Chapter Chapter 4 · 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."