The Voyage of the Norman D. (continued 4)

Cap’n and Cap

A little farther on a small launch sped up to our side and asked the same question, promptly receiving the same answer from the captain. But still farther on, when the hills and small emerald islands began to cut off the wind, and the sails began to flap, and we found that the tide was sweeping us down, the captain replied differently to the skipper of a tug who shouted over “Want a tug up?” “Yes, sure!”

The tug came close to the side of the Norman D. The skipper, a very curious-looking Dutchman, leaped aboard and shook Captain Avery warmly by the hand, after first looking him over incredulously from head to heel. “Why! If this ain’t Cap’n Avery!” said he.

“True for you,” said our skipper. “Glad I am t’ see you, Joe.”

“’T’s a bully long time since you’ve been up Bridgewater way⁠—eh, Cap?”

“Hey‑y‑y‑y‑y?”

“You hain’t been up this way fer a long time, Cap!”

“No, I haven’t.”

And the like friendly remarks went on monotonously, with extreme cheerfulness, for a long time. Nothing I could ever say would adequately describe the Dutchman. He was a huge, broad-shouldered man with a huge face and small, glistening blue eyes. He looked wild, but nevertheless kindly. He had a crazy manner of friendliness and nonchalance, and he swanked about the schooner as if he were her captain. I felt that he was extremely amiable at heart, and I was very much interested and amused by him. Incidentally, he was a lively and vigorous tobacco-chewer.

Excitement for Dick

And now Richardson was to have his moment of excitement. It was this way: The towrope was attached to the tug, and Richardson was called aft by “Here, boys! Here, boys! Here, boys!” to make it fast around our two starboard mooring-posts. If he had been wise, he would have let someone else answer that call. He did it, as I thought, quite briskly and cleverly, winding the rope in a figure-of-eight formation around the two posts. But the Dutchman, who had leaped briskly back into the tug to superintend things in his swaggering way there, decided that it wasn’t short enough, and he bellowed back his opinion to Captain Avery. “Take up the slack!” whooped Captain Avery. But this was not such an easy matter for Richardson. To begin with, all those fancy figure-of-eight loops which he had cast around the mooring-posts had to be untangled. He didn’t seem to have a very successful time of it getting them off. I must here remark that, whenever anything was found carelessly done, it was always Richardson who was to blame. For instance, one morning when we had tacked, the bo’s’n had sprung to the main sheet where it was belayed. If there had been any wind, Richardson’s belaying (for, presumably, it was Richardson’s) wouldn’t have lasted long. It was very loosely tangled around the pin. In a flash the bo’s’n had exclaimed: “That looks like Richardson’s work! He must ’a’ done that.” Yes, Richardson did betray a kind of mixed-up sloppiness in his work. He had just got the figures-of-eight off the mooring-posts and begun to haul up the slack in the towrope, when Captain Avery, irritated beyond endurance by his slowness, thundered out: “Hurry up there, Richardson! Hurry up! Hurry! Quick! Quick! Blast you, Richardson! Quick!” in such an appalling voice that Richardson worked desperately, getting in the slack. I never saw a man cast figures-of-eight with such rapidity, and he did not stop until there was enough rope on the posts to have held the entire Presidential Range a mile above ground. Then he went forward, the skipper glowering at him.

Now the captain of the tug had come aboard again, along with one of the tug’s crew⁠—a wild, glaring-eyed youth, slender as a nail and very dark. The two skippers began talking in a very friendly way, calling each other⁠—apparently after the Dutch or Nova Scotian fashion⁠—“Cap.” The glaring youth hung around for a while, but, finding that the two had nothing in particular to communicate to him, he returned, after one inquisitive glance, to his work aboard the tug.

In the Harbor

We were now gliding smoothly and rather briskly up into the harbor. The river widened out gradually, with ever and again beautiful glimpses back at the emerald islets and the sea, or up ahead into the hills, down among which the water flowed, looking bright sapphire blue. After what seemed a very short time, the tug left us in the loveliest landlocked harbor imaginable. The green hills dipped away in a wide sweep and circle to right and left, clasping the blue bay, whose waters seemed to murmur with the rush of the tide. On each side, and lying down beneath the hills, were towns, very small and elfin from this distance. The masses of close-set white and gray houses, with now and then a large red barn looming in the greenness of fields and hills, completed one’s idea of a landlocked Italian harbor. The fields were bright sunny green, by contrast with the more vivid emerald of the hills. Two small islands over on the west side of the bay looked mysterious and uninhabited, as though they sheltered pirate treasure. One of them seemed to have a fairly good landing-beach on our side of it; but this beach, though smooth and gradual, appeared to be covered with some mysterious dark substance which I could by no means understand.

We were far from being the only schooner there. Indeed, it seemed like quite a busy little country seaport. A small three-master was lying close in at one of the wharves belonging to the western town; a shapely little schooner with a black hull. Others lay scattered at anchor around the edges of the harbor⁠—some of them being used, and others (among them a dismantled two-master, one of whose topmasts was gone) in a disused state. The Norman D. was, however, by far the largest and loveliest of the schooners there, and we entered that enchanted circle of water feeling as proud and lovely as a white-robed queen. The tug left us near the middle of the bay, but slightly nearer the western edge. Down went our mudhook, with a magical and melancholy splash.

Here I must confess a great weakness of mine, in a moment of which I submitted ingloriously to human nature. I felt, in the presence of the queer, domineering Dutch skipper, as if I should rather like to show that I wasn’t an “ornery street gal,” and that I had some small ability as a sailor. I began to be just as helpful as I could possibly manage. I bustled and ran around after Mate Bill, who was getting the sail-stops out. He got those coils of rope, each about ten feet long, out of one of the small after hatchways, and each of us took an armful and went forward, distributing them. He would leave a certain number by the spanker boom, ready for use, and then another bundle by the mainsail boom; the first bundle went to the foresail. The sails were still up, having been left in order to help our progress up the river; and the mate simply tossed the sail-stops over the boom so that they lay across it, each end trailing on the deck, ready to receive the sails when they should be let down. Together we fitted out the foresail and mainsail booms; then the mate, having something else to do, left me to finish the spanker. I did so, at least as far as I could reach, and then he came aft and placed the stops across the overhanging end.

Bill’s Morals

All the time the mate was talking in earnest, agitated tones about the skipper of the tug. He certainly was a character worth some small consideration. The mate didn’t approve of him at all. He struck Bill as a snob, somehow, much too proud to talk to a common sailor; indeed, he hadn’t said a word to the mate in all the time he was on the schooner. And, as Richard H. Dana, Jr., says: “When the voyage is at an end, you do as you please; but so long as you belong to the same vessel, you must be a shipmate to him on shore, or he will not be a shipmate to you on board.” And Bill had a delicate streak of sensitiveness.

The mate thought that the skipper of the tug was very vulgar because he chewed tobacco so much and so heartily⁠—he thought the same, as a matter of fact, about Captain Avery himself⁠—and he went on somewhat in this way:

“Now, here’s how it is with me. I don’t approve o’ such things ’s chewin’ tobacker, drinkin’, ’n’ so on. I don’t approve of ’em, ’n’ I never can. I used t’ chew a little when I was a young lad and first went t’ sea, ’cause I didn’t know better. But I give it up afore long. ’N’ as fer smokin’⁠—well, I smoke a cigarette now and then, but not as a stiddy thing. ’n’ drinkin’? Well, I’m not a boasting man, but I’ll tell you that I was never drunk once in all my life. Now, that’s a pretty good record fer a man that’s lived as rough as I have, and been t’ sea fifteen year. And I’ve never, in all my born days, bought more than one bottle o’ whisky.

“But Bob, m’ brother, him’d get drunk ivery day if he had th’ chance. As it is, he gets drunk every time he goes ashore. I talk and talk and argue ’bout it with him, but it never does no good. Y’ can’t drum any reason into that lad. He beats all!”

So we talked together⁠—or, at least, I listened and the mate talked⁠—until we dropped anchor in the midst of that peaceful bay. It was now getting toward sunset, and the old man wanted to go ashore to the little sleeping town in order to telephone for a tug to pull us up to Bridgewater in the morning. The mate lowered a small, light flat-bottomed skiff which had been hoisted just beneath the larger dory on the davits, and concealed by it. (In fact, I had not noticed it before.) It was lowered, brought around to the port side of the schooner, and tied just beneath the taffrail. Then a stout ladder was brought, put down the side of the ship, and made fast. I was eager to watch the skipper descend this vertical ladder, as well as to see him try to row the little skiff. The cook, probably eager to see him make a miscue and get a wetting, came sedately out of the galley and stood watching wickedly.

“Are you going alone, sir?” queried the mate.

“Yes, I gesso, Bill.”

The Skipper’s Misstep

Secretly I had hopes of being allowed to accompany him, not having had my feet off the Norman D. for ten days; but the captain said nothing about it, and I said nothing. The moment of excitement was arriving. I imagine that the whole crew craned their necks from wherever they were, to see the old man fall into the waters of the Lahave River. The cook now had an I-wish-to-heaven-you’d-get-drowned look on his face. The captain asked the mate if the oarlocks were all right, and the mate descended himself, to see. They were, and the oars were put into place. Everything was in readiness. Then down went the captain, grasping the rungs desperately with his horny, trembling old hands. It looked as if everything were going all right. The mate held the painter of the skiff, ready to cast off as soon as the old man was ready, and he was holding the boat cleverly just beneath the ladder. But the skipper had not reckoned on the small, almost invisible heaves which are constantly taking place in the mouth of that river, where the water is influenced both by the tide and by the current of the river itself. Just as he was about to step into the boat, one of those smooth waves came along, sweeping the boat from beneath his feet. “Look out fer that swell, sir!” shouted the mate. The old man paid not the slightest heed, but went right on, stepping off into the boat just as that wave occurred. It disturbed his balance: and he staggered, then sprawled down into the boat just as one leg trailed in the water up to the knee. Then he regained himself, got at the oars, caught the painter as the mate threw it down, and pushed off.

He was used to rowing, all right, but the tide and the current bothered him considerably. He was swept downstream so fast that he had to head much farther upstream than he wanted to. At last he landed on a sort of beach. The mate made the remark, when he started, that he was “weaker ’n a cat.”

So odd a thing now took place among the crew that I was glad I had stayed aboard. The sails had been lowered and snugly furled, and now the crew seemed to think that there was nothing under the sun to do. They all came aft in a body, including the cook, and stood around on the poop deck, sitting on the deckhouse, chinning and making merry. The audacity of it was very amusing. When the old skipper was aboard no one ever came aft except when called, or to take his trick at the helm. But now all rules were off, and they seemed to take a defiant pleasure in being where they weren’t supposed to be. Their talk ran mainly on the skipper, and they said some tremendously insulting things. The cook, through it all, pretended great authority, standing there in a way which made me think he was trying very hard to look dignified, and nodding his head grimly every now and then.

“I wisht he had fallen in⁠—really,” said the bo’s’n, in a mournful voice.

“We’d ’a’ been well rid o’ that rascal,” said the cook.

On Forbidden Ground

“’N’ say, Bob, didja see that guy from the tug?” said Roy. “So that’s the kind o’ friends the old man has, is it?”

“He’d ’a’ won the champeenship of spitting,” stated Bob.

“I told you,” interposed the cook, “he’s known all over Nova Scotia fer his low-down rascality.”

“’N’ fer interferin’ in your business, I suppose.”

“Interferin’ ’s no word fer it. Say, you know⁠—” And then came, for the hundredth time, the tale of how the Chinese cook had chased Captain Avery ashore with a drawn cutlass when he had come forward to see the galley. This sort of talk went on for a long time, with the cook interposing now and then to call Captain Avery “cussed old wretch,” and “p’ison divil,” and so on, at a great rate; and with the mate standing by the taffrail, looking wicked and piratical, with that suppressed smile in his face and that black twinkle in his eyes. The bo’s’n, too, was “full of it” that evening, and every now and then one of his mocking calls would ring out over the waters of the Lahave, much louder and bolder than ever before.

Presently the mate and I drew more or less apart from the others. “Say, Barbara,” said Bill, “how’d you like a row in that little skiff when the old man comes back, if ’t ain’t too late?”

“Oh, that would be splendid.”

“Kin you row?”

“Try me and see!”

“Well, you can row, then, and, if ’t ain’t too dark, we’ll go out.”

“All right. But say, mate, are the boys going ashore tonight?”

“Yes, I reckon they are, if they can get the chance. We’ll give ’em the skiff when we get back.”

“Are you going ashore?”

“No, I reckon not.”

By this time the sun was nearing the horizon, spreading a gorgeous russet glow over there, and looking like a great ball of scarlet fire. Suddenly there was a loud hail from near where the old man had beached the skiff. All of us thought it was he; it sounded unmistakably like his harsh whoop. “Here, boys! Here, boys! Here, boys!” said the bo’s’n shrilly. “Don’t you want us to swim over and git you?”

The Skipper’s Return

But the mate silenced him, with a mild oath, and answered the hail with one loud “Hallo‑o‑o‑o‑o!” Then there was a dead silence. The crew was staring. The cook was the first one to speak: “I would be glad if that was the old man’s death-whoop,” said he. These words fell from the mouth of the sinister little old man in an icy way, sounding like a death-knell indeed. The bo’s’n was next, and he said: “What’s that? Go buy a package o’ cigarettes!” And next the mate: “Oh, shame, to mock the poor old fellow like that! I wouldn’t talk that way about him for worlds; not me!” “Huh!” said the cook. “Cap’n Avery jaws me about smokin’ a few decent little cigarettes, ’n’ then⁠—w’at does he do? He goes ’n’ chaws tobacker!”

By this time we had all decided that it wasn’t the captain at all, and we began talking again as merrily as ever. The mate was looking rather stern now, or, at least, trying to, but something in his eye and the corners of his mouth told me that he enjoyed the jokes of the crew. Then a little speck was descried off through the dark, and, behold! it was the skipper returning, rowing back in the same feeble way. He was welcomed with quite a burst of subdued mocks from the bo’s’n, and then the crew slunk away forward and disappeared in a very business-like way. Even the haughty little cook went forward to the galley pretty fast.

“Don’t you think it’s too late for us to go out in the skiff?” I asked the mate. It was now almost dark, and the glow in the west had faded to a deep russet.

“Oh, there’s no reason why we can’t go out a little,” said Bill, who was evidently quite eager about the idea.

A few moments afterward the old man had come in close, the mate had caught the thrown painter, and the captain had scrambled out of the skiff and up the ladder. “Now, Barbara!” said the mate, with a cunning wink at me. Instantly I had started down the ladder. “Won’t you be cold with nothing but that jumper on?”

“No, I think not,” said I. I climbed down the ladder and got successfully into the boat.

“Do you want to row, Barbara?”

“Surely, mate, unless you do.”

“All right, then⁠—you row.”

A Harbor Excursion

He cast the painter down to me. I caught it, holding the ladder with the other hand. Down came the mate, and we pushed off. It gave me very delightful sensations to come down that ladder. It struck home upon my piratical senses that it must be very much like the sort of ladder by which buccaneers would board other ships. Even going down instead of up, I had the feeling of boarding the ship of an enemy. But my ideas changed when I felt the oars securely in my hands, and I decided to show the mate a little brisk rowing. Feeling quite in my own element, I struck out. The little skiff was so much lighter and happier than the heavy old tubs I am accustomed to rowing that, under my tremendous strokes, we shot along amazingly, in spite of the powerful river current which had seemed to trouble the old man. I can’t explain to you the delight I had in being in a small boat again and having oars grasped firmly in my hands. It seemed strange, too, to see the little waves so very near me. I leaned back with all my weight upon the oars, bringing them down together in strong, quick rhythm. How lightly the skiff danced on! I knew that progress at this rate would draw comment from Bill sooner or later, and, indeed, I didn’t have long to wait: “Say, you sure can row good, Barbara!”

“Well, yes⁠—I’m pretty well used to it. I’ve rowed quite a lot before.”

We agreed to go over towards the place where the captain had landed, but farther upstream, so that we should have a good chance to see the small three-masted schooner which was lying close in to the wharf there. There was quite a wind added to the current; I felt a pleasant resistance, and heard the whispering chuckle of waves beneath the bow. I had been rowing some minutes very briskly, not thinking of anything in particular, and more or less watching the water. Suddenly the mate said: “The schooner looks pretty from here, don’t she, Barbara?” I raised my head and looked back. The Norman D. lay there, in the midst of those unstill waters, like a dream⁠—a thought. Ten times lovelier she seemed than ever before. She raised her head quietly from that small round bay, and shone, in her whiteness, like a beautiful ghost. At one moment she dominated the entire ring of hills like a snow-capped mountain looming from a sea of dark foothills and spruce forests; at another she only blended softly and quietly with the water, like a wraith of the sea; again, she was a drifting sea gull, or a snowy albatross with dark wings. By the magical influence of the dusk, she was quivering and unsteady, like a mirage. And soon she was no more than a lovely white shadow⁠—a flicker⁠—a whim of the twilight. Whatever she was or might be, all images of piracy left me at the sight of her, lying calm and innocent in the dusk.

Not until all these thoughts had passed through me did I answer the mate. “Pretty? I should say she is!”

But now we had almost reached the other schooner. I hadn’t ceased my vigorous rowing, though, in wonder of the Norman D., it had considerably abated.

“Are you getting tired, Barbara?”

The Mysterious Isle

I nearly smiled. If he had known the way I had rowed around and about Lake Sunapee, in a boat which took twice as much strength as this one merely to keep under way⁠—! “Me? No, mate. I don’t get tired so easily as that!” And I gradually speeded up again. The other schooner, the small three-master, seemed, in the soft darkness, much more like a pirate craft than that snow-lily of a Norman D. She had a slender, graceful black hull with a band of yellow around it below the bulwarks, and her name in yellow letters. Alas! I have forgotten what it was. She was a dainty little vessel; the mate, too, said so.

“Well, where would you like to go now, Barbara?”

“What do you say about going over to the island on the other side of the bay?”

“Are you sure you can row that far?”

“Oh, certainly, certainly.”

“You don’t want me to take her?”

“Not unless you want to.”

Here, you see, I made use of this pleasure excursion to get a glimpse of that mysterious little island about which I had become so curious. I wanted to see what that dark beach really was. We crossed the bow of the Norman D. at a slashing rate. (Both of us raised our eyes and saw her huge, high jibboom looming about us, seeming to point at the sky itself.) We neared the island; closer and closer we drew in, until we could hear the breeze whispering in its trees. It loomed darksomely. It is one of my lasting regrets that I didn’t have the chance to land and do some true exploration there, in the approved piratical fashion. I am sure that considerable treasure might have been found. But by this time it was getting pretty dark, and we couldn’t see where we were going. The mate was afraid to let me land, because we didn’t know the place, and we couldn’t see where rocks were. But closer and closer I drew in, rowing very slowly now. I could see jagged rocks thrusting up from the water close to the shore. Now we could almost feel that uncanny dark island, like the breath of a ghost upon our cheeks.

Ahead was that mass of darkness which I once thought had been a beach. Now I still thought that it was a beach, covered with seaweeds. But when I saw what it really was, I was so surprised that I forgot where I was going. It was nothing but a huge, long shelf of dark rock, sloping down gradually from the woods to the sea, almost at the grade of a beach, and almost as smooth as a paved street. It was covered thickly with massive seaweeds, some of them, I could see in the half-light, as much as six feet long; a dense, dark shroud of them, spread like a mermaid carpet over that great rock, with the waves gently lifting and stirring those which overhung into the sea.

The Place of Treasure

This was the final impression of the island. And it served to implant that little place very firmly in my memory. I made a deep resolve that, if I should ever chance to go up Lahave way again, I would at any cost visit that island. We ought to go together there, Alan, with our shovels and picks over our shoulders, in the search for treasure. Can’t you see us doing it? Fifty-fifty! Only we must pick out a sailing vessel to go in. Don’t you think so? Can you conceive of any earthly pleasure in going on a pirate expedition in a steamer? I can’t. In such a case you always want to go in the way you suppose the pirates themselves went. The nearer you can do it to the way they did it, the nearer success you will be. That is a secret which few treasure-hunters know, and you had better keep it fairly close. Such secrets must not be revealed to the world.

Mate Bill and I talked little during this cruise. What we did say was mostly about Bridgewater, and schooners, and the sea, and the old man, and the steward; and I said some things about Lake Sunapee, canoes, rowboats, sailboats, swimming, fishing, and so on. It was very quiet, almost whispered talk, for we were somehow under the influence of the night, and of the beauty of the little landlocked harbor. Also, we were awed by the queenliness of the Norman D., towering there so white that you fancied she was in full moonlight while the rest of the world wasn’t. The water beneath her heel and forefoot was black, very black; yet we could somehow detect brighter shadows moving about and blending into it.

“Isn’t she a very good-looking schooner, mate, for one of her size?”

“Yes, I think she is. She’s one o’ the best-looking three-masters I’ve ever seen. But she’s too high forrard. Now, ’f she was just a little lower forrard, or a bit higher aft, she’d be just right. The stern of any ship ought to be higher than the forrard part, to look right.”

Bill was, in all probability, right about that. But she was so beautiful and quiet there that it seemed almost profane to disturb her by such minute criticism. No more was said until we had got very near her. Because she was at anchor, the side lights (which, by the way, I had so faithfully watched being lit every night while we were under way) were not lit, but three or four very small, bright riding lights were gleaming, up fairly high in the rigging, at bow and stern, mysterious in the darkness, hovering like fireflies with perpetual lights above the vast white hulk.

Again the mate broke the silence: “When you go back to the schooner, Barbara, go close under her stern, will you? There’s a spot there I want to look at.”

“All right, mate.”

A Spectral Moment

“But you’ll have to be careful to allow fer the current.”

“I guess I can manage it.”

Quickly and, I think, rather skillfully, I guided the little skiff under the counter of the Norman D. Not until then could we really see how fast the current was running. It was sweeping past the schooner at a tremendous rate. The shadow of the overhanging stern made the water uncanny and green there. And the gigantic rudder hung there, motionless, dark and awful in its immense curves. I liked to think how often that same rudder had guided the Norman D. through tempestuous waters.

The mate looked at a place on the bottom where the wood seemed to be worn and frayed. Then we pushed on and drew up at the foot of the ladder. There was another boat dancing there, tied by its painter. What could it mean? We made our own skiff fast and climbed up. I felt more than ever like a pirate boarding a ship, as I climbed up that crude vertical ladder with the mate following me. I could almost feel a cutlass between my teeth. But when I remembered the loveliness of the lonely white schooner as she had looked from a little way off in the bay, this feeling vanished entirely.

The next thing was to see who were our guests. The bo’s’n greeted us, and said in a playful whisper: “The old man’s got callers.” Next we heard harsh, racking, scraping sounds from below. “What on earth⁠—?” said I. “The old man’s playing his gramophone.” Well, thought I, there goes one of the cook’s statements! He evidently isn’t too stingy to use the needles, after all. He was playing some horrible talking record, and he seemed quite to be enjoying himself, for I heard loud bursts of whooping laughter every now and then, followed by the happy giggles of some female voice. I could resist no longer, and I stomped heavily down the after doorway of the cabin, striding briskly through, glancing curiously to right and left as I passed, and then stomping out the forward door. I beheld very strange things. The captain was sitting beside the gramophone, laughing and beaming all over, and in the two rooms of the cabin was quite an audience of old and young, with two or three giggling girls and children. I must confess that I resented such an intrusion into the Norman D. I felt that these people could not belong to the adventures that had surrounded me for the past several days. No; they were landsmen⁠—they had no business here.

Confabulation

I fled forrard, in company with Mate Bill and my shipmate. The cook was in the galley, and we gathered there, a jolly company, and had a regular “go” of it. The boys⁠—Richardson, Irish Bill, Roy, and Bob⁠—had taken possession of the skiff and started briskly ashore. Trust them to take the first opportunity! The cook was disgusted with them, as he always was. He said it was ridiculous that four full-grown men should try to jam themselves into that skiff, built for not more than two. In his day such foolishness wouldn’t have been allowed. This deserting all duty and running ashore at the first chance made him sick, he said. Then he fell to arguing with the mate as to which could do the worse things to the old man, and which could strike the harder blow. The mate insisted that the steward couldn’t make him feel anything, and the cook said he had made many a better man feel a great deal. This talk continued for a long time. Among other things, we heard once more the tale of how the Chinese cook had chased Captain Avery ashore with a drawn cutlass, and the tale of how the cook was seasick in his bunk for ten days, and how the quart of cold tea cured him. Those two were his favorites. After that discussion was ended, and the landlubbers had gone back to land, the three of us went aft, leaving the cook to shut up the galley for the night. There was a little more friendly but insignificant talk with the mate, out in the frosty starlight; then we turned in.

For about the first time during that whole trip, we slept steady⁠—that is, with no rolling. Although at first I missed that cradling motion, I slept as soundly as ever.

In the morning I got out on deck early. The harbor and the hills around it looked, by broad day-light, twice as lovely as before. How blue that water, and how like ancient towns the two little villages, lying there amid those green, green hills!

A little way up the stream was a sort of thing which looked like a large, fat bell buoy. I was sure I hadn’t seen it in the evening. I asked the mate about it, and “Blamed if I know” was all I got. Captain Avery didn’t understand it, either. All of a sudden the top of it threw forth a glorious shower of red sparks, accompanied by a long fiz‑z‑z‑z‑z‑z‑z! and the thing, whatever it was, started slowly churning down the river, lifting its head high like some monstrous ancient dragon or a crocodile of some extinct and forgotten species. As it came closer and closer, with a curious gliding motion, we saw that it was a sort of raft with an engine, laden with mud and clay. A mud-scow!

Painting under Difficulties

Two small tugs came churning downstream. The old man hailed them both through his long speaking-trumpet, and asked each if it were the tug that was to tow him up. Both replied that others were coming down shortly. Meanwhile the mate had started mixing up a dark green paint for the waterways, and the captain was standing over his shoulder, pestering the life out of him, and telling him that the color wasn’t dark enough, or that it wasn’t bright enough, and that it needed a touch of this, and that, and the other. The mate was mighty glad when he got the bucket prepared to the satisfaction of the old man. (Incidentally, he insisted that there was altogether too much of the color mixed for the waterways, and the mate obstinately persisted that there wasn’t too much. When the old man got out of the way for a moment, he repeated slyly to me his former statement that if the old fellow could have his way “he’d make one can o’ paint go for the hull ship.”) He took the can down by the port waterways and started painting, but the old man came up and said something critical about it. This was the last straw. The mate deliberately laid down his brush, left the paint-can, and strode over to where I was sitting, without so much as another look at the captain. Then said he: “P’isonous old wretch! Always interferin’, as usual! Well, all I can say is, if he wants me to take it easy, I sure will.” And he did.

But now the crew were gathering up forward to tell their adventures to the mate and the cook. I wanted to be in on that, and I went skipping up forward, too. Bob was the chosen orator of the party, and he began, with strange chuckles and squeaks and scrapes and rasps, to tell the tale.

“How many new wimmenfolks did you pick up?” asked the cook.

“I dunno why,” replied the bo’s’n, “but all the wimmenfolk seemed t’ be mighty feared of us. We was goin’ along, when we come up behind a woman with a big basket, ’n’ she took one good look behind her, ’n’ then ducked into the first doorway. When we passed, we looked back, ’n’ there she was agin, walkin’ behind us. Well, a little further on we come up to two girls walkin’ along. ’N’ they did jist the same thing. They ducked right into the first doorway, ’n’ waited awhile, till we went by. ’N’ then, when we looked back agin, there they was, comin’ along behind.”

“Pshaw!” said the mate, “you’ll get all the gals in Bridgewater so skeered of us that when I go ashore they won’t come anywhere near me. I don’t go ashore like that, skeering all the wimmenfolk out o’ their wits. I go ashore like a gen’leman, I do. W’at do you ’xpect, goin’ ashore lookin’ like bums, you?”

“Say, Bill,” interposed Bob, again, “you’re no more a gen’leman when y’ go ashore ’n I am. I got a new suit, I have, ’n’ new shoes, too.”

Resurrection of the Mudhook

“So have I,” said Roy, “and a brand-new four-in-hand tie.”

“Me, too,” said Richardson, “’n’ a tie-pin, too.”

“Who give it to you?” said Roy.

“M’ best girl.”

“Humph!” said Bill, emphatically. “I can take the shine out o’ you all, when I make up m’ mind to ’t.”

But now events were occurring aft, and I scampered back again. A third tug was chugging its way slowly down the river, and the old man had his speaking-trumpet all ready and was mustering up his whoops to hail it. It proved to be the right tug; and the skipper shouted to the mate, up forrard, to get the mudhook up.

“Get up the mudhook, boys!” trilled out the bo’s’n, in such a voice that I wonder the skipper didn’t hear him. I ran forward again, at this, to see the anchor come up⁠—something I always loved. Somehow it wasn’t, this time, so ghostlike and awesome as on the day when, out of sight of land, we had hauled it up through the fog. But there is always one moment, just before the arms reach out of the water, when it reminds one of a skeleton.

The tug was now rapidly making fast on our port side. (Richardson, I noticed, stuck most carefully to his painting of the bulwarks.) When the skipper of this tug jumped aboard, I fairly caught my breath with amazement. He was exactly the same sort of man as the other tug master⁠—wild, kindly, huge, Dutch, and another “champeen” spitter; and with the same swaggering, swanky, bossy, familiar way. He also recognized Captain Avery, and greeted him in almost the same way as the other, calling him, also, “Cap.” Captain Avery recognized him, too, and again we watched the two sitting there in a most friendly way, asking each other how this person was, and that was, and whether they remembered how they once changed watchchains, and saying how glad they were to see each other again, and one asking how the voyage down was, and the other replying that “we got caught i’ the fog fer a few days⁠—wet, nasty fog, ye knaow, with a sloppy, nasty roll going.”

Up the Lahave

The new arrival was even more of a champeen spitter than the other. While he was steering the schooner (for Captain Avery was so obliging as to let him steer, which the other appreciated), he would simply turn his head and spit clean and clear over the bulwarks. It was Homeric. Again the mate filled my ears with his non-approval, and he talked considerably about what a mess the fellow was making all over the deck. “He seems t’ be pretty good at it, though,” said Bill. “Poor old Cap’n Avery has t’ go clean t’ the side o’ the schooner when he wants t’ spit.”

I was glad to be starting on this little run up the river, though I had secretly hoped to explore that mysterious island early in the morning. We went around bend after bend of the stream, always seeing new bends ahead. Sometimes we passed pine and spruce woods; sometimes there was nothing but hills; sometimes there were fields and orchards of apple trees, or country villages, or yellow and gray beaches. Once we passed a place where a small schooner was under construction. I longed to stay and examine her closely. She was a very deep-bottomed boat, not more than a hundred feet long, yet apparently destined to be a three-master. I should have loved to see her finished. A three-master of that size must look quite like a fairy ship.

It seemed no time at all before we rounded the last great curve of the river, and saw, ahead of us, Bridgewater spread out, one dense mass of houses and higher buildings, crowded together like an army. I hated to see the proud and strong Norman D., her sails down and furled, being towed, pushed, dragged, hauled, up the river by such s puny, dirty tug, like a prisoner or a wrecked ship, as if she were incapable of taking care of herself; she who took care of herself so nobly when there was wind, and she had sea room!

Well, here we were at the end of the interesting part of our journey. Our piratical adventure had ended. A month before, I had had not the slightest idea that it could even begin. Three weeks before, I had only the faintest hopes; it was then like a dream somewhere in the future. Two weeks before, I had longed for it and clamored for it. And then it had suddenly become real and tangible, almost clutchable. Eleven days before, I was wild because I couldn’t believe it. Ten days ago, I had started; it was real, after all! All this went through my mind quickly and silently. How mysterious is Time, and how strange in its doings⁠—the same thing ahead of you one day, behind you the next! Here we were in Bridgewater.

The tug took us in to the wharf on the eastern side of the town, just ahead of a schooner very much like the Norman D. She was another three-master, with a black painted hull and ornaments, and her name in yellow letters, very fancily decorated with yellow curves and scrolls. Her name was Hazel L. Myra.

The Lure of the Crosstrees

By the wharf were sky-high piles of lath, bound up in great bundles like shocks of corn. It was the next cargo of the Norman D., all ready for New York. The wharf was dirty and disused, as was this part of the town. Three boys, street urchins in rags, came strolling by to look at the new schooner. A couple of laughing, robust farmers passed and spoke to the Captain. The day was unmercifully hot, and I felt rather weary and depressed, and longed to be out at sea again, in a good brisk sailing breeze, with the whitecaps roaring and looking like wild white warhorses.

Suddenly there came a faint, warm breath of wind upon my port cheek. The tug left us and chugged away, muddying the water with her propeller. Then an impulse came over me⁠—an irresistible impulse to climb, and climb, and climb; up on to the crosstrees, up to the sky. I could no more tell you why than I could say why I knew I wanted to climb the mainmast rigging rather than any other. And this was not, strangely enough, for the sake of “showing off” to the boys and farmers. Many times I have climbed for that reason⁠—to show that I was not a landlubber⁠—but this was for no earthly reason at all; I simply wanted to climb. And climb I did! I went up like a cat, a squirrel. I never stopped until I reached my well-beloved crosstrees. Then I sat down, and thought and thought, looking down all the time upon the people so far below me. And I thought of them, and of how small and insignificant they were, like grains of pepper in the pepper-caster. I laughed at them proudly. And yet I was no less insignificant myself, from down there! I was only a chipmunk frisking up into the branches.

When one is sitting on the crosstrees, one is in an entirely separate world. Perhaps you feel that you’re in Heaven⁠—that is, as to position; perhaps you are a god on Olympus, looking down upon the world. However you feel, I think there is always an idea that someone ought to be on the crosstrees of the mast next to you. I don’t know quite why, but I always had that sense. Then it would be entirely like a separate world: two would make a vast population. You would look across to each other, and nod, and smile, as if to say some secret that no one else knew anything about; and it would be so strange to be friendly over such a chasm! That was how the ancient Greek gods and goddesses must have felt, alone with each other on Olympus, looking down on a world so far below, and yet having a world of their own right with them. You begin to get a sense⁠—a vague idea⁠—of the immensity of space. It is strange what a difference sixty feet can make. It is the same on a mountain-top.

Shore Leave

I came down from the mainmast crosstrees, feeling sorry to be at Bridgewater. My shipmate was in the act of scrambling over the side of the schooner. Shortly afterward he disappeared upon the country road, evidently going to find out about trains. Then the steward suggested that the mate should go ashore to get the mail, if there were any. The captain had gone ashore immediately upon touching the wharf, and the mate was free to do whatever he liked. It was agreed that he should go up to the post office, and I with him.

The mate started to change his clothes, but the steward stopped him, saying: “Oh, shucks, Bill! go as you are.”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Sure! go ahead.”

“I niver yet went ashore lookin’ this way. I’d be ashamed to.”

“Oh, never mind, mate,” said I. “You go as you are, and I’ll go as I am, and we’ll have a bully time of it.”

Agreed. We scrambled over the side, and felt the ground beneath our feet again. It was very strange. Even when the schooner was in port and safe out of the wind, there was a feeling about her that the ground doesn’t have; an air of unsteadiness. She feels like a ship always. Which the ground doesn’t. At first I was puzzled. I walked slowly, because it was so strange. Presently I picked up my pace and strode on at a great rate⁠—but rolling from side to side with a real sailor swagger as I walked. It wasn’t put on at all; it was real. I can’t describe to you how queer that was. I had always, always dreamed in a vague way about going to sea, and returning brawny, sunburned, and with a sailor walk. And at last it was true, though like a dream.

So we strode merrily along, Bill in his ragged sailor clothes, with the same hat on his head that he had worn all through the trip (except in the fog, when he had worn his sou’wester). His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, as they always were, and his shirt was unbuttoned three buttons at the neck, as it always was (except on extra hot days, when it was open clear down to his belt). I was in my gay old sailor rags, and I had on a sunburn that would have made a beach bonfire look pale. And both of us were striding along the road, side by side, with such a sailor roll, and such an I’ve-just-come-home-from-sea,-sir look, that no one could have mistaken us for anything but sailors. I only wished I had a bit of tattooing to display, as Mate Bill had. He had a very elegant full-rigged ship on the inside of his left forearm, almost buried in brawn and brownness. He told me, with an air of pride, that it had cost him two dollars to have it put on.

Shipmates Ashore

If I had been walking, in silks and satins, beside the King of England, I could not have felt prouder than I did then. It was the supreme moment of my life. We pushed on, and everyone looked at us, as I knew they would. And somehow I could forget most successfully who I really was, and be neither more nor less than Mate Bill’s shipmate. Lustily and rollingly we walked, and there were strange moments when, as I looked ahead at the dusty road, curving into the woods, it seemed to be waving gently up and down, just as the deck or the end of the flying jibboom had waved in our rolling days. There were times when the whole world waved up and down, making me feel quite dizzy⁠—much more so than at any time on the schooner herself. The strangeness of solid ground! We walked, Mate Bill and I.

We crossed a bridge into the main part of the town. Here were fashionable folk everywhere. We walked steadily, looking neither to left nor right, but rolling like two ships in a high cross swell. Everyone stared. But I was not myself then at all. I didn’t come of even a decent family. I was a common sailor, and Mate Bill’s shipmate. I let them stare. I didn’t have the smallest apology to offer, to myself or anyone else, for my appearance. I held my head high and felt proud⁠—oh, so proud!⁠—of walking beside Mate Bill. A common sailor was higher in rank than the King of England. I was higher in rank than the Queen of it. So there we walked, the King and the Queen⁠—Bill brown and hearty and tattooed, I scarlet, ragged, and proud.

For a moment or two we paused on the bridge and leaned over the railing, looking down into the water. Then we turned to look back at the Norman D. where she lay on the other side of the river. That was another of those supreme moments. Now we had changed from two merry, laughing comrades, walking lustily along, looking neither to right nor left, to two shipmates, two common sailors, stopping together on the streets to spin a yarn and gossip a bit. A couple of girls passed by. They nudged each other, and giggled.

The Staring Lady

We went on, with people staring and nudging each other on all sides upon our approach. We neared the post office. It was jammed full of school children, girls, jesting boys, older women. Here was the supreme chance! We went up those small, long steps two by two, instead of one at a time, and rolled our way into the place, still looking neither to left nor right, but pushing on right lustily through the crowd. We entered, the King, the Queen⁠—he lusty and brown, and with the heartiest, merriest, most piratical sailor face you ever saw; she scarlet as fire, ragged, and very cheerful. It was “shipmate” this, “shipmate” that, all the time; I took great pains that more than one person should hear us call each other so. We elbowed, yarning merrily, through the crowd, and it certainly did make them stare to see us striding in that way, as free and easy as if we had been sailors and shipmates all our born days. In a loud voice Bill asked if the mail had come in. It hadn’t, and it wasn’t due for a quarter of an hour.

While Bill was asking this, I was standing just behind him, my hands on my hips, looking as full of the sea as I could. Suddenly I became aware of a lady, tall, slender, and dressed in black from head to foot, standing near me in a corner of the room. She had a curious, small, kind face, and she smiled at me so hard that I had to give her a smile in return. No doubt she, like all the rest, thought it strange to see me with Mate Bill, who, from the exposed inside of his left forearm, was certainly a sailor. People, looking at us, would feel us entirely different from what we were. They would see a very sunburned, ragged little girl in company with a hearty sailor. That was delightful, too⁠—especially as that same sunburned little girl was so free and gay with the sailor, so shipmate-ish; but it was not nearly so delightful as my own idea that I actually was Bill’s shipmate. Anyway, I didn’t care; I just didn’t care.

Somehow, after I had turned my head away from the woman, something within me said that she was staring hard. I felt rather as if she shouldn’t stare quite so hard. It was all right to have her look at me in surprise and smile in a friendly way⁠—that was just what I wanted; but should she keep her eyes fixed and fixed and fixed on me like that? I couldn’t resist looking again, out of the corner of my eye. She was staring. I dropped her another smile. Then I forced myself to forget her, and looked away.

Now Bill spoke up: “What’s the use of waitin’ in here fer fifteen minutes? I know I’m eager enough to get out in the air. What do you say we stroll by the river a bit, ’n’ then come back later?”

“All right with me, shipmate,” said I. “A little fresh air wouldn’t come amiss, now you speak of it. Let’s go.”

The Point of View

I spoke this quietly enough so that no one could hear⁠—all except the “shipmate.” Then, after one parting look at the woman, who was still staring, I followed Mate Bill out through the crowd, and down the little steps two by two, and down the street, and out by the river. There we stopped and strolled back and forth, as he had suggested, and talked, and went out on the bridge to look down into the water again. Soon we went back. The woman was not there, and I felt considerably relieved about that, because something in her small, quiet, kind eyes made me feel uncomfortable. They were like winking glass beads.

Mate Bill asked, in a hearty voice: “Any mail fer th’ schooner Norman D., the schooner that just come in here today?”

The girl sorted out the various mail for different schooners. There seemed to be a great deal for another one, but none for us.

“That’s funny,” said Bill. “Huh! All that trouble fer nothin’! Well, it’s been a nice walk.”

It had. I didn’t feel in the least disappointed about the absence of mail, but I wouldn’t have missed the walk for the world.

Adventures were still to befall us. We walked along, and⁠—

“Did you see that woman in the post office, Barbara?” said Bill.

“You mean the one who was standing over in the corner and staring?”

“Yes. That’s her. Wasn’t she staring, though!”

“I reckon she thought we were a couple of rowdies.”

“Well, we look it.”

“We certainly do, shipmate! But we look like what we are⁠—sailors.”

“I never went to town lookin’ so in all m’ born days.”

“No, but we were just like a couple of sailors, weren’t we, you and I?”

“Yes⁠—but I don’t like t’ go ashore with you, lookin’ so awful.”

“But I like you to, shipmate. It wouldn’t have been fun if you and I had dressed up. We wouldn’t have been sailors then at all.”

“Ssh, Barbara! That’s her ahead!”

It was⁠—it was, unmistakably, the tall black woman. We strode along until we caught up with her, which, at such a gait, we did very shortly. I gave her a brief nod and a smile of recognition as we passed; otherwise I looked neither to left nor right. The funny part of all this was that, though I was amazingly conspicuous in my rags and tatters, with my face a bonfire of sun and sea, and such a crazy sailor roll, I still wasn’t in the least embarrassed.

Rencontre

So we rolled past until we had gone the whole length of the long bridge and come back to the Norman D.’s side of the river. We were stopped by the railroad track, for a long, long freight train had started across it, going very slowly. There was nothing to do but stop and wait, and talk as best we could in the terrific din. It was a long time that we stood there; and, just as we were beginning to think that the train would never come to an end, we felt someone approaching slowly and calmly behind us, and I felt a pair of beady eyes fixed on me⁠—someone staring. I looked around quickly, and there was “her.” Now the meeting was inevitable. Someone had to say something.

“How do you do?” said she, in a calm voice.

“Hello!” said I, heartily, and “Hello!” said Bill.

Then there was a rather awkward pause.

“I thought you were a little boy,” said she, finally, “until I saw your pigtails.” She had a curious accent which seemed to be universal among the Nova Scotians.

“Well, perhaps I do look it,” said I. “We came up on the schooner⁠—just got in this morning.”

“Are ye from Yankeeland?” said she, looking at me curiously.

“I am,” said I. “From Connecticut.”

“And you say you came up on a schooner?”

“Yes, the Norman D.”

“Hm! That must have been fun. Did you enjoy it?”

“I’ll say!”

“And you?” she said, turning to Bill. “Are you the captain?”

“No, first mate,” said Bill, heartily enough.

“Mate,” I echoed.

Another pause. Then: “Were you the only girl aboard?”

“Yes, I was, thank Heaven!” said I.

“You were glad not to have anyone else with you?”

“Indeed yes. But, say: don’t you want to walk down with us and see the Norman D? She’s mighty pretty!”

“No, I can’t now.”

“Well, you’ll find her there for quite a long time, if you ever want to see her.”

“About three weeks,” said Bill.

“Thank you,” said she.

The train had now gone past, and we three stepped along in company. Before many steps Bill and I passed her. She minced sedately along a short way, and then, with a final glassy look and a friendly wave of her hand, she disappeared into a little old house. Bill and I quietly returned to the schooner and climbed aboard.

A Resignation

There we found quite a state of excitement. The steward was hopping up and down the deck on one leg and saying: “The old man wants t’ see you, Barbara. You better go aft ’n’ see w’at he wants. I think the custom-house man is here.” Aft I went, and I had to open up my hand-baggage, and to show my birth-certificate. The old man, by the way, had gone for the mail, and had evidently got it during the time when Bill and I were waiting outside. My certificate was among it.

Out on deck, everyone had letters, and they were reading them to each other. The mate took his away in a corner and spent a very long time over them. Then he told me that they were from his wife. “I got seven letters from her when we was in New Haven,” said he.

And now a sad event was happening in the crew: for Richardson was resigning. He scrubbed up, put on shore clothes, and finally went aft to the captain⁠—probably to get his wages. He returned forrard with beaming contentment.

“I guess we weren’t good enough to you, Dick,” said Roy, mournfully.

“Oh, you fellows were all mighty good to me,” said Richardson, almost in tears. Then he hopped off and went ashore to catch a train.

How many times I scrambled up and down the rigging, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know exactly why I did it, but something was telling me that it was mighty near my parting with the Norman D., and, though I was likely to climb to other crosstrees in my life, I shouldn’t have much more chance to swing my legs on those of the schooner which had brought me to Nova Scotia.

It was Saturday. At last my shipmate returned aboard, and said that we shouldn’t be able to get a train down until Monday. So we had the prospect of another day in Bridgewater. We decided to stay at a hotel, for we were tired of hearing the captain’s complaints about sleeping on the couch; also, the charm of the schooner was lost when we were not under way. For the first time during the whole trip, I put on ladylike clothes, and appeared in the midst of the crew again. They stared like so many fish. The mate said, in a voice which sounded a little wistful: “But you didn’t dress up that way when you went ashore this mornin’!”

I hoped his feelings weren’t hurt. I said: “No, I didn’t, because I thought it would be more fun walking through the streets looking like born sailors and shipmates.”

“Well, I think I like you better in your good clothes,” said he.

“Oh, NO!” I protested, in frank disappointment.

“Well, perhaps not,” he yielded. “You were all right as a little sailor boy, anyhow.”

A Gift without Thanks

So we went off ashore. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was my last glimpse of Mate Bill as he is and ought to be. The truly last time I saw him, it was not Mate Bill at all.

We found a good hotel and deposited our luggage. Then we went out for a walk. We picked the back roads of Bridgewater and headed as much for open country as we could. The Nova Scotian people are more friendly than any I have ever seen. Everyone nodded and smiled and said “Good day!” to us, as though we had lived there all our lives. As we came out upon a long country road that led out toward a rather high hill, we passed a house where an old, sweet-looking man was mowing the lawn. We had been picking and examining the Nova Scotian wildflowers, and as soon as the old man saw that, he left his lawn-mower where it was and ran off into the back yard for a moment. When he came back he had a great bunch of pansies of gorgeous velvety colors, brighter and glossier than any I have ever seen. He gave them at once to me, saying: “I see you were lookin’ fer flowers, so I brought you some. You don’t need to thank me, ’cause I’m so deef I couldn’t hear, anyhow.” We were touched.

The flowers have an extraordinary brilliance there. Such pansies! And the columbine! that is the most splendid of all. Almost everyone has it⁠—great double blossoms, almost as large as tiger lilies, of all the colors of earth, ranging from dark blue to bright yellow, lavender, pink. We stopped beside someone’s garden, where a man was down on his hands and knees weeding a flower-bed. We spoke to him in a friendly way about his garden. Immediately he got up and picked us a great bunch of the exquisite columbine, with some pansies. It seems as if the Nova Scotians make the very best of their short summers, cramming into their gardens every flower that can possibly find an inch of soil to fasten its roots in.

The next day, Sunday, we went down to say good-bye to those of the Norman D. In our forgetfulness, we never thought about its being Sunday until, as we drew very near the schooner and were walking along on the railroad tracks, we met the crew face to face. We stepped back amazed. Bill, Bob, Roy, and Irish Bill, all marching along in a body, all with new dark blue suits, all with newly shined shoes, all in clean white shirts and ties! Every atom of their charm, their character, had vanished out of them. Before, they were sailors. Now they were nothing⁠—nothing at all. Even the mate was considerably less piratical and delightful.

Shore-going Togs

It threatened rain, and the mate said he had decided not to go ashore at all, but to return to the schooner with us. “I don’t want to get my clothes wet,” said he. Care-free Mate Bill worrying about getting his clothes wet! But the other three were determined to go on to town to “show off.” We left them, and went to the schooner with the mate. Even the steward was slightly dressed up. He had on a clean apron, or a clean blue cotton shirt, or another pair of trousers; he looked different, somehow. The captain was dressed up like a young boy; and he looked like a monkey, a positive monkey, in his shore clothes.

It began to rain hard and furiously. We had just time to duck into the cabin. The three of the crew who had persisted in heading towards town came running back at full speed and leaped over the side of the schooner. We had quite a party down there. The mate took our blankets and rolled them into a beautiful roll, marline-hitching them with stout cord, and tying them as only a sailor could. Even a professional mountain-climber could do no better. Then I went with him in to his bunk, and we had a farewell talk. There was a snapshot on the wall of his little room⁠—a snapshot of a girl. The mate indicated it, saying to me:

“You know, my wife, she’s awful funny, and she sends me all sorts o’ things, just to tease me. She sent me that picture while we was down there in New Haven.”

“Who is she?”

“Oh, she’s a girl I used to go with. I went with her three years. Yes, I had pretty strong intentions of hookin’ up with that girl!”

“What happened that you didn’t?”

“Well, I met t’ other one. Her father had died, ’n’ she was livin’ there all alone, ’n’ so I went to her instead.”

“Have you seen the other girl since?”

“Yes, a few times. She give me the dickens fer goin’ to the other, ’n’ that was all there was to it.”

Then he talked about his career. He gave a sigh and said: “If I had my hull life t’ live over, I’d do it powerful diff’rent⁠—that is, if I knowed as much as I know now.”

“Would you go to sea, mate?”

“Not if I knowed as much as I know now.”

“What do you think you would do?”

“Well, I reckon I’d ’a’ been a barber. That’s a very pleasant little job. But bein’ a sailor is good in some ways. I keep thinkin’ I’m goin’ t’ resign at th’ next port, but somethin’ about it⁠—I dunno, but I seem t’ stick. It’s a good, healthy life, out in the open, ’n’ that’s somethin’.”

Self-conscious

We went back to our hotel for supper, with an agreement that the mate was to run up that way later, when he went ashore, and that we should be on the lookout for him about six o’clock. The captain was to come up, too, to write that note which he had promised so long ago⁠—a note for identification, stating that we were his passengers on the schooner, to be handed to any officials who might challenge us in Boston. We were sitting in the hotel, talking, about six o’clock, and watching for Bill. Sure enough, we saw him striding along, in company with Irish Bill. As for the skipper, we didn’t see him. But the two Bills went straight on, appearing not even to see the place. I darted out the door like a flash and called out “Hi! Mate!” in a loud and hearty voice. Several persons turned at the sound of that “Mate!”

I asked him why he hadn’t stopped. He said he thought it was much too grand a place for the likes of him (he was in his half-sailor, half-shore clothes, which were at least better than his real shore clothes). I said that was nonsense, and asked him if he didn’t want to come in. He agreed briefly, though still feeling a little shy, and Irish Bill went on walking up the street, alone.

“Where’s Bill going?” I asked.

“I dunno. Bill’s a queer lad, he is.”

Then my shipmate appeared, and the three of us set out for a walk together. We were discussing the old man and wondering where he was, when suddenly we met him face to face. “I’ve just been up-town for a little walk,” said he. We turned and went back toward the hotel. My shipmate was extremely eager not to let the old man slip between his fingers and once more dodge writing that note. We went in, and I sat with Mate Bill while the old man wrote it. I saw him throw it away at least twice as if dissatisfied.

As for Mate Bill and me, our talk ran on to the jackknife which I had promised him.

“I’ll send it up to Bridgewater as soon as I get home, mate,” said I.

“That will be fine, Barbara,” said he. “I’ll be awful glad to have it. But listen, don’t send it to my home address, will you?” (He had given me his home address before.) “Be sure not to send it there, Barbara,” he went on, very earnestly, “Because, you see, my wife ’d get the package, ’n’ she’d open it, ’n’ w’at would she find but a jackknife? ’n’ from ‘Barbara’! She wouldn’t rillize that you was jist a little shipmate o’ mine. She’d think you was a girl that I’d been goin’ with, ’n’ she’d be jealous, she would. I know how it is, ’cause I got in trouble with her that way once before. I’d get in wrong with her, you see, ’n’ I wouldn’t like to have that. So don’t, will you, Barbara?”

Last Words with Bill

“No, I promise you I won’t, mate,” said I, in the same earnest tone. “I’ll send it right up to Bridgewater, and as soon as I get home, too, so that it’ll get up here to you before the schooner sails.”

The rest of our conversation was on the same theme⁠—warning me against sending the knife to his home address⁠—until the end, when a strange thing happened.

“Was your mother worried ’bout havin’ you come on the schooner?” said Bill.

“No! Why should she be?”

“Well, I thought, perhaps, you bein’ the on’y woman aboard, she might git worried. But she didn’t need to, anyhow. I know one that wouldn’t let you be imposed upon⁠—and that one is⁠—me!”

By this time the captain had finished, and it was just when they were going out the door that Bill said: “Good-bye, shipmate!” and I replied: “Good-bye, shipmate!”

And that was the last I saw of Bill.

As for the captain’s note, it ran like this:

June 25th/27

This is to certify that Miss Barbara Follett and Mr. Bryn were my guests on board the sch Norman D from New Haven conn to Bridgewater N S and are returning home via the Yarmouth boat to Boston

C. Avery Master Schn. Norman D

But it wasn’t the Yarmouth boat that we took: it was the train. The next morning early, we started off by train and rode until we came to Digby. From Digby we took a little steamer across the Bay of Fundy to St. John, New Brunswick. For about three hours of the afternoon we steamed across the great bay. But there was no crew to talk to, no rigging. I couldn’t have steered had I asked. Nothing was familiar. The wind blew my skirts so that I could hardly take a step⁠—for there was a violent sailing breeze, though nothing like our gale. I wish we could have gone across in the schooner, before a whitecapped sea like this. It was glorious, except for the steadiness of the little ship, and the stiffness and unfamiliarity of it. The exit to Digby Harbor was heavenly⁠—even lovelier than Lahave, if that were possible. It was very much bigger, and just as you thought you had the open sea ahead of you, you saw two great green arms of land⁠—something like those at Lahave, but longer and slenderer and even more like arms⁠—reaching out from the mainland and all but meeting.

Neque Vela, neque Armamenta

We steamed out between those two long arms, through the narrow opening. For a long time afterward we could look back and back at the green against the vivid sky; then we were out of sight of land, and alone in the sea. We passed one little fisherman very much like the one which we had seen on the fifth day of the voyage in the schooner⁠—the day the sailing breeze had just begun to come. I was delighted to see a sailing vessel again. Almost as soon as we were out of sight of Digby we came in sight of the hills and mountains in back of St. John⁠—billowing dark blue hills, reaching up and up above the horizon; and at last we saw the city itself. A few minutes later the steamer chugged into St. John, and we disembarked.

There isn’t anything to say about the place. My mind was dwelling wholly on the voyage just past; everything else was unimportant. We took the train from there, staying on it all night, and in the morning arrived in Boston. From Boston we took the train to New Haven, and arrived there four hours later. The only interesting thing that happened in the whole train ride was that, passing over the border between New Brunswick and Maine, the custom-house official strode through the train asking for identifications. He was very pleasant about it. I showed Captain Avery’s amusing little note, and Mr. Holbrook’s affidavit, useful at last.

Mother was to meet us at New Haven. We came walking up through the station with our luggage⁠—including the roll of blankets tied by Bill, which had stayed faithfully tied through thick and thin on the train. Mother said afterward that she could see nothing but my glowing scarlet face and two rows of great white teeth as I grinned. Sun, wind, and salt sea had left their mark upon me!

Everything I had once anticipated and dreamed of took place. I found myself twice as strong and hearty as before. I swanked, and I still rolled just a little, though that had pretty well worn off by this time. I told my stories, in a gay manner and in a hearty sailor voice, all the way home and for days afterward⁠—all as I had often planned.

When I ran up the steps at home, the first person I saw was my friend Mr. Rasmussen. I ran to him at once with huge sailor leaps, and said, shaking him warmly by the hand: “Thanks, Mr. Rasmussen, for sending me to Nova Scotia! Weather? We had thick fog and calm most of the time⁠—but one good, ripping northeast gale.”

“Well, you sure look husky enough to have been a sailor. Thick fog ’n’ calm, did you have? And nor’east wind? Hm! I kinda reckoned that was what you was getting.”

Fidem non Fefelli

The next afternoon I kept my promise to Mate Bill by going in town to buy him a bully stout jackknife. I wrote him a shipmate-ish letter at the same time, asking him, among other things, to keep a lookout for a poncho and some other things which I had managed to leave on the schooner. I received a letter from him shortly in answer. I wrote to him again, and received another letter. But when I wrote a third time, asking him to keep on writing to me, because I didn’t want to lose track of him, and because I did want to sail with him again sometime, I got no answer; nor have I heard from him since. But here, hoping you will not ridicule them in spite of their imperfections, are his letters. It is delightful to me to have them⁠—the evidence that I have at last made acquaintance with a true sailor. The first is as follows:

Bridgewater July 4 1929

Well shipmate

I reicived your letter was glad to hear that you rive home saft again well Barbara your things you was speaking about they are here the old man sed he would send them to you From new york

we leave here July 5 for new york. I will soon Be hearing the sail flap again the old man is no better the steward and him still talk fit some times But I gest it will be talk I would like to see you here to go Back with us

I no you like to go to sea what king of a trip did you have gone home

So long from your shipmate Bill

And here is the second:

New york July th 30 1927

well Barbara

I reicived the jack-knife sent I came in hear I had left Bridgewater befor the knife reach there so they sent it to me here

so now I am trying to think how I am gone to return the gif

we was 16 days comming over hear we had fight fog all the way over and lots of head wind I thought we was never gone to get here Barbara I am sending your things to you I spoke to the old man about them and he made no after to send then so I thought I would send them to you

I hop you get them all right

we will be here about a week longer yet for we leave I don’t no where we are gone from hear yet

well So long Barbara from your shipmate

W H m

Good-bye, Shipmates!

There they are. W. H. M. is William Henry McLeod. There is my shipmate. I’ve told you all about him that I know⁠—and all that I know about the trip.

And so, Alan, with hearty, piratical good wishes for the best of luck⁠—good-bye!

Your shipmate,