LOADING THE SHIP

Captain Hawes made the children a little toy schooner which they sailed in the coves along the beach. He showed them just how to "trim" the sails and set the rudder, so that the boat would "tack" and sail against the wind, "on the wind," he called it.

About this time they heard that the new ship, now all rigged and with all sails in place, had been taken to the neighboring port and was taking on her cargo for a long voyage. As they wanted to see the ship again, the Captain took them on this little journey to see the work being done at the docks.

Loading a ship is always a strenuous and hurly-burly affair, with much bustle, shouting, hauling, pushing, and pulling. The children, under Patsey's lead, found a good point of vantage on top of some boxes, and watched the work.

Busy "stevedores," who had charge, were hurrying the "longshoremen," who rolled barrels, and carried bags up the gangplank into the ship, to be snugly stowed away between decks. Bales and boxes were being hoisted over the rail, to be lowered through the hatches into the hold. The donkey engine buzzed, the mate shouted orders, and everything, to the children, seemed confusion, but it was orderly confusion, for the work was rapidly going ahead. The great quantity of goods which went aboard astonished Bob and Betty; they had never seen so many boxes, barrels, bales, and bags before. And yet this was only the beginning, for the Captain told them that even at this rate it would still take many days to load the ship.

When the first of the cargo went aboard, the vessel sat high out of the water, but when all should be in and stowed safely away, she would settle deep down to her "water line." This was where the green and black paint met. All this had been planned before she was built, Captain Hawes explained; the ship designer knew just how she should sit in the water when loaded; there was no guesswork about it.

The ship was to go on an Eastern voyage. He had often been out there, away off in the China seas, where strange craft came about you: junks with their odd, high sails, their yellow sailors with "pigtails" down their backs, everything so different from our part of the world.