take it. It's yours and welcome, Harve, +because we're dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an' so followin'. +Catch a-holt!" + +He held it out, belt and all. + +"But look at here. Dan, I don't see--" + +"Take it. 'Tain't no use to me. I wish you to hev it." The temptation +was irresistible. "Dan, you're a white man," said Harvey. "I'll keep +it as long as I live." + +"That's good hearin'," said Dan, with a pleasant laugh; and then, +anxious to change the subject: "'Look's if your line was fast to +somethin'." + +"Fouled, I guess," said Harve, tugging. Before he pulled up he +fastened the belt round him, and with deep delight heard the tip of +the sheath click on the thwart. "Concern the thing!" he cried. "She +acts as though she were on strawberry-bottom. It's all sand here, +ain't it?" + +Dan reached over and gave a judgmatic tweak. "Hollbut'll act that +way 'f he's sulky. Thet's no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once or +twice. She gives, sure. Guess we'd better haul up an' make certain." + +They pulled together, making fast at each turn on the cleats, and +the hidden weight rose sluggishly. + +"Prize, oh! Haul!" shouted Dan, but the shout ended in a shrill, +double shriek of horror, for out of the sea came the body of the +dead Frenchman buried two days before! The hook had caught him +under the right armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and +shoulders above water. His arms were tied to his side, and--he had +no face. The boys fell over each other in a heap at the bottom of +the dory, and there they lay while the thing bobbed alongside, held +on the shortened line. + +"The tide--the tide brought him!" said Harvey with quivering lips, as +he fumbled at the clasp of the belt. + +"Oh, Lord! Oh, Harve!" groaned Dan, "be quick. He's come for it. +Let him have it. Take it off." + +"I don't want it! I don't want it!" cried Harvey. "I can't find the +bu-buckle." + +"Quick, Harve! He's on your line!" + +Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing the head that had no face +under its streaming hair. "He's fast still," he whispered to Dan, who +slipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt far +overside. The body shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously rose +to his knees, whiter than the fog. + +"He come for it. He come for it. I've seen a stale one hauled up on +a trawl and I didn't much care, but he come to us special." + +"I wish--I wish I hadn't taken the knife. Then he'd have come on +your line." + +"Dunno as thet would ba' made any differ. We're both scared out +o' ten years' growth. Oh, Harve, did ye see his head?" + +"Did I? I'll never forget it. But look at here, Dan; it couldn't have +been meant. It was only the tide." + +"Tide! He come for it, Harve. Why, they sunk him six miles to +south'ard o' the Fleet, an' we're two miles from where she's lyin' +now. They told me he was weighted with a fathom an' a half o' +chain-cable." + +"Wonder what he did with the knife--up on the French coast?" + +"Something bad. 'Guess he's bound to take it with him to the +Judgment, an' so-- What are you doin' with the fish?" + +"Heaving 'em overboard," said Harvey. + +"What for? We sha'n't eat 'em." + +"I don't care. I had to look at his face while I was takin' the belt off. +You can keep your catch if you like. I've no use for mine." + +Dan said nothing, but threw his fish over again. + +"Guess it's best to be on the safe side," he murmured at last. "I'd +give a month's pay if this fog 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fog +that ye don't see in clear weather--yo-hoes an' hollerers and such +like. I'm sorter relieved he come the way he did instid o' walkin'. +He might ha' walked." + +"Don't, Dan! We're right on top of him now. 'Wish I was safe +aboard, hem' pounded by Uncle Salters." + +"They'll be lookin' fer us in a little. Gimme the tooter." Dan took +the tin dinner-horn, but paused before he blew. + +"Go on," said Harvey. "I don't want to stay here all night" + +"Question is, haow he'd take it. There was a man frum down the +coast told me once he was in a schooner where they darsen't ever +blow a horn to the dories, becaze the skipper--not the man he was +with, but a captain that had run her five years before--he'd drowned +a boy alongside in a drunk fit; an' ever after, that boy he'd row +along-side too and shout, 'Dory! dory!' with the rest" + +"Dory! dory!" a muffled voice cried through the fog. They cowered +again, and the horn dropped from Dan's hand. + +"Hold on!" cried Harvey; "it's the cook." + +"Dunno what made me think o' thet fool tale, either," said Dan. +"It's the doctor, sure enough." + +"Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!" + +"We're here," sung both boys together. They heard oars, but could +see nothing till the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into them. + +"What iss happened?" said he. "You will be beaten at home." + +"Thet's what we want. Thet's what we're sufferin' for" said Dan. +"Anything homey's good enough fer us. We've had kinder +depressin' company." As the cook passed them a line, Dan told +him the tale. + +"Yess! He come for hiss knife," was all he said at the end. + +Never had the little rocking 'We're Here' looked so deliciously +home-like as when the cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them +back to her. There was a warm glow of light from the cabin and a +satisfying smell of food forward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko +and the others, all quite alive and solid, leaning over the rail and +promising them a first-class pounding. But the cook was a black; +master of strategy. He did not get the dories aboard till he had +given the more striking points of the tale, explaining as he backed +and bumped round the counter how Harvey was the mascot to +destroy any possible bad luck. So the boys came override as rather +uncanny heroes, and every one asked them questions instead of +pounding them for making trouble. Little Penn delivered quite a +speech on the folly of superstitions; but public opinion was against +him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the most excruciating +ghost-stories, till nearly midnight. Under that influence no one +except Salters and Penn said anything about "idolatry," when the +cook put a lighted candle, a cake of flour and water, and a pinch of +salt on a shingle, and floated them out astern to keep the +Frenchman quiet in case he was still restless. Dan lit the candle +because he had bought the belt, and the cook grunted and muttered +charms as long as he could see the ducking point of flame. + +Said Harvey to Dan, as they turned in after watch: + +"How about progress and Catholic superstitions?" + +"Huh! I guess I'm as enlightened and progressive as the next man, +but when it comes to a dead St. Malo deck-hand scarin' a couple o' +pore boys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent knife, why, then, the +cook can take hold fer all o' me. I mistrust furriners, livin' or +dead." + +Next morning all, except the cook, were rather ashamed of the +ceremonies, and went to work double tides, speaking gruffly to one +another. + +The 'We're Here' was racing neck and neck for her last few loads +against the Parry Norman; and so close was the struggle that the +Fleet took side and betted tobacco. All hands worked at the lines +or dressing-down till they fell asleep where they stood--beginning +before dawn and ending when it was too dark to see. They even +used the cook as pitcher, and turned Harvey into the hold to pass +salt, while Dan helped to dress down. Luckily a Parry Norman man +sprained his ankle falling down the foc'sle, and the 'We're Heres' +gained. Harvey could not see how one more fish could be +crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Platt stowed and stowed, and +planked the mass down with big stones from the ballast, and there +was always "jest another day's work." Disko did not tell them when +all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft the cabin and +began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten in the morning. +The riding-sail was down and the main- and topsail were up by +noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home, envying +their good fortune. At last she cleared decks, hoisted her flag,--as is +the right of the first boat off the Banks,--up-anchored, and began to +move. Disko pretended that he wished to accomodate folk who +had not sent in their mail, and so worked her gracefully in and out +among the schooners. In reality, that was his little triumphant +procession, and for the fifth year running it showed what kind of +mariner he was. Dan's accordion and Tom Platt's fiddle supplied +the music of the magic verse you must not sing till all the salt is +wet: + + "Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound! + All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound! + + Bend, oh, bend your mains'l, we're back to Yankeeland-- + With fifteen hunder' quintal, + An' fifteen hunder' quintal, + 'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal, + 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand." + +The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and +the Gloucester men shouted messages to their wives and +womenfolks and owners, while the 'We're Here' finished the +musical ride through the Fleet, her headsails quivering like a man's +hand when he raises it to say good-by. + +Harvey very soon discovered that the 'We're Here', with her +riding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the 'We're Here' +headed west by south under home canvas, were two very different +boats. There was a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" +weather; he could feel the dead weight in the hold flung forward +mightily across the surges, and the streaming line of bubbles +overside made his eyes dizzy. + +Disko kept them busy fiddling with the sails; and when those were +flattened like a racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big topsail, +which was put over by hand every time she went about. In spare +moments they pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine, which +does not improve a cargo. But since there was no fishing, Harvey +had time to look at the sea from another point of view. The +low-sided schooner was naturally on most intimate terms with her +surroundings. They saw little of the horizon save when she topped +a swell; and usually she was elbowing, fidgeting, and coasting +her steadfast way through gray, gray-blue, or black hollows +laced across and across with streaks of shivering foam; or +rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of some bigger +water-hill. It was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? +I'm only the little 'We're Here'." Then she would slide away +chuckling softly to herself till she was brought up by some +fresh obstacle. The dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing +hour after hour through long days without noticing it; and Harvey, +being anything but dull, began to comprehend and enjoy the dry +chorus of wave-tops turning over with a sound of incessant +tearing; the hurry of the winds working across open spaces and +herding the purple-blue cloud-shadows; the splendid upheaval of +the red sunrise; the folding and packing away of the morning +mists, wall after wall withdrawn across the white floors; the salty +glare and blaze of noon; the kiss of rain falling over thousands of +dead, flat square miles; the chilly blackening of everything at the +day's end; and the million wrinkles of the sea under the moonlight, +when the jib-boom solemnly poked at the low stars, and Harvey +went down to get a doughnut from the cook. + +But the best fun was when the boys were put on the wheel +together, Tom Platt within hail, and she cuddled her lee-rail down +to the crashing blue, and kept a little home-made rainbow arching +unbroken over her windlass. Then the jaws of the booms whined +against the masts, and the sheets creaked, and the sails filled with +roaring; and when she slid into a hollow she trampled like a +woman tripped in her own silk dress, and came out, her jib wet +half-way up, yearning and peering for the tall twin-lights of +Thatcher's Island. + +They left the cold gray of the Bank sea, saw the lumber-ships +making for Quebec by the Straits of St. Lawrence, with the Jersey +salt-brigs from Spain and Sicily; found a friendly northeaster off +Artimon Bank that drove them within view of the East light of +Sable Island,--a sight Disko did not linger over,--and stayed with +them past Western and Le Have, to the northern fringe of George's. +From there they picked up the deeper water, and let her go merrily. + +"Hattie's pulling on the string," Dan confided to Harvey. "Hattie an' +Ma. Next Sunday you'll be hirin' a boy to throw water on the +windows to make ye go to sleep. 'Guess you'll keep with us till +your folks come. Do you know the best of gettin' ashore again?" + +"Hot bath?" said Harvey. His eyebrows were all white with dried +spray. + +"That's good, but a night-shirt's better. I've been dreamin' o' +night-shirts ever since we bent our mainsail. Ye can wiggle your +toes then. Ma'll hev a new one fer me, all washed soft. It's home, +Harve. It's home! Ye can sense it in the air. We're runnin' into the +aidge of a hot wave naow, an' I can smell the bayberries. Wonder +if we'll get in fer supper. Port a trifle." + +The hesitating sails flapped and lurched in the close air as the deep +smoothed out, blue and oily, round them. When they whistled for a +wind only the rain came in spiky rods, bubbling and drumming, +and behind the rain the thunder and the lightning of mid-August. +They lay on the deck with bare feet and arms, telling one another +what they would order at their first meal ashore; for now the land +was in plain sight. A Gloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, +a man in the little pulpit on the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, +his bare head plastered down with the wet. "And all's well!" he +sang cheerily, as though he were watch on a big liner. +"Wouverman's waiting fer you, Disko. What's the news o' the +Fleet?" + +Disko shouted it and passed on, while the wild summer storm +pounded overhead and the lightning flickered along the capes from +four different quarters at once. It gave the low circle of hills round +Gloucester Harbor, Ten Pound Island, the fish-sheds, with the +broken line of house-roofs, and each spar and buoy on the water, in +blinding photographs that came and went a dozen times to the +minute as the 'We're Here' crawled in on half-flood, and the +whistling-buoy moaned and mourned behind her. Then the storm +died out in long, separated, vicious dags of blue-white flame, +followed by a single roar like the roar of a mortar-battery, and the +shaken air tingled under the stars as it got back to silence. + +"The flag, the flag!" said Disko, suddenly, pointing upward. + +"What is ut?" said Long Jack. + +"Otto! Ha'af mast. They can see us frum shore now." + +"I'd clean forgot He's no folk to Gloucester, has he?" + +"Girl he was goin' to be married to this fall." + +"Mary pity her!" said Long Jack, and lowered the little flag +half-mast for the sake of Otto, swept overboard in a gale off Le +Have three months before. + +Disko wiped the wet from his eyes and led the 'We're Here' to +Wouverman's wharf, giving his orders in whispers, while she +swung round moored tugs and night-watchmen hailed her from the +ends of inky-black piers. Over and above the darkness and the +mystery of the procession, Harvey could feel the land close round +him once more, with all its thousands of people asleep, and the +smell of earth after rain, and the familiar noise of a switching-engine +coughing to herself in a freight-yard; and all those things made his +heart beat and his throat dry up as he stood by the foresheet. They +heard the anchor-watch snoring on a lighthouse-tug, nosed into a +pocket of darkness where a lantern glimmered on either side; +somebody waked with a grunt, threw them a rope, and they made +fast to a silent wharf flanked with great iron-roofed sheds fall of +warm emptiness, and lay there without a sound. + +Then Harvey sat down by the wheel, and sobbed and sobbed as +though his heart would break, and a tall woman who had been +sitting on a weigh-scale dropped down into the schooner and +kissed Dan once on the cheek; for she was his mother, and she had +seen the 'We're Here' by the lightning flashes. She took no notice +of Harvey till he had recovered himself a little and Disko had told +her his story. Then they went to Disko's house together as the dawn +was breaking; and until the telegraph office was open and he could +wire his folk, Harvey Cheyne was perhaps the loneliest boy in all +America. But the curious thing was that Disko and Dan seemed to +think none the worse of him for crying. + +Wouverman was not ready for Disko's prices till Disko, sure that +the 'We're Here' was at least a week ahead of any other Gloucester +boat, had given him a few days to swallow them; so all hands +played about the streets, and Long Jack stopped the Rocky Neck +trolley, on principle, as be said, till the conductor let him ride free. +But Dan went about with his freckled nose in the air, bung-full of +mystery and most haughty to his family. + +"Dan, I'll hev to lay inter you ef you act this way," said Troop, +pensively. "Sence we've come ashore this time you've bin a heap +too fresh." + +"I'd lay into him naow ef he was mine," said Uncle Salters, sourly. +He and Penn boarded with the Troops. + +"Oho!" said Dan, shuffling with the accordion round the backyard, +ready to leap the fence if the enemy advanced. "Dan, you're +welcome to your own judgment, but remember I've warned ye. +Your own flesh an' blood ha' warned ye! 'Tain't any o' my fault +ef you're mistook, but I'll be on deck to watch ye. An' ez fer yeou, +Uncle Salters, Pharaoh's chief butler ain't in it 'longside o' you! +You watch aout an' wait. You'll be plowed under like your own +blamed clover; but me--Dan Troop--I'll flourish +like a green bay-tree because I warn't stuck on my own opinion." + +Disko was smoking in all his shore dignity and a pair of beautiful +carpet-slippers. "You're gettin' ez crazy as poor Harve. You two go +araound gigglin' an' squinchin' an' kickin' each other under the +table till there's no peace in the haouse," said he. + +"There's goin' to be a heap less--fer some folks," Dan replied. "You +wait an' see." + +He and Harvey went out on the trolley to East Gloucester, where +they tramped through the bayberry bushes to the lighthouse, and +lay down on the big red boulders and laughed themselves hungry. +Harvey had shown Dan a telegram, and the two swore to keep +silence till the shell burst. + +"Harve's folk?" said Dan, with an unruffled face after supper. +"Well, I guess they don't amount to much of anything, or we'd ha' +heard from 'em by naow. His pop keeps a kind o' store out West. +Maybe he'll give you 's much as five dollars, Dad." + +"What did I tell ye?" said Salters. "Don't sputter over your vittles, +Dan." + + +CHAPTER IX + +Whatever his private sorrows may be, a multimillionaire, like any +other workingman, should keep abreast of his business. Harvey +Cheyne, senior, had gone East late in June to meet a woman +broken down, half mad, who dreamed day and night of her son +drowning in the gray seas. He had surrounded her with doctors, +trained nurses, massage-women, and even faith-cure companions, +but they were useless. Mrs. Cheyne lay still and moaned, or talked +of her boy by the hour together to any one who would listen. Hope +she had none, and who could offer it? All she needed was +assurance that drowning did not hurt; and her husband watched to +guard lest she should make the experiment. Of his own sorrow he +spoke little--hardly realized the depth of it till he caught himself +asking the calendar on his writing-desk, "What's the use of going +on?" + +There had always lain a pleasant notion at the back of his head +that, some day, when he had rounded off everything and the boy +had left college, he would take his son to his heart and lead him +into his possessions. Then that boy, he argued, as busy fathers do, +would instantly become his companion, partner, and ally, and there +would follow splendid years of great works carried out +together--the old head backing the young fire. Now his boy was +dead--lost at sea, as it might have been a Swede sailor from one of +Cheyne's big teaships; the wife dying, or worse; he himself was +trodden down by platoons of women and doctors and maids and +attendants; worried almost beyond endurance by the shift and +change of her poor restless whims; hopeless, with no heart to meet +his many enemies. + +He had taken the wife to his raw new palace in San Diego, where +she and her people occupied a wing of great price, +and Cheyne, in a veranda-room, between a secretary and a +typewriter, who was also a telegraphist, toiled along wearily from +day to day. There was a war of rates among four Western railroads +in which he was supposed to be interested; a devastating strike had +developed in his lumber camps in Oregon, and the legislature of +the State of California, which has no love for its makers, was +preparing open war against him. + +Ordinarily he would have accepted battle ere it was offered, and +have waged a pleasant and unscrupulous campaign. But now he sat +limply, his soft black hat pushed forward on to his nose, his big +body shrunk inside his loose clothes, staring at his boots or the +Chinese junks in the bay, and assenting absently to the secretary's +questions as he opened the Saturday mail. + +Cheyne was wondering how much it would cost to drop everything +and pull out. He carried huge insurances, could buy himself royal +annuities, and between one of his places in Colorado and a little +society (that would do the wife good), say in Washington and the +South Carolina islands, a man might forget plans that had come to +nothing. On the other hand-- + +The click of the typewriter stopped; the girl was looking at the +secretary, who had turned white. + +He passed Cheyne a telegram repeated from San Francisco: + +Picked up by fishing schooner 'We're Here' having fallen off boat +great times on Banks fishing all well waiting Gloucester Mass care +Disko Troop for money or orders wire what shall do and how is +Mama Harvey N. Cheyne. + +The father let it fall, laid his head down on the roller-top of the +shut desk, and breathed heavily. The secretary ran for Mrs. +Cheyne's doctor who found Cheyne pacing to and fro. + +"What--what d' you think of it? Is it possible? Is there any meaning +to it? I can't quite make it out," he cried. + +"I can," said the doctor. "I lose seven thousand a year--that's all." He +thought of the struggling New York practice he had dropped at +Cheyne's imperious bidding, and returned the telegram with a sigh. + +"You mean you'd tell her? 'May be a fraud?" + +"What's the motive?" said the doctor, coolly. "Detection's too +certain. It's the boy sure enough." + +Enter a French maid, impudently, as an indispensable one who is +kept on only by large wages. + +"Mrs. Cheyne she say you must come at once. She think you are +seek." + +The master of thirty millions bowed his head meekly and followed +Suzanne; and a thin, high voice on the upper landing of the great +white-wood square staircase cried: "What is it? What has +happened?" + +No doors could keep out the shriek that rang through the echoing +house a moment later, when her husband blurted out the news. + +"And that's all right," said the doctor, serenely, to the typewriter. +"About the only medical statement in novels with any truth to it is +that joy don't kill, Miss Kinzey." + +"I know it; but we've a heap to do first." Miss Kinzey was from +Milwaukee, somewhat direct of speech; and as her fancy leaned +towards the secretary, she divined there was work in hand. He was +looking earnestly at the vast roller-map of America on the wall. + +"Milsom, we're going right across. Private car--straight +through--Boston. Fix the connections," shouted Cheyne down the +staircase. + +"I thought so." + +The secretary turned to the typewriter, and their eyes met (out of +that was born a story--nothing to do with this story). She looked +inquiringly, doubtful of his resources. He signed to her to move to +the Morse as a general brings brigades into action. Then he swept +his hand musician-wise through his hair, regarded the ceiling, and +set to work, while Miss Kinzey's white fingers called up the +Continent of America. + +"K. H. Wade, Los Angeles The 'Constance' is at Los Angeles, isn't +she, Miss Kinzey?" + +"Yep." Miss Kinzey nodded between clicks as the secretary looked +at his watch. + +"Ready? Send 'Constance,' private car, here, and arrange for +special to leave here Sunday in time to connect with New York +Limited at Sixteenth Street, Chicago, Tuesday next." + +Click-lick-lick! "Couldn't you better that?" + +"Not on those grades. That gives 'em sixty hours from here to +Chicago. They won't gain anything by taking a special east of that. +Ready? Also arrange with Lake Shore and Michigan Southern to +take 'Constance' on New York Central and Hudson River Buffalo +to Albany, and B. and A. the same Albany to Boston. Indispensable +I should reach Boston Wednesday evening. Be sure nothing +prevents. Have also wired Canniff, Toucey, and Barnes. --Sign, +Cheyne." + +Miss Kinzey nodded, and the secretary went on. + +"Now then. Canniff, Toucey, and Barnes, of course. Ready? +Canniff, Chicago. Please take my private car 'Constance' from +Santa Fe at Sixteenth Street next Tuesday p. m. on N. Y. Limited +through to Buffalo and deliver N. Y. C. for Albany.--Ever bin to N' +York, Miss Kinzey? We'll go some day.--Ready? Take car Buffalo +to Albany on Limited Tuesday p. m. That's for Toucey." + +"Haven't bin to Noo York, but I know that!" with a toss of the +head. + +"Beg pardon. Now, Boston and Albany, Barnes, same instructions +from Albany through to Boston. Leave three-five P. M. (you +needn't wire that); arrive nine-five P. M. Wednesday. That covers +everything Wade will do, but it pays to shake up the managers." + +"It's great," said Miss Kinzey, with a look of admiration. This was +the kind of man she understood and appreciated. + +"'Tisn't bad," said Milsom, modestly. "Now, any one but me would +have lost thirty hours and spent a week working out the run, +instead of handing him over to the Santa Fe' straight through to +Chicago." + +"But see here, about that Noo York Limited. Chauncey Depew +himself couldn't hitch his car to her," Miss Kinzey suggested, +recovering herself. + +"Yes, but this isn't Chauncey. It's Cheyne--lightning. It goes." + +"Even so. Guess we'd better wire the boy. You've forgotten that, +anyhow." + +"I'll ask." + +When he returned with the father's message bidding Harvey meet +them in Boston at an appointed hour, he found Miss Kinzey +laughing over the keys. Then Milsom laughed too, for the frantic +clicks from Los Angeles ran: "We want to know why-why-why? +General uneasiness developed and spreading." + +Ten minutes later Chicago appealed to Miss Kinzey in these +words: "If crime of century is maturing please warn friends in +time. We are all getting to cover here." + +This was capped by a message from Topeka (and wherein Topeka +was concerned even Milsom could not guess): "Don't shoot, +Colonel. We'll come down." + +Cheyne smiled grimly at the consternation of his enemies when the +telegrams were laid before him. "They think we're on the warpath. +Tell 'em we don't feel like fighting just now, Milsom. Tell 'em +what we're going for. I guess you and Miss Kinsey had better come +along, though it isn't likely I shall do any business on the road. Tell +'em the truth--for once." + +So the truth was told. Miss Kinzey clicked in the sentiment while +the secretary added the memorable quotation, "Let us have peace," +and in board rooms two thousand miles away the representatives +of sixty-three million dollars' worth of variously manipulated +railroad interests breathed more freely. Cheyne was flying to meet +the only son, so miraculously restored to him. The bear was +seeking his cub, not the bulls. Hard men who had their knives +drawn to fight for their financial lives put away the weapons and +wished him God-speed, while half a dozen panic-smitten tin-pot +toads perked up their heads and spoke of the wonderful things they +would have done had not Cheyne buried the hatchet. + +It was a busy week-end among the wires; for now that their anxiety +was removed, men and cities hastened to accommodate. Los +Angeles called to San Diego and Barstow that the Southern +California engineers might know and be ready in their lonely +roundhouses; Barstow passed the word to the Atlantic and Pacific; +and Albuquerque flung it the whole length of the Atchinson, +Topeka, and Santa Fe management, even into Chicago. An engine, +combination-car with crew, and the great and gilded "Constance" +private car were to be "expedited" over those two thousand three +hundred and fifty miles. The train would take precedence of one +hundred and seventy-seven others meeting and passing; despatchers +and crews of every one of those said trains must be notified. Sixteen +locomotives, sixteen engineers, and sixteen firemen would be +needed--each and every one the best available. Two and one half +minutes would be allowed for changing engines, three for +watering, and two for coaling. "Warn the men, and arrange tanks +and chutes accordingly; for Harvey Cheyne is in a hurry, a hurry, a +hurry," sang the wires. "Forty miles an hour will be expected, and +division superintendents will accompany this special over their +respective divisions. From San Diego to Sixteenth Street, Chicago, +let the magic carpet be laid down. Hurry! Oh, hurry!" + +"It will be hot," said Cheyne, as they rolled out of San Diego in the +dawn of Sunday. "We're going to hurry, Mama, just as fast as ever +we can; but I really don't think there's any good of your putting on +your bonnet and gloves yet. You'd much better lie down and take +your medicine. I'd play you a game of dominoes, but it's Sunday." + +"I'll be good. Oh, I will be good. Only--taking off my bonnet makes +me feel as if we'd never get there." + +"Try to sleep a little, Mama, and we'll be in Chicago before you +know." + +"But it's Boston, Father. Tell them to hurry." + +The six-foot drivers were hammering their way to San Bernardino +and the Mohave wastes, but this was no grade for speed. That +would come later. The heat of the desert followed the heat of the +hills as they turned east to the Needles and the Colorado River. +The car cracked in the utter drouth and glare, and they put crushed +ice to Mrs. Cheyne's neck, and toiled up the long, long grades, past +Ash Fork, towards Flagstaff, where the forests and quarries are, +under the dry, remote skies. The needle of the speed-indicator +flicked and wagged to and fro; the cinders rattled on the roof, and +a whirl of dust sucked after the whirling wheels. The crew of the +combination sat on their bunks, panting in their shirtsleeves, and +Cheyne found himself among them shouting old, old stories of +the railroad that every trainman knows, above the roar of the car. +He told them about his son, and how the sea had given up its dead, +and they nodded and spat and rejoiced with him; asked after "her, +back there," and whether she could stand it if the engineer "let her +out a piece," and Cheyne thought she could. Accordingly, the great +fire-horse was "let 'ut" from Flagstaff to Winslow, till a division +superintendent protested. + +But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, where the French +maid, sallow-white with fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only +moaned a little and begged her husband to bid them "hurry." And +so they dropped the dry sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona +behind them, and grilled on till the crash of the couplings and the +wheeze of the brake-hose told them they were at Coolidge by the +Continental Divide. + +Three bold and experienced men--cool, confident, and dry when +they began; white, quivering, and wet when they finished their +trick at those terrible wheels--swung her over the great lift from +Albuquerque to Glorietta and beyond Springer, up and up to the +Raton Tunnel on the State line, whence they dropped rocking into +La Junta, had sight of the Arkansaw, and tore down the long slope +to Dodge City, where Cheyne took comfort once again from +setting his watch an hour ahead. + +There was very little talk in the car. The secretary and typewriter +sat together on the stamped Spanish-leather cushions by the +plate-glass observation-window at the rear end, watching the surge +and ripple of the ties crowded back behind them, and, it is +believed, making notes of the scenery. Cheyne moved nervously +between his own extravagant gorgeousness and the naked +necessity of the combination, an unlit cigar in his teeth, till the +pitying crews forgot that he was their tribal enemy, and did their +best to entertain him. + +At night the bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of all +the luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through the +emptiness of abject desolation. + +Now they heard the swish of a water-tank, and the guttural voice +of a Chinaman, the click-clink of hammers that tested the Krupp +steel wheels, and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear-platform; +now the solid crash of coal shot into the tender; and now a beating +back of noises as they flew past a waiting train. Now they looked +out into great abysses, a trestle purring beneath their tread, or up to +rocks that barred out half the stars. Now scour and ravine changed +and rolled back to jagged mountains on the horizon's edge, and +now broke into hills lower and lower, till at last came the true +plains. + +At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in a copy of a Kansas +paper containing some sort of an interview with Harvey, who had +evidently fallen in with an enterprising reporter, telegraphed on +from Boston. The joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond +question their boy, and it soothed Mrs. Cheyne for a while. Her +one word "hurry" was conveyed by the crews to the engineers at +Nickerson, Topeka, and Marceline, where the grades are easy, and +they brushed the Continent behind them. Towns and villages were +close together now, and a man could feel here that he moved +among people. + +"I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. What are we doing?" + +"The very best we can, Mama. There's no sense in getting in before +the Limited. We'd only have to wait." + +"I don't care. I want to feel we're moving. Sit down and tell me the +miles." + +Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her (there were some miles +which stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never +changed its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with +the hum of a giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. +Cheyne; and the heat, the remorseless August heat, was making +her giddy; the clock-hands would not move, and when, oh, when +would they be in Chicago? + +It is not true that, as they changed engines at Fort Madison, Cheyne +passed over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive +Engineers an endowment sufficient to enable them to fight him +and his fellows on equal terms for evermore. He paid his +obligations to engineers and firemen as he believed they deserved, +and only his bank knows what he gave the crews who had +sympathized with him. It is on record that the last crew took entire +charge of switching operations at Sixteenth Street, because "she" was +in a doze at last, and Heaven was to help any one who bumped her. + +Now the highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore and +Michigan Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something +of an autocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back +up to a car. None the less he handled the "Constance" as if she +might have been a load of dynamite, and when the crew rebuked +him, they did it in whispers and dumb show. + +"Pshaw!" said the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe men, +discussing life later, "we weren't runnin' for a record. Harvey +Cheyne's wife, she were sick back, an' we didn't want to jounce +her. 'Come to think of it, our runnin' time from San Diego to +Chicago was 57.54. You can tell that to them Eastern way-trains. +When we're tryin' for a record, we'll let you know." + +To the Western man (though this would not please either city) +Chicago and Boston are cheek by jowl, and some railroads +encourage the delusion. The Limited whirled the "Constance" into +Buffalo and the arms of the New York Central and Hudson River +(illustrious magnates with white whiskers and gold charms on their +watch-chains boarded her here to talk a little business to Cheyne), +who slid her gracefully into Albany, where the Boston and Albany +completed the run from tide-water to tide-water--total time, +eighty-seven hours and thirty-five minutes, or three days, fifteen +hours and one half. Harvey was waiting for them. + +After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food. +They feasted the returned prodigal behind drawn curtains, cut off +in their great happiness, while the trains roared in and out around +them. Harvey ate, drank, and enlarged on his adventures all in one +breath, and when he had a hand free his mother fondled it. His +voice was thickened with living in the open, salt air; his palms +were rough and hard, his wrists dotted with marks of gurrysores; +and a fine full flavour of codfish hung round rubber boots and blue +jersey. + +The father, well used to judging men, looked at him keenly. He did +not know what enduring harm the boy might have taken. Indeed, +he caught himself thinking that he knew very little whatever of his +son; but he distinctly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced +youth who took delight in "calling down the old man," and +reducing his mother to tears--such a person as adds to the gaiety of +public rooms and hotel piazzas, where the ingenuous young of the +wealthy play with or revile the bell-boys. But this well set-up +fisher-youth did not wriggle, looked at him with eyes steady, clear, +and unflinching, and spoke in a tone distinctly, even startlingly, +respectful. There was that in his voice, too, which seemed to +promise that the change might be permanent, and that the new +Harvey had come to stay. + +"Some one's been coercing him," thought Cheyne. "Now +Constance would never have allowed that. Don't see as Europe +could have done it any better." + +"But why didn't you tell this man, Troop, who you were?" the +mother repeated, when Harvey had expanded his story at least +twice. + +"Disko Troop, dear. The best man that ever walked a deck. I don't +care who the next is." + +"Why didn't you tell him to put you ashore? You know Papa would +have made it up to him ten times over." + +"I know it; but he thought I was crazy. I'm afraid I called him a +thief because I couldn't find the bills in my pocket." + +"A sailor found them by the flagstaff that--that night," sobbed Mrs. +Cheyne. + +"That explains it, then. I don't blame Troop any. I just said I +wouldn't work--on a Banker, too--and of course he hit me on the +nose, and oh! I bled like a stuck hog." + +"My poor darling! They must have abused you horribly." + +"Dunno quite. Well, after that, I saw a light." + +Cheyne slapped his leg and chuckled. This was going to be a boy +after his own hungry heart. He had never seen precisely that +twinkle in Harvey's eye before. + +"And the old man gave me ten and a half a month; he's paid me +half now; and I took hold with Dan and pitched right in. I can't do +a man's work yet. But I can handle a dory 'most as well as Dan, +and I don't get rattled in a fog--much; and I can take my trick in +light winds--that's steering, dear--and I can 'most bait up a trawl, +and I know my ropes, of course; and I can pitch fish till the cows +come home, and I'm great on old Josephus, and I'll show you how +I can clear coffee with a piece of fish-skin, and--I think I'll have +another cup, please. Say, you've no notion what a heap of work +there is in ten and a half a month!" + +"I began with eight and a half, my son," said Cheyne. + +"That so? You never told me, sir." + +"You never asked, Harve. I'll tell you about it some day, if you care +to listen. Try a stuffed olive." + +"Troop says the most interesting thing in the world is to find out +how the next man gets his vittles. It's great to have a trimmed-up +meal again. We were well fed, though. But mug on the Banks. Disko +fed us first-class. He's a great man. And Dan--that's his son--Dan's +my partner. And there's Uncle Salters and his manures, an' he reads +Josephus. He's sure I'm crazy yet. And there's poor little Penn, and +he is crazy. You mustn't talk to him about Johnstown, because-- + +"And, oh, you must know Tom Platt and Long Jack and Manuel. +Manuel saved my life. I'm sorry he's a Portuguee. He can't talk +much, but he's an everlasting musician. He found me struck +adrift and drifting, and hauled me in." + +"I wonder your nervous system isn't completely wrecked," said +Mrs. Cheyne. + +"What for, Mama? I worked like a horse and I ate like a hog and I +slept like a dead man." + +That was too much for Mrs. Cheyne, who began to think of her +visions of a corpse rocking on the salty seas. She went to her +stateroom, and Harvey curled up beside his father, explaining +his indebtedness. + +"You can depend upon me to do everything I can for the crowd, +Harve. They seem to be good men on your showing." + +"Best in the Fleet, sir. Ask at Gloucester," said Harvey. "But Disko +believes still he's cured me of being crazy. Dan's the only one I've +let on to about you, and our private cars and all the rest of it, and +I'm not quite sure Dan believes. I want to paralyze 'em to-morrow. +Say, can't they run the 'Constance' over to Gloucester? Mama don't +look fit to be moved, anyway, and we're bound to finish cleaning +out by tomorrow. Wouverman takes our fish. You see, we're the +first off the Banks this season, and it's four twenty-five a quintal. +We held out till he paid it. They want it quick." + +"You mean you'll have to work to-morrow, then?" + +"I told Troop I would. I'm on the scales. I've brought the tallies +with me." He looked at the greasy notebook with an air of +importance that made his father choke. "There isn't but three-- +no-two ninety-four or five quintal more by my reckoning." + +"Hire a substitute," suggested Cheyne, to see what Harvey would +say. + +"Can't, sir. I'm tally-man for the schooner. Troop says I've a better +head for figures than Dan. Troop's a mighty just man." + +"Well, suppose I don't move the 'Constance' to-night, how'll you fix +it?" + +Harvey looked at the clock, which marked twenty past eleven. + +"Then I'll sleep here till three and catch the four o'clock freight. +They let us men from the Fleet ride free as a rule." + +"That's a notion. But I think we can get the 'Constance' around +about as soon as your men's freight. Better go to bed now." + +Harvey spread himself on the sofa, kicked off his boots, and was +asleep before his father could shade the electrics. Cheyne sat +watching the young face under the shadow of the arm thrown over +the forehead, and among many things that occurred to him was the +notion that he might perhaps have been neglectful as a father. + +"One never knows when one's taking one's biggest risks," he said. +"It might have been worse than drowning; but I don't think it has--I +don't think it has. If it hasn't, I haven't enough to pay Troop, that's +all; and I don't think it has." + +Morning brought a fresh sea breeze through the windows, the +"Constance" was side-tracked among freight-cars at Gloucester, +and Harvey had gone to his business. + +"Then he'll fall overboard again and be drowned," the mother said +bitterly. + +"We'll go and look, ready to throw him a rope in case. You've +never seen him working for his bread," said the father. + +"What nonsense! As if any one expected--" + +"Well, the man that hired him did. He's about right, too." + +They went down between the stores full of fishermen's oilskins to +Wouverman's wharf where the 'We're Here' rode high, her Bank flag +still flying, all hands busy as beavers in the glorious morning light. +Disko stood by the main hatch superintending Manuel, Penn, and +Uncle Salters at the tackle. Dan was swinging the loaded baskets +inboard as Long Jack and Tom Platt filled them, and Harvey, with +a notebook, represented the skipper's interests before the clerk of +the scales on the salt-sprinkled wharf-edge. + +"Ready!" cried the voices below. "Haul!" cried Disko. "Hi!" said +Manuel. "Here!" said Dan, swinging the basket. Then they heard +Harvey's voice, clear and fresh, checking the weights. + +The last of the fish had been whipped out, and Harvey leaped from +the string-piece six feet to a ratline, as the shortest way to hand +Disko the tally, shouting, "Two ninety-seven, and an empty hold!" + +"What's the total, Harve?" said Disko. + +"Eight sixty-five. Three thousand six hundred and seventy-six +dollars and a quarter. 'Wish I'd share as well as wage." + +"Well, I won't go so far as to say you hevn't deserved it, Harve. +Don't you want to slip up to Wouverman's office and take him our +tallies?" + +"Who's that boy?" said Cheyne to Dan, well used to all manner of +questions from those idle imbeciles called summer boarders. + +"Well, he's kind o' supercargo," was the answer. "We picked him +up struck adrift on the Banks. Fell overboard from a liner, he sez. +He was a passenger. He's by way o' hem' a fisherman now." + +"Is he worth his keep?" + +"Ye-ep. Dad, this man wants to know ef Harve's worth his keep. +Say, would you like to go aboard? We'll fix up a ladder for her." + +"I should very much, indeed. 'Twon't hurt you, Mama, and you'll be +able to see for yourself." + +The woman who could not lift her head a week ago scrambled +down the ladder, and stood aghast amid the mess and tangle aft. + +"Be you anyways interested in Harve?" said Disko. + +"Well, ye-es." + +"He's a good boy, an' ketches right hold jest as he's bid. You've +heard haow we found him? He was sufferin' from nervous +prostration, I guess, 'r else his head had hit somethin', when we +hauled him aboard. He's all over that naow. Yes, this is the cabin. +'Tain't in order, but you're quite welcome to look araound. Those +are his figures on the stove-pipe, where we keep the reckonin' +mosdy." + +"Did he sleep here?" said Mrs. Cheyne, sitting on a yellow locker +and surveying the disorderly bunks. + +"No. He berthed forward, madam, an' only fer him an' my boy +hookin' fried pies an muggin' up when they ought to ha' been +asleep, I dunno as I've any special fault to find with him." + +"There weren't nothin' wrong with Harve," said Uncle Salters, +descending the steps. "He hung my boots on the main-truck, and he +ain't over an' above respectful to such as knows more'n he do, +specially about farmin'; but he were mostly misled by Dan." + +Dan in the meantime, profiting by dark hints from Harvey early +that morning, was executing a war-dance on deck. "Tom, Tom!" he +whispered down the hatch. "His folks has come, an' Dad hain't +caught on yet, an' they're pow-wowin' in the cabin. She's a daisy, +an' he's all Harve claimed he was, by the looks of him." + +"Howly Smoke!" said Long Jack, climbing out covered with salt +and fish-skin. "D'ye belave his tale av the kid an' the little +four-horse rig was thrue?" + +"I knew it all along," said Dan. "Come an' see Dad mistook in his +judgments." + +They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say: "I'm glad he +has a good character, because--he's my son." + +Disko's jaw fell,--Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click +of it,--and he stared alternately at the man and the woman. + +"I got his telegram in San Diego four days ago, and we came over." + +"In a private car?" said Dan. "He said ye might." + +"In a private car, of course." + +Dan looked at his father with a hurricane of irreverent winks. + +"There was a tale he told us av drivin' four little ponies in a rig av +his own," said Long Jack. "Was that thrue now?" + +"Very likely," said Cheyne. "Was it, Mama?" + +"He had a little drag when we were in Toledo, I think," said the +mother. + +Long Jack whistled. "Oh, Disko!" said he, and that was all. + +"I wuz--I am mistook in my jedgments--worse'n the men o' +Marblehead," said Disko, as though the words were being +windlassed out of him. "I don't mind ownin' to you, Mr. Cheyne, as +I mistrusted the boy to be crary. He talked kinder odd about +money." + +"So he told me." + +"Did he tell ye anything else? 'Cause I pounded him once." This +with a somewhat anxious glance at Mrs. Cheyne. + +"Oh, yes," Cheyne replied. "I should say it probably did him more +good than anything else in the world." + +"I jedged 'twuz necessary, er I wouldn't ha' done it. I don't want you +to think we abuse our boys any on this packet." + +"I don't think you do, Mr. Troop." + +Mrs. Cheyne had been looking at the faces--Disko's ivory-yellow, +hairless, iron countenance; Uncle Salters's, with its rim of +agricultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; Manuel's quiet +smile; Long Jack's grin of delight, and Tom Platt's scar. Rough, by +her standards, they certainly were; but she had a mother's wits in +her eyes, and she rose with out-stretched hands. + +"Oh, tell me, which is who?" said she, half sobbing. "I want to +thank you and bless you--all of you." + +"Faith, that pays me a hunder time," said Long Jack. + +Disko introduced them all in due form. The captain of an old-time +Chinaman could have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne babbled +incoherently. She nearly threw herself into Manuel's arms when +she understood that he had first found Harvey. + +"But how shall I leave him dreeft?" said poor Manuel. "What do +you yourself if you find him so? Eh, wha-at? We are in one good +boy, and I am ever so pleased he come to be your son." + +"And he told me Dan was his partner!" she cried. Dan was already +sufficiently pink, but he turned a rich crimson when Mrs. Cheyne +kissed him on both cheeks before the assembly. Then they led her +forward to show her the foc'sle, at which she wept again, and must +needs go down to see Harvey's identical bunk, and there she found +the nigger cook cleaning up the stove, and he nodded as though +she were some one he had expected to meet for years. They tried, +two at a time, to explain the boat's daily life to her, and she sat by +the pawl-post, her gloved hands on the greasy table, laughing with +trembling lips and crying with dancing eyes. + +"And who's ever to use the 'We're Here' after this?" said Long Jack +to Tom Platt. "I feel as if she'd made a cathedral av ut all." + +"Cathedral!" sneered Tom Platt. "Oh, if it had bin even the Fish +C'mmission boat instid of this bally-hoo o' blazes. If we only hed +some decency an' order an' side-boys when she goes over! She'll +have to climb that ladder like a hen, an' we--we ought to be mannin' +the yards!" + +"Then Harvey was not mad," said Penn, slowly, to Cheyne. + +"No, indeed--thank God," the big millionaire replied, stooping +down tenderly. + +"It must be terrible to be mad. Except to lose your child, I do not +know anything more terrible. But your child has come back? Let us +thank God for that." + +"Hello!" cried Harvey, looking down upon them benignly from the +wharf. + +"I wuz mistook, Harve. I wuz mistook," said Disko, swiftly, +holding up a hand. "I wuz mistook in my jedgments. Ye needn't +rub in any more." + +"Guess I'll take care o' that," said Dan, under his breath. + +"You'll be goin' off naow, won't ye?" + +"Well, not without the balance of my wages, 'less you want to have +the 'We're Here' attached." + +"Thet's so; I'd clean forgot"; and he counted out the remaining +dollars. "You done all you contracted to do, Harve; and you done it +'baout's well as if you'd been brought up--" Here Disko brought +himself up. He did not quite see where the sentence was going to +end. + +"Outside of a private car?" suggested Dan, wickedly. + +"Come on, and I'll show her to you," said Harvey. + +Cheyne stayed to talk with Disko, but the others made a +procession to the depot, with Mrs. Cheyne at the head. The French +maid shrieked at the invasion; and Harvey laid the glories of the +"Constance" before them without a word. They took them in in +equal silence--stamped leather, silver door-handles and rails, cut +velvet, plate-glass, nickel, bronze, hammered iron, and the rare +woods of the continent inlaid. + +"I told you," said Harvey; "I told you." This was his crowning +revenge, and a most ample one. + +Mrs. Cheyne decreed a meal, and that nothing might be lacking to +the tale Long Jack told afterwards in his boarding-house, she +waited on them herself. Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny +tables in howling gales have curiously neat and finished manners; +but Mrs. Cheyne, who did not know this, was surprised. She +longed to have Manuel for a butler; so silently and easily did he +comport himself among the frail glassware and dainty silver. Tom +Platt remembered the great days on the Ohio and the manners of +foreign potentates who dined with the officers; and Long Jack, +being Irish, supplied the small talk till all were at their ease. + +In the 'We're Here's' cabin the fathers took stock of each other +behind their cigars. Cheyne knew well enough when he dealt with +a man to whom he could not offer money; equally well he knew +that no money could pay for what Disko had done. He kept his +own counsel and waited for an opening. + +"I hevn't done anything to your boy or fer your boy excep' make +him work a piece an' learn him how to handle the hog-yoke," said +Disko. "He has twice my boy's head for figgers." + +"By the way," Cheyne answered casually, "what d'you calculate to +make of your boy?" + +Disko removed his cigar and waved it comprehensively round the +cabin. "Dan's jest plain boy, an' he don't allow me to do any of his +thinkin'. He'll hev this able little packet when I'm laid by. He ain't +noways anxious to quit the business. I know that." + +"Mmm! 'Ever been West, Mr. Troop?" + +"'Bin's fer ez Noo York once in a boat. I've no use for railroads. +No more hez Dan. Salt water's good enough fer the Troops. I've been +'most everywhere--in the nat'ral way, o' course." + +"I can give him all the salt water he's likely to need--till he's a +skipper." + +"Haow's that? I thought you wuz a kinder railroad king. Harve told +me so when--I was mistook in my jedgments." + +"We're all apt to be mistaken. I fancied perhaps you might know I +own a line of tea-clippers--San Francisco to Yokohama--six of +'em--iron-built, about seventeen hundred and eighty tons apiece. + +"Blame that boy! He never told. I'd ha' listened to that, instid o' his +truck abaout railroads an' ponycarriages." + +"He didn't know." + +"'Little thing like that slipped his mind, I guess." + +"No, I only capt--took hold of the 'Blue M.' freighters--Morgan +and McQuade's old line--this summer." Disko collapsed where he +sat, beside the stove. + +"Great Caesar Almighty! I mistrust I've been fooled from one end +to the other. Why, Phil Airheart he went from this very town six +year back--no, seven--an' he's mate on the San Jose-- now--twenty-six +days was her time out. His sister she's livin' here yet, an' she reads +his letters to my woman. An' you own the 'Blue M.' freighters?" + +Cheyne nodded. + +"If I'd known that I'd ha' jerked the 'We're Here' back to port all +standin', on the word." + +"Perhaps that wouldn't have been so good for Harvey." + +"If I'd only known! If he'd only said about the cussed Line, I'd ha' +understood! I'll never stand on my own jedgments again--never. +They're well-found packets. Phil Airheart he says so." + +"I'm glad to have a recommend from that quarter. Airheart's +skipper of the San Jose now. What I was getting at is to know +whether you'd lend me Dan for a year or two, and we'll see if we +can't make a mate of him. Would you trust him to Airheart?" + +"It's a resk taking a raw boy--" + +"I know a man who did more for me." + +"That's diff'runt. Look at here naow, I ain't recommendin' Dan +special because he's my own flesh an' blood. I know Bank ways +ain't clipper ways, but he hain't much to learn. Steer he can--no boy +better, if I say it--an' the rest's in our blood an' get; but I could wish +he warn't so cussed weak on navigation." + +"Airheart will attend to that. He'll ship as boy for a voyage or two, +and then we can put him in the way of doing better. Suppose you +take him in hand this winter, and I'll send for him early in the +spring. I know the Pacific's a long ways off--" + +"Pshaw! We Troops, livin' an' dead, are all around the earth an' the +seas thereof." + +"But I want you to understand--and I mean this--any time you think +you'd like to see him, tell me, and I'll attend to the transportation. +'Twon't cost you a cent." + +"If you'll walk a piece with me, we'll go to my house an' talk this +to my woman. I've bin so crazy mistook in all my jedgments, it +don't seem to me this was like to be real." + +They went blue-trimmed of nasturtiums over to Troop's +eighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in +the front yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of +oversea plunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with +the dim eyes of those who look long to sea for the return of their +beloved. Cheyne addressed himself to her, and she gave consent +wearily. + +"We lose one hundred a year from Gloucester only, Mr. Cheyne," +she said--"one hundred boys an' men; and I've come so's to hate the +sea as if 'twuz alive an' listenin'. God never made it fer humans to +anchor on. These packets o' yours they go straight out, I take it' +and straight home again?" + +"As straight as the winds let 'em, and I give a bonus for record +passages. Tea don't improve by being at sea." + +"When he wuz little he used to play at keeping store, an' I had +hopes he might follow that up. But soon's he could paddle a dory I +knew that were goin' to be denied me." + +"They're square-riggers, Mother; iron-built an' well found. +Remember what Phil's sister reads you when she gits his letters." + +"I've never known as Phil told lies, but he's too venturesome (like +most of 'em that use the sea). If Dan sees fit, Mr. Cheyne, he can +go--fer all o' me." + +"She jest despises the ocean," Disko explained, "an' I--I dunno haow +to act polite, I guess, er I'd thank you better." + +"My father--my own eldest brother--two nephews--an' my second +sister's man," she said, dropping her head on her hand. "Would you +care fer any one that took all those?" + +Cheyne was relieved when Dan turned up and accepted with more +delight than he was able to put into words. Indeed, the offer meant +a plain and sure road to all desirable things; but Dan thought most +of commanding watch on broad decks, and looking into far-away +harbours. + +Mrs. Cheyne had spoken privately to the unaccountable Manuel in +the matter of Harvey's rescue. He seemed to have no desire for +money. Pressed hard, he said that he would take five dollars, +because he wanted to buy something for a girl. Otherwise--"How +shall I take money when I make so easy my eats and smokes? You +will giva some if I like or no? Eh, wha-at?. Then you shall giva me +money, but not that way. You shall giva all you can think." He +introduced her to a snuffy Portuguese priest with a list of semi-destitute +widows as long as his cassock. As a strict Unitarian, Mrs. Cheyne +could not sympathize with the creed, but she ended by respecting the +brown, voluble little man. + +Manuel, faithful son of the Church, appropriated all the blessings +showered on her for her charity. "That letta me out," said he. "I +have now ver' good absolutions for six months"; and he strolled +forth to get a handkerchief for the girl of the hour and to break the +hearts of all the others. + +Salters went West for a season with Penn, and left no address +behind. He had a dread that these millionary people, with wasteful +private cars, might take undue interest in his companion. It was +better to visit inland relatives till the coast was clear. "Never you +be adopted by rich folk, Penn," he said in the cars, "or I'll take 'n' +break this checker-board over your head. Ef you forgit your name +agin--which is Pratt--you remember you belong with Salters Troop, +an' set down right where you are till I come fer you. Don't go +taggin' araound after them whose eyes bung out with fatness, +accordin' to Scripcher." + + +CHAPTER X + +But it was otherwise with the 'We're Here's' silent cook, for he came +up, his kit in a handkerchief, and boarded the "Constance." Pay +was no particular object, and he did not in the least care where he +slept. His business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to follow +Harvey for the rest of his days. They tried argument and, at last, +persuasion; but there is a difference between one Cape Breton and +two Alabama negroes, and the matter was referred to Cheyne by +the cook and porter. The millionaire only laughed. He presumed +Harvey might need a body-servant some day or other, and was sure +that one volunteer was worth five hirelings. Let the man stay, +therefore; even though he called himself MacDonald and swore in +Gaelic. The car could go back to Boston, where, if he were still of +the same mind, they would take him West. + +With the "Constance," which in his heart of hearts he loathed, +departed the last remnant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave +himself up to an energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new +town in a new land, and he purposed to "take it in," as of old he +had taken in all the cities from Snohomish to San Diego of that +world whence he hailed. They made money along the crooked +street which was half wharf and half ship's store: as a leading +professional he wished to learn how the noble game was played. +Men said that four out of every five fish-balls served at New +England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, and +overwhelmed him with figures in proof--statistics of boats, gear, +wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories, +insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners +of the large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, +and whose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he +conferred with Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and +compared notes in his vast head. He coiled himself away on +chain-cables in marine junk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, +unslaked Western curiosity, till all the water-front wanted to know +"what in thunder that man was after, anyhow." He prowled into the +Mutual Insurance rooms, and demanded explanations of the mysterious +remarks chalked up on the blackboard day by day; and that brought +down upon him secretaries of every Fisherman's Widow and Orphan +Aid Society within the city limits. They begged shamelessly, each +man anxious to beat the other institution's record, and Cheyne +tugged at his beard and handed them all over to Mrs. Cheyne. + +She was resting in a boarding-house near Eastern Point--a strange +establishment, managed, apparently, by the boarders, where the +table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered and the population, +who seemed to have known one another intimately for years, rose +up at midnight to make Welsh rarebits if it felt hungry. On the +second morning of her stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond +solitaires before she came down to breakfast. + +"They're most delightful people," she confided to her husband; "so +friendly and simple, too, though they are all Boston, nearly." + +"That isn't simpleness, Mama," he said, looking across the +boulders behind the apple-trees where the hammocks were slung. +"It's the other thing, that what I haven't got." + +"It can't be," said Mrs. Cheyne quietly. "There isn't a woman here +owns a dress that cost a hundred dollars. Why, we--" + +"I know it, dear. We have--of course we have. I guess it's only the +style they wear East. Are you having a good time?" + +"I don't see very much of Harvey; he's always with you; but I ain't +near as nervous as I was." + +"I haven't had such a good time since Willie died. I never rightly +understood that I had a son before this. Harve's got to be a great +boy. 'Anything I can fetch you, dear? 'Cushion under your head? +Well, we'll go down to the wharf again and look around." + +Harvey was his father's shadow in those days, and the two strolled +along side by side, Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for laying +his hand on the boy's square shoulder. It was then that Harvey +noticed and admired what had never struck him before--his father's +curious power of getting at the heart of new matters as learned +from men in the street. + +"How d'you make 'em tell you everything without opening your +head?" demanded the son, as they came out of a rigger's loft. + +"I've dealt with quite a few men in my time, Harve, and one sizes +'em up somehow, I guess. I know something about myself, too." +Then, after a pause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: "Men can +'most always tell when a man has handled things for himself, and +then they treat him as one of themselves." + +"Same as they treat me down at Wouverman's wharf. I'm one of the +crowd now. Disko has told every one I've earned my pay." Harvey +spread out his hands and rubbed the palms together. "They're all +soft again," he said dolefully. + +"Keep 'em that way for the next few years, while you're getting +your education. You can harden 'em up after." + +"Ye-es, I suppose so," was the reply, in no delighted voice. + +"It rests with you, Harve. You can take cover behind your mama, +of course, and put her on to fussing about your nerves and your +high-strungness and all that kind of poppycock." + +"Have I ever done that?" said Harvey, uneasily. + +His father turned where he sat and thrust out a long hand. "You +know as well as I do that I can't make anything of you if you don't +act straight by me. I can handle you alone if you'll stay alone, but I +don't pretend to manage both you and Mama. Life's too short, +anyway." + +"Don't make me out much of a fellow, does it?" + +"I guess it was my fault a good deal; but if you want the truth, you +haven't been much of anything up to date. Now, have you?" + +"Umm! Disko thinks . . . Say, what d'you reckon it's cost you to +raise me from the start--first, last and all over?" + +Cheyne smiled. "I've never kept track, but I should estimate, in +dollars and cents, nearer fifty than forty thousand; maybe sixty. +The young generation comes high. It has to have things, and it tires +of 'em, and--the old man foots the bill." + +Harvey whistled, but at heart he was rather pleased to think that +his upbringing had cost so much. "And all that's sunk capital, isn't +it?" + +"Invested, Harve. Invested, I hope." + +"Making it only thirty thousand, the thirty I've earned is about ten +cents on the hundred. That's a mighty poor catch." Harvey wagged +his head solemnly. + +Cheyne laughed till he nearly fell off the pile into the water. + +"Disko has got a heap more than that out of Dan since he was ten; +and Dan's at school half the year, too." + +"Oh, that's what you're after, is it?" + +"No. I'm not after anything. I'm not stuck on myself any just +now--that's all. . . . I ought to be kicked." + +"I can't do it, old man; or I would, I presume, if I'd been made that +way." + +"Then I'd have remembered it to the last day I lived--and never +forgiven you," said Harvey, his chin on his doubled fists. + +"Exactly. That's about what I'd do. You see?" + +"I see. The fault's with me and no one else. All the same, +something's got to be done about it." + +Cheyne drew a cigar from his vest-pocket, bit off the end, and fell +to smoking. Father and son were very much alike; for the beard hid +Cheyne's mouth, and Harvey had his father's slightly aquiline nose, +close-set black eyes, and narrow, high cheek-bones. With a touch +of brown paint he would have made up very picturesquely as a Red +Indian of the story-books. + +"Now you can go on from here," said Cheyne, slowly, "costing me +between six or eight thousand a year till you're a voter. Well, we'll +call you a man then. You can go right on from that, living on me to +the tune of forty or fifty thousand, besides what your mother will +give you, with a valet and a yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can +pretend to raise trotting-stock and play cards with your own crowd." + +"Like Lorry Tuck?" Harvey put in. + +"Yep; or the two De Vitre boys or old man McQuade's son. +California's full of 'em, and here's an Eastern sample while we're +talking." + +A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany deck-house, +nickel-plated binnacles, and pink-and-white-striped awnings +puffed up the harbour, flying the burgee of some New York club. +Two young men in what they conceived to be sea costumes were +playing cards by the saloon skylight; and a couple of women with +red and blue parasols looked on and laughed noisily. + +"Shouldn't care to be caught out in her in any sort of a breeze. No +beam," said Harvey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up her +mooring-buoy. + +"They're having what stands them for a good time. I can give you +that, and twice as much as that, Harve. How'd you like it?" + +"Caesar! That's no way to get a dinghy overside," said Harvey, still +intent on the yacht. "If I couldn't slip a tackle better than that I'd +stay ashore. . . . What if I don't?" + +"Stay ashore--or what?" + +"Yacht and ranch and live on 'the old man,' and--get behind Mama +where there's trouble," said Harvey, with a twinkle in his eye. + +"Why, in that case, you come right in with me, my son." + +"Ten dollars a month?" Another twinkle. + +"Not a cent more until you're worth it, and you won't begin to +touch that for a few years." + +"I'd sooner begin sweeping out the office--isn't that how the big bugs +start?--and touch something now than--" + +"I know it; we all feel that way. But I guess we can hire any +sweeping we need. I made the same mistake myself of starting in +too soon." + +"Thirty million dollars' worth o' mistake, wasn't it? I'd risk it for +that." + +"I lost some; and I gained some. I'll tell you." + +Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he looked over the still +water, and spoke away from Harvey, who presently began to be +aware that his father was telling the story of his life. He talked in a +low, even voice, without gesture and without expression; and it +was a history for which a dozen leading journals would cheerfully +have paid many dollars--the story of forty years that was at the +same time the story of the New West, whose story is yet to be +written. + +It began with a kinless boy turned loose in Texas, and went on +fantastically through a hundred changes and chops of life, the +scenes shifting from State after Western State, from cities that +sprang up in a month and--in a season utterly withered away, to +wild ventures in wilder camps that are now laborious, paved +municipalities. It covered the building of three railroads and the +deliberate wreck of a fourth. It told of steamers, townships, forests, +and mines, and the men of every nation under heaven, manning, +creating, hewing, and digging these. It touched on chances of +gigantic wealth flung before eyes that could not see, or missed by +the merest accident of time and travel; and through the mad shift +of things, sometimes on horseback, more often afoot, now rich, +now poor, in and out, and back and forth, deck-hand, train-hand, +contractor, boarding-house keeper, journalist, engineer, drummer, +real-estate agent, politician, dead-beat, rum-seller, mine-owner, +speculator, cattle-man, or tramp, moved Harvey Cheyne, alert and +quiet, seeking his own ends, and, so he said, the glory and +advancement of his country. + +He told of the faith that never deserted him even when he hung on +the ragged edge of despair--the faith that comes of knowing men +and things. He enlarged, as though he were talking to himself, on +his very great courage and resource at all times. The thing was so +evident in the man's mind that he never even changed his tone. He +described how he had bested his enemies, or forgiven them, +exactly as they had bested or forgiven him in those careless days; +how he had entreated, cajoled, and bullied towns, companies, and +syndicates, all for their enduring good; crawled round, through, or +under mountains and ravines, dragging a string and hoop-iron railroad +after him, and in the end, how he had sat still while promiscuous +communities tore the last fragments of his character to shreds. + +The tale held Harvey almost breathless, his head a little cocked to +one side, his eyes fixed on his father's face, as the twilight +deepened and the red cigar-end lit up the furrowed cheeks and +heavy eyebrows. It seemed to him like watching a locomotive +storming across country in the dark--a mile between each glare of +the open fire-door: but this locomotive could talk, and the words +shook and stirred the boy to the core of his soul. At last Cheyne +pitched away the cigar-butt, and the two sat in the dark over the +lapping water. + +"I've never told that to any one before," said the father. + +Harvey gasped. "It's just the greatest thing that ever was!" said he. + +"That's what I got. Now I'm coming to what I didn't get. It won't +sound much of anything to you, but I don't wish you to be as old as +I am before you find out. I can handle men, of course, and I'm no +fool along my own lines, but--but--I can't compete with the man who +has been taught! I've picked up as I went along, and I guess it +sticks out all over me." + +"I've never seen it," said the son, indignantly. + +"You will, though, Harve. You will--just as soon as you're through +college. Don't I know it? Don't I know the look on men's faces +when they think me a--a 'mucker,' as they call it out here? I can +break them to little pieces--yes--but I can't get back at 'em to hurt +'em where they live. I don't say they're 'way 'way up, but I feel I'm +'way, 'way, 'way off, somehow. Now you've got your chance. +You've got to soak up all the learning that's around, and you'll live +with a crowd that are doing the same thing. They'll be doing it for +a few thousand dollars a year at most; but remember you'll be +doing it for millions. You'll learn law enough to look after your +own property when I'm out o' the light, and you'll have to be solid +with the best men in the market (they are useful later); and above +all, you'll have to stow away the plain, common, sit-down-with-your +chin-on your-elbows book-learning. Nothing pays like that, Harve, +and it's bound to pay more and more each year in our country--in +business and in politics. You'll see." + +"There's no sugar in my end of the deal," said Harvey. "Four years +at college! 'Wish I'd chosen the valet and the yacht!" + +"Never mind, my son," Cheyne insisted. "You're investing your +capital where it'll bring in the best returns; and I guess you won't +find our property shrunk any when you're ready to take hold. Think +it over, and let me know in the morning. Hurry! We'll be late for +supper!" + +As this was a business talk, there was no need for Harvey to tell his +mother about it; and Cheyne naturally took the same point of view. +But Mrs. Cheyne saw and feared, and was a little jealous. Her boy, +who rode rough-shod over her, was gone, and in his stead reigned a +keen-faced youth, abnormally silent, who addressed most of his +conversation to his father. She understood it was business, and +therefore a matter beyond her premises. If she had any doubts, they +were resolved when Cheyne went to Boston and brought back a +new diamond marquise ring. + +"What have you two been doing now?" she said, with a weak little +smile, as she turned it in the light. + +"Talking--just talking, Mama; there's nothing mean about Harvey." + +There was not. The boy had made a treaty on his own account. +Railroads, he explained gravely, interested him as little as lumber, +real estate, or mining. What his soul yearned after was control of +his father's newly purchased sailing-ship. If that could be promised +him within what he conceived to be a reasonable time, he, for his +part, guaranteed diligence and sobriety at college for four or five +years. In vacation he was to be allowed full access to all details +connected with the line--he had not asked more than two thousand +questions about it,--from his father's most private papers in the safe +to the tug in San Francisco harbour. + +"It's a deal," said Cheyne at the last. "You'll alter your mind twenty +times before you leave college, o' course; but if you take hold of it +in proper shape, and if you don't tie it up before you're twenty-three, +I'll make the thing over to you. How's that, Harve?" + +"Nope; never pays to split up a going concern. There's too much +competition in the world anyway, and Disko says 'blood-kin hev to +stick together.' His crowd never go back on him. That's one reason, +he says, why they make such big fares. Say, the 'We're Here' goes +off to the Georges on Monday. They don't stay long ashore, do +they?" + +"Well, we ought to be going, too, I guess. I've left my business +hung up at loose ends between two oceans, and it's time to connect +again. I just hate to do it, though; haven't had a holiday like this for +twenty years." + +"We can't go without seeing Disko off," said Harvey; "and +Monday's Memorial Day. Let's stay over that, anyway." + +"What is this memorial business? They were talking about it at the +boarding-house," said Cheyne weakly. He, too, was not anxious to +spoil the golden days. + +"Well, as far as I can make out, this business is a sort of +song-and-dance act, whacked up for the summer boarders. Disko +don't think much of it, he says, because they take up a collection +for the widows and orphans. Disko's independent. Haven't you +noticed that?" + +"Well--yes. A little. In spots. Is it a town show, then?" + +"The summer convention is. They read out the names of the +fellows drowned or gone astray since last time, and they make +speeches, and recite, and all. Then, Disko says, the secretaries of +the Aid Societies go into the back yard and fight over the catch. +The real show, he says, is in the spring. The ministers all take a +hand then, and there aren't any summer boarders around." + +"I see," said Cheyne, with the brilliant and perfect comprehension +of one born into and bred up to city pride. "We'll stay over for +Memorial Day, and get off in the afternoon." + +"Guess I'll go down to Disko's and make him bring his crowd up +before they sail. I'll have to stand with them, of course." + +"Oh, that's it, is it," said Cheyne. "I'm only a poor summer boarder, +and you're--" + +"A Banker--full-blooded Banker," Harvey called back as he boarded +a trolley, and Cheyne went on with his blissful dreams for the +future. + +Disko had no use for public functions where appeals were made +for charity, but Harvey pleaded that the glory of the day would be +lost, so far as he was concerned, if the 'We're Heres' absented +themselves. Then Disko made conditions. He had heard--it was +astonishing how all the world knew all the world's business along +the water-front--he had heard that a "Philadelphia actress-woman" +was going to take part in the exercises; and he mistrusted that she +would deliver "Skipper Ireson's Ride." Personally, he had as little +use for actresses as for summer boarders; but justice was justice, +and though he himself (here Dan giggled) had once slipped up on +a matter of judgment, this thing must not be. So Harvey came back +to East Gloucester, and spent half a day explaining to an amused +actress with a royal reputation on two seaboards the inwardness of +the mistake she contemplated; and she admitted that it was justice, +even as Disko had said. + +Cheyne knew by old experience what would happen; but anything +of the nature of a public palaver was meat and drink to the man's +soul. He saw the trolleys hurrying west, in the hot, hazy morning, +full of women in light summer dresses, and white-faced +straw-hatted men fresh from Boston desks; the stack of bicycles +outside the post office; the come-and-go of busy officials, greeting +one another; the slow flick and swash of bunting in the heavy air; +and the important man with a hose sluicing the brick sidewalk. + +"Mother," he said suddenly, "don't you remember--after Seattle was +burned out--and they got her going again?" + +Mrs. Cheyne nodded, and looked critically down the crooked street. +Like her husband, she understood these gatherings, all the West +over, and compared them one against another. The fishermen +began to mingle with the crowd about the town-hall doors--blue- +jowled Portuguese, their women bare-headed or shawled for the +most part; clear-eyed Nova Scotians, and men of the Maritime +Provinces; French, Italians, Swedes, and Danes, with outside crews +of coasting schooners; and everywhere women in black, who +saluted one another with gloomy pride, for this was their day of +great days. And there were ministers of many creeds,--pastors of +great, gilt-edged congregations, at the seaside for a rest, with +shepherds of the regular work,--from the priests of the Church on +the Hill to bush-bearded ex-sailor Lutherans, hail-fellow with the +men of a score of boats. There were owners of lines of schooners, +large contributors to the societies, and small men, their few craft +pawned to the mastheads, with bankers and marine-insurance +agents, captains of tugs and water-boats, riggers, fitters, lumpers, +salters, boat-builders, and coopers, and all the mixed population of +the water-front. + +They drifted along the line of seats made gay with the dresses of +the summer boarders, and one of the town officials patrolled and +perspired till he shone all over with pure civic pride. Cheyne had +met him for five minutes a few days before, and between the two +there was entire understanding. + +"Well, Mr. Cheyne, and what d'you think of our city? --Yes, +madam, you can sit anywhere you please.--You have this kind of +thing out West, I presume?" + +"Yes, but we aren't as old as you." + +"That's so, of course. You ought to have been at the exercises when +we celebrated our two hundred and fiftieth birthday. I tell you, Mr. +Cheyne, the old city did herself credit." + +"So I heard. It pays, too. What's the matter with the town that it +don't have a first-class hotel, though?" + +"--Right over there to the left, Pedro. Heaps o' room for you and +your crowd.--Why, that's what I tell 'em all the time, Mr. Cheyne. +There's big money in it, but I presume that don't affect you any. +What we want is--" + +A heavy hand fell on his broadcloth shoulder, and the flushed +skipper of a Portland coal-and-ice coaster spun him half round. +"What in thunder do you fellows mean by clappin' the law on the +town when all decent men are at sea this way? Heh? Town's dry as +a bone, an' smells a sight worse sence I quit. 'Might ha' left us one +saloon for soft drinks, anyway." + +"Don't seem to have hindered your nourishment this morning, +Carsen. I'll go into the politics of it later. Sit down by the door and +think over your arguments till I come back." + +"What good is arguments to me? In Miquelon champagne's +eighteen dollars a case and--" The skipper lurched into his seat +as an organ-prelude silenced him. + +"Our new organ," said the official proudly to Cheyne. +"Cost us four thousand dollars, too. We'll have to get back to +high-license next year to pay for it. I wasn't going to let the +ministers have all the religion at their convention. Those are some +of our orphans standing up to sing. My wife taught 'em. See you +again later, Mr. Cheyne. I'm wanted on the platform." + +High, clear, and true, children's voices bore down the last noise of +those settling into their places. + +"O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and +magnify him for ever!" + +The women throughout the hall leaned forward to look as the +reiterated cadences filled the air. Mrs. Cheyne, with some others, +began to breathe short; she had hardly imagined there were so +many widows in the world; and instinctively searched for Harvey. +He had found the 'We're Heres' at the back of the audience, and was +standing, as by right, between Dan and Disko. Uncle Salters, +returned the night before with Penn, from Pamlico Sound, received +him suspiciously. + +"Hain't your folk gone yet?" he grunted. "What are you doin' here, +young feller?" + +"O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify +him for ever!" + +"Hain't he good right?" said Dan. "He's bin there, same as the rest +of us." + +"Not in them clothes," Salters snarled. + +"Shut your head, Salters," said Disko. "Your bile's gone back on +you. Stay right where ye are, Harve." + +Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of the +municipality, bidding the world welcome to Gloucester, and +incidentally pointing out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of +the world. Then he turned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke +of the price that must be paid for the yearly harvest. They would +hear later the names of their lost dead one hundred and seventeen +of them. (The widows stared a little, and looked at one another +here.) Gloucester could not boast any overwhelming mills or +factories. Her sons worked for such wage as the sea gave; and they +all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were cow-pastures. +The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to help the +widows and the orphans, and after a few general remarks he took +this opportunity of thanking, in the name of the city, those who had +so public-spiritedly consented to participate in the exercises of +the occasion. + +"I jest despise the beggin' pieces in it," growled Disko. "It don't +give folk a fair notion of us." + +"Ef folk won't be fore-handed an' put by when they've the chance," +returned Salters, "it stands in the nature o' things they hev to be +'shamed. You take warnin' by that, young feller. Riches endureth +but for a season, ef you scatter them araound on lugsuries-- + +"But to lose everything, everything," said Penn. "What can you do +then? Once I"--the watery blue eyes stared up and down as if +looking for something to steady them--"once I read--in a book, I +think--of a boat where every one was run down--except some +one--and he said to me--" + +"Shucks!" said Salters, cutting in. "You read a little less an' take +more int'rust in your vittles, and you'll come nearer earnin' your +keep, Penn." + +Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt a creepy, crawly, +tingling thrill that began in the back of his neck and ended at his +boots. He was cold, too, though it was a stifling day. + +"That the actress from Philadelphia?" said Disko Troop, scowling +at the platform. "You've fixed it about old man Ireson, hain't ye, +Harve? Ye know why naow." + +It was not "Ireson's Ride" that the woman delivered, but some sort +of poem about a fishing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlers +beating in against storm by night, while the women made a guiding +fire at the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands +on. + + "They took the grandma's blanket, + Who shivered and bade them go; + They took the baby's cradle, + Who could not say them no." + +"Whew!" said Dan, peering over Long Jack's shoulder. "That's +great! Must ha' bin expensive, though." + +"Ground-hog case," said the Galway man. "Badly lighted port, +Danny." + + "And knew not all the while + If they were lighting a bonfire + Or only a funeral pile." + +The wonderful voice took hold of people by their heartstrings; and +when she told how the drenched crews were flung ashore, living +and dead, and they carried the bodies to the glare of the fires, +asking: "Child, is this your father?" or "Wife, is this your man?" +you could hear hard breathing all over the benches. + + + "And when the boats of Brixham + Go out to face the gales, + Think of the love that travels + Like light upon their sails!" + +There was very little applause when she finished. The women +were looking for their handkerchiefs, and many of the men stared +at the ceiling with shiny eyes. + +"H'm," said Salters; "that 'u'd cost ye a dollar to hear at any +theatre--maybe two. Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. 'Seems +downright waste to me. . . . Naow, how in Jerusalem did Cap. Bart +Edwardes strike adrift here?" + +"No keepin' him under," said an Eastport man behind. "He's a poet, +an' he's baound to say his piece. 'Comes from daown aour way, +too." + +He did not say that Captain B. Edwardes had striven for five +consecutive years to be allowed to recite a piece of his own +composition on Gloucester Memorial Day. An amused and +exhausted committee had at last given him his desire. The +simplicity and utter happiness of the old man, as he stood up in his +very best Sunday clothes, won the audience ere he opened his +mouth. They sat unmurmuring through seven-and-thirty +hatchet-made verses describing at fullest length the loss of the +schooner Joan Hasken off the Georges in the gale of 1867, and +when he came to an end they shouted with one kindly throat. + +A far-sighted Boston reporter slid away for a full copy of the epic +and an interview with the author; so that earth had nothing more to +offer Captain Bart Edwardes, ex-whaler, shipwright, +master-fisherman, and poet, in the seventy-third year of his age. + +"Naow, I call that sensible," said the Eastport man. "I've bin over +that graound with his writin', jest as he read it, in my two hands, +and I can testily that he's got it all in." + +"If Dan here couldn't do better'n that with one hand before +breakfast, he ought to be switched," said Salters, upholding the +honor of Massachusetts on general principles. "Not but what I'm +free to own he's considerable litt'ery--fer Maine. Still--" + +"Guess Uncle Salters's goin' to die this trip. Fust compliment he's +ever paid me," Dan sniggered. "What's wrong with you, Harve? +You act all quiet and you look greenish. Feelin' sick?" + +"Don't know what's the matter with me," Harvey implied. "Seems +if my insides were too big for my outsides. I'm all crowded up and +shivery." + +"Dispepsy? Pshaw--too bad. We'll wait for the readin', an' then we'll +quit, an' catch the tide." + +The widows--they were nearly all of that season's making--braced +themselves rigidly like people going to be shot in cold blood, for +they knew what was coming. The summer-boarder girls in pink +and blue shirt-waists stopped tittering over Captain Edwardes's +wonderful poem, and looked back to see why all was silent. The +fishermen pressed forward as that town official who had talked to +Cheyne bobbed up on the platform and began to read the year's list +of losses, dividing them into months. Last September's casualties +were mostly single men and strangers, but his voice rang very loud +in the stillness of the hall. + +"September 9th. Schooner Florrie Anderson lost, with all aboard, +off the Georges. + +"Reuben Pitman, master, 50, single, Main Street, City. + +"Emil Olsen, 19, single, 329 Hammond Street, City. Denmark. + +"Oscar Standberg, single, 25. Sweden. + +"Carl Stanberg, single, 28, Main Street. City. + +"Pedro, supposed Madeira, single, Keene's boardinghouse. City. + +"Joseph Welsh, alias Joseph Wright, 30, St. John's, +Newfoundland." + +"No--Augusty, Maine," a voice cried from the body of the hall. + +"He shipped from St. John's," said the reader, looking to see. + +"I know it. He belongs in Augusty. My nevvy." + +The reader made a pencilled correction on the margin of the list, +and resumed. + +"Same schooner, Charlie Ritchie, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 33, +single. + +"Albert May, 267 Rogers Street, City, 27, single. + +"September 27th. --Orvin Dollard, 30, married, drowned in dory off +Eastern Point." + +That shot went home, for one of the widows flinched where she +sat, clasping and unclasping her hands. Mrs. Cheyne, who had +been listening with wide-opened eyes, threw up her head and +choked. Dan's mother, a few seats to the right, saw and heard and +quickly moved to her side. The reading went on. By the time they +reached the January and February wrecks the shots were falling +thick and fast, and the widows drew breath between their teeth. + +"February 14th. --Schooner Harry Randolph dismasted on the way +home from Newfoundland; Asa Musie, married, 32, Main Street, +City, lost overboard. + +"February 23d. --Schooner Gilbert Hope; went astray in dory, Robert +Beavon, 29, married, native of Pubnico, Nova Scotia." + +But his wife was in the hall. They heard a low cry, as though a +little animal had been hit. It was stifled at once, and a girl +staggered out of the hall. She had been hoping against hope for +months, because some who have gone adrift in dories have been +miraculously picked up by deep-sea sailing-ships. Now she had her +certainty, and Harvey could see the policeman on the sidewalk +hailing a hack for her. "It's fifty cents to the depot"--the driver +began, but the policeman held up his hand--"but I'm goin' there +anyway. Jump right in. Look at here, Al; you don't pull me next +time my lamps ain't lit. See?" + +The side-door closed on the patch of bright sunshine, and Harvey's +eyes turned again to the reader and his endless list. + +"April 19th. --Schooner Mamie Douglas lost on the Banks with all +hands. + +"Edward Canton, 43, master, married, City. + +"D. Hawkins, alias Williams, 34, married, Shelbourne, Nova +Scotia. + +"G. W. Clay, coloured, 28, married, City." + +And so on, and so on. Great lumps were rising in Harvey's throat, +and his stomach reminded him of the day when he fell from the +liner. + +"May 10th. --Schooner 'We're Here' [the blood tingled all over him] +Otto Svendson, 20, single, City, lost overboard." + +Once more a low, tearing cry from somewhere at the back of the +hall. + +"She shouldn't ha' come. She shouldn't ha' come," said Long Jack, +with a cluck of pity. + +"Don't scrowge, Harve," grunted Dan. Harvey heard that much, but +the rest was all darkness spotted with fiery wheels. Disko leaned +forward and spoke to his wife, where she sat with one arm round +Mrs. Cheyne, and the other holding down the snatching, catching, +ringed hands. + +"Lean your head daown--right daown!" he whispered. "It'll go off +in a minute." + +"I ca-an't! I do-don't! Oh, let me--" Mrs. Cheyne did not at all know +what she said. + +"You must," Mrs. Troop repeated. "Your boy's jest fainted dead +away. They do that some when they're gettin' their growth. 'Wish to +tend to him? We can git aout this side. Quite quiet. You come right +along with me. Psha', my dear, we're both women, I guess. We +must tend to aour men-folk. Come!" + +The 'We're Heres' promptly went through the crowd as a +body-guard, and it was a very white and shaken Harvey that they +propped up on a bench in an anteroom. + +"Favours his ma," was Mrs. Troop's ouly comment, as the mother +bent over her boy. + +"How d'you suppose he could ever stand it?" she cried indignantly +to Cheyne, who had said nothing at all. "It was horrible--horrible! +We shouldn't have come. It's wrong and wicked! It--it isn't right! +Why--why couldn't they put these things in the papers, where they +belong? Are you better, darling?" + +That made Harvey very properly ashamed. "Oh, I'm all right, I +guess," he said, struggling to his feet, with a broken giggle. +"Must ha' been something I ate for breakfast." + +"Coffee, perhaps," said Cheyne, whose face was all in hard lines, +as though it had been cut out of bronze. "We won't go back again." + +"Guess 'twould be 'baout's well to git daown to the wharf," said +Disko. "It's close in along with them Dagoes, an' the fresh air will +fresh Mrs. Cheyne up." + +Harvey announced that he never felt better in his life; but it was +not till he saw the 'We're Here', fresh from the lumper's hands, at +Wouverman's wharf, that he lost his all-overish feelings in a queer +mixture of pride and sorrowfulness. Other people--summer +boarders and such-like--played about in cat-boats or looked at the +sea from pier-heads; but he understood things from the inside-- +more things than he could begin to think about. None the less, he +could have sat down and howled because the little schooner was +going off. Mrs. Cheyne simply cried and cried every step of the +way and said most extraordinary things to Mrs. Troop, who +"babied" her till Dan, who had not been "babied" since he was six, +whistled aloud. + +And so the old crowd--Harvey felt like the most ancient of mariners +dropped into the old schooner among the battered dories, while +Harvey slipped the stern-fast from the pier-head, and they slid her +along the wharf-side with their hands. Every one wanted to say so +much that no one said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan +take care of Uncle Salters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and +Long Jack entreated Harvey to remember his lessons in +seamanship; but the jokes fell flat in the presence of the two +women, and it is hard to be funny with green harbour-water +widening between good friends. + +"Up jib and fores'l!" shouted Disko, getting to the wheel, as the +wind took her. "See you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near +thinkin' a heap o' you an' your folks." + +Then she glided beyond ear-shot, and they sat down to watch her +up the harbour, And still Mrs. Cheyne wept. + +"Pshaw, my dear," said Mrs. Troop: "we're both women, I guess. +Like's not it'll ease your heart to hev your cry aout. God He knows +it never done me a mite o' good, but then He knows I've had +something to cry fer!" + + + +Now it was a few years later, and upon the other edge of America, +that a young man came through the clammy sea fog up a windy +street which is flanked with most expensive houses built of wood +to imitate stone. To him, as he was standing by a hammered iron +gate, entered on horseback--and the horse would have been cheap at +a thousand dollars--another young man. And this is what they said: + +"Hello, Dan!" + +"Hello, Harve!" + +"What's the best with you?" + +"Well, I'm so's to be that kind o' animal called second mate this +trip. Ain't you most through with that triple invoiced college of +yours?" + +"Getting that way. I tell you, the Leland Stanford Junior, isn't a +circumstance to the old 'We're Here'; but I'm coming into the +business for keeps next fall." + +"Meanin' aour packets?" + +"Nothing else. You just wait till I get my knife into you, Dan. I'm +going to make the old line lie down and cry when I take hold." + +"I'll resk it," said Dan, with a brotherly grin, as Harvey dismounted +and asked whether he were coming in. + +"That's what I took the cable fer; but, say, is the doctor anywheres +araound? I'll draown that crazy nigger some day, his one cussed +joke an' all." + +There was a low, triumphant chuckle, as the ex-cook of the 'We're +Here' came out of the fog to take the horse's bridle. He allowed no +one but himself to attend to any of Harvey's wants. + +"Thick as the Banks, ain't it, doctor?" said Dan, propitiatingly. + +But the coal-black Celt with the second-sight did not see fit to +reply till he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth +time croaked the old, old prophecy in his ear. + +"Master--man. Man--master," said he. "You remember, Dan Troop, +what I said? On the 'We're Here'?" + +"Well, I won't go so far as to deny that it do look like it as things +stand at present," said Dan. "She was a noble packet, and one way +an' another I owe her a heap--her and Dad." + +"Me too," quoth Harvey Cheyne. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Captains Courageous, by Kipling + + + diff --git a/old/cptcr11a.zip b/old/cptcr11a.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..53b9fbc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cptcr11a.zip |