The Voyage of the Norman D.

The Cottage in the Woods Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire July 23, 1927

Dear Alan:

Thank you a lot for your very mysterious letter from Honolulu. I wish I could have been with you. But the Congressmen and their families must have been a bore. I could have helped you concoct a regular mutiny, and, with me aboard, you may be sure it would have been done in a piratical way. I should have accosted the desperate-looking sailor and become acquainted with him. That would have been the first step.

Well, I feel tempted to sail full force into my own adventures, even if they are not so exciting and mysterious as your own. For the adventures that have befallen me since you set sail for Sulu are wilder and rasher than anything you ever heard me tell you before.

You know very well (better than anyone, I think) my profound devotion to pirates and things piratical. And you know, too, about the pirate tales which I started a little while before you went away⁠—very bloody, exciting, villainous, profane stories, were they not? I had such a great many ideas for pirate stories (and more and more ideas kept showing their faces), I finally decided that my pirates would make a much greater showing if I blended all the short tales I had written, and a great many more that I had in my mind, into one moderately long story. No sooner said than I started to work.

I found, in the course of the very first few pages, that I was getting involved in considerable difficulties. There had to be ships, that was certain; but I found that I knew almost nothing about ships. So I laid the story aside a little while, turned to Webster, and buried my face in the dictionary. I looked up every nautical term that I could think of, whether I knew it or not. I looked up nautical words found in books I had read. I studied the list of nautical words and their meanings at the end of The Dauber. Then the sails bothered me. I needed to know something about sails, and about different kinds of rigs, and about the fastenings of the sails and the names of them all. So I turned to the word sail, and⁠—lo and behold! exactly what I wanted. Accompanying the word sail were two pictures, one of the schooner or fore-and-aft rig, and the other of the beautiful square-rig, each sail numbered and named below. I fell to work with great zeal, and learned topsails, topgallants, royals, skysails, jibs, staysails, and all the rest of them; I can reel them off now like second nature.

Rudimentary Nautics

Then I realized that I didn’t know much about rigging and ropes⁠—the uses, the names of them. I found just what I wanted under the word ship. It was a picture of a ship in diagram, showing all the principal ropes, spars, and yards. There were close to two hundred figures in all, but I settled right down to business and learned just about everything: lifts, braces, clews, stays, backstays, sheets, ratlines, tops, caps⁠—the whole works. I don’t know how many exciting hours I spent at my dictionary, digging into a perfect treasure-trove of nautical words. I never in my life before realized how many nautical terms there are. And I was getting very gay indeed. I was really learning something, and I was not slow to make use of my knowledge. I danced around the house, shouting out ship words and phrases which I had found in Treasure Island and other books, but which now had a new meaning for me. The first result was that my pirate story gradually began to improve a great deal. The second result was far more important.

I found myself going about to various people to find out still more about ships. But I based most upon the dictionary; I was sure that was correct, at any rate. I found myself getting crazy and crazier about ships (whether pirate ships or not⁠—though of course they were preferable) and about the sea. I found that my own writing was getting me into a wild state. My own writing was making me want to sail. Now, if somebody else’s writing (the writing of somebody who had really sailed) had been making me crazy about it, I should not have been so surprised. But when I had never sailed, and knew nothing about ships except what I had learned from Webster’s Dictionary⁠—that seemed strange indeed. Whether from one source or another, something made me want to sail, and so badly that my blood fairly itched within me, and I went after the dictionary harder than ever, in case an opportunity should suddenly come up; for I wanted to be well prepared.

A Real Authority

This was the second result (or, at least, the beginning of it), and I presume it was making me a bit hard to live with. One day Mother took me over to see old Mr. Rasmussen. Mr. Rasmussen is the chief carpenter of the house they are putting up behind ours, and, so Mother had discovered some time before, he had been a sailor all his life. I had told her very savagely that I had determined to sail. Even a schooner “would do,” thought I, though of course a square-rigged ship would do better. Mother tried at first to dissuade me. She told me that the only schooners in existence now, as far as she knew, were the fishing schooners that came into Boston, and they were so soaked with fish and fish oil that they were really quite unbearable. But I was not to be dissuaded so easily, though I did begin to wish that I had been alive in the days of the great old clipper ships, dashing across the Atlantic from England to America. I was furious with myself for living at a time when the beauty and stateliness and romance of sailing ships had dwindled down to a few stenching schooners in Boston Harbor.

Well, then, I went over to see Mr. Rasmussen. You would love talking with him, Alan. He is full of tales of his old sailing days, and rattles them off even while he is sawing lumber or driving nails. And as for knowledge, why, ships are second nature to him. The sea is in every line of his face, too. He has a mass of wrinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, from squinting in the sun and looking off into the dazzling sea. He is brawny, firmly muscled, and tattooed on the inside of his left forearm. He is delightfully disgusted with things on land. I remarked to him, as he was up on the scaffolding: “Well, that kind of rigging isn’t so much fun, is it?” He replied instantly: “No, too steady. Hasn’t got give enough.” (He said “gib.”) He has a quaint power of description, too. He tells about typhoons off the China coast⁠—says “you would think a pack of demons was loose on the sea.” Mr. Rasmussen, by the way, has a forty-foot sloop of his own, and about every two weeks he goes off in it for the week-end, going over to Block Island to fish. He has promised me that I shall go with him on one of those trips sometime.

But, to go on with the story, Mother said to him: “I’ve got a daughter here who’s gone crazy about boats. We thought you ought to know about all the sailing ships there are, and we wondered if you knew where there is a schooner or square-rigger that is working now.”

Says he: “Why, yes, indeed. There’s a nice little schooner come in New Haven now; she come in right ahead of me last Monday. She come down with lumber from Nova Scotia. Pretty boat, too⁠—all white. I think her name is Norman D.”

“Do you think there’s any chance we could go aboard of her, mate?” I asked. (I liked to pretend that he had been a shipmate of mine.)

“Go aboard of her? Oh my, yes⁠—they’d be tickled to death to have a chance to show somebody the boat. The crew are all home boys, and I guess they’re mighty lonely down here where they don’t know anyone.”

Topmasts against the Sky

He gave us full instructions as to how to get to the schooner, and we resolved to go the next day. I stayed and had a little talk with the old sailor. He says: “I usually go out o’ port on Friday. Now, ’tain’t commonly supposed to be lucky to leave port on a Friday, but I don’t take no stock in superstition. I once sailed along of a captain that wouldn’t leave port on a Friday, even when there was good wind, good tide, good weather⁠—everything just right.”

Mate, you can believe that I hardly slept a wink all that night. I was going down to see a real schooner. I was going aboard of her. I should see the crew, and be friendly with them. I should climb up in the rigging, if allowed. (That was a secret hope of mine, and I was almost more excited about that than anything.) I would show the family, and the crew, too, that if I got a chance to go up in those ratlines, I would go!

We must have made quite a sight, the whole Follett family going down the street under royals and skysails, headed straight for the schooner Norman D. It seemed an infinitely long way, but we saw the masts of her as soon as we got out of the trolley car, and I know I was like a bucking wild horse all the way down Brewery Street. When I saw those noble topmasts against the blue sky ahead of me, I wanted to run and get there; but Sabra was with us, and we couldn’t hurry. I ran a few steps, excitedly snapping my fingers; then I would buck and wait. So we proceeded down towards the old broken-down wharf. As we came nearer and nearer, though not yet near enough to see the white hull of her, the beautiful, stately topmasts and lower masts became clearer and clearer, and at last I could see the rope ladder⁠—the shrouds and ratlines that I might be going up in. And, at the idea of climbing into those spider webs, I was so thrilled that I was almost dizzy, and knew hardly anything.

We came up and up alongside her, till we were right beneath her bulwarks, and saw over us her stately bowsprit, with the jibboom and flying jibboom. I was thrilled to realize that I had already begun to recognize things. I recognized that small vertical spar projecting downward from the jibboom which is called the “dolphin striker.” This was one of the many things I had learned from that diagram under the word ship.

They were busy discharging her cargo of lumber; the deck load was making good progress. There were three carts on the wharf alongside her, on to which they were loading it. The captain was sitting on the edge of the deckhouse superintending the work, which was going on very briskly. We hailed him: “May we come aboard?”

Initiation

“Why, I gesso,” he replied. “What you want?”

“Oh, we’re just landlubbers who want to see your ship.”

“Well, come ahead,” he said.

So we scrambled over the lumber carts, the whole Follett family, still under full sail and laughing heartily. I was the first upon the bulwarks amidships, and I jumped down and landed with a thump upon the deck load. (Quite a long jump it seemed to me then, but before long I jumped from the bulwarks on to the empty deck without thinking anything of it.)

I spoke to the captain first of all, but very vaguely and dreamily, gazing about me⁠—fascinated, enraptured, all the time. I looked at the long, huge booms, with the sails frapped closely round them; at the great, splendid masts; at the many ropes descending over blocks and made fast on belaying pins along the side of the boat; at the double and triple sheet-blocks; and, above all, at the ratlines and shrouds, into which I longed to go up. The next minute I had jumped upon the spanker boom and crawled along to the very end, hanging slightly over the water, where I supported myself by one of the wire lifts.

“Oh,” said the captain, “I see you’re a girl as likes to climb around.”

And that was true: for really I liked to climb around even better than I dared admit at first. I climbed many times upon the top of the deckhouse and on to the spanker boom, I walked stealthily and cautiously along the bulwarks, I talked a bit with two of the sailors who were waiting for one of the carts before they began loading again; I laid my hand longingly upon the shrouds. But, though I had plenty of courage, and a lot left over, to climb, I had not quite the courage to ask permission, since I felt sure that I should not be allowed. At last, after I had explored around a bit, after I had taken hold of the vast, hand-worn spokes of the wheel, after I had examined the compass in the binnacle⁠—I went up to the captain and said: “I don’t suppose you would let me go up into the rigging, would you?”

“Sure!” he replied, “only stick to the ladder, see? Don’t go off the rope ladder⁠—and hold on tight.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I answered. “I most likely shan’t get up very far.” And I ran to the starboard mizzen rigging.

From the Crosstrees

There Mother accosted me: “Oh, don’t go up there! You scare me to death.” I overlooked her entirely, and laid my hand upon the shrouds. Upon the shrouds! I felt a little thrill go through my hand. Next minute I was over the taffrail. “You don’t dare, do you?” she continued. “Watch me and see,” I replied. Then I pulled up on to the ratlines. The emotions and sensations of that moment are indescribable. I was starting my career as a sailor. I was already in the rigging, and I hadn’t been on the ship for more than twenty minutes! And only yesterday, before that talk with my old sailor friend, it was a far-away dream, pretty nearly impossible to accomplish. Things had shaken about strangely. I was in the rigging! Up and up I went, hand over hand. I could have gone much faster without a quiver, but I was so taken by it that I went slowly. I felt the rigging sway beneath my weight. Fascinating! The shrouds were getting closer and closer together, and the ratlines, therefore, shorter and shorter. I was a few steps below the crosstrees, I never believed, never in this world, that I should be able to go more than halfway up. Yet up I went, and the ratlines were so very short that I could just wedge my feet between them. Next moment I had reached out an arm, put it over the crosstrees, braced my foot on the iron futtock shrouds, and pulled myself up. There I was, sitting on the crosstrees, one foot braced upon the futtock shrouds, the other foot dangling in mid-air, sixty-five feet above the deck.

The deck down there looked about six inches long, and the busy crew about the size of ants, yet very clear and sharp. I had never dreamed of being so close to the truck. There was the slender tip of the mizzen-mast hardly twenty feet above me. There I was, sitting on the crosstrees. I thought of many and curious things. It was here that Jim Hawkins had sat, in his terrified flight from Israel Hands. Here I was, and I could imagine an Israel, wounded, dirk in teeth, climbing after me. I stood up on the crosstrees, and, looking out to sea, I found that I could see very far and clearly. A few little harbor boats were cruising about. Yes, the deck was certainly not more than six inches long. But I found, to my intense delight, that I could look down upon it without a tremor. My head is built for height. I have a sailor heart, and a sailor head, thought I. Now, if only I were sure that I had a sailor stomach, everything would be perfect.

It is very alarming to get from the crosstrees on to the ratlines again. It is necessary to hang over space for a moment, until you can get your feet on the rigging. But it did not bother me. I lowered myself by the strength of my forearms, took the futtocks with my hands, and dropped my feet on to the ratlines. Then I came down, feeling, Alan, a good deal more like a real pirate than I had ever felt before.

The captain complimented me gravely, saying: “I couldn’t go up as far as that,” and telling me that I had a good head.

The Ancient Mariner

That was about the end of the first day’s climbing. Right now I forget whether I went up again or not, but the first time was the most thrilling, anyway. I talked for a while with two of the sailors; then the captain took us about the ship, showing us the galley, the fo’c’sle, the engine-room, the after cabin. The latter is a very ample, seemingly luxurious place: two moderately large rooms, one used for dining room, which has a massive table hooked up to the wall to prevent its rolling about; the rest of it divided into five small compartments, each containing a bunk. Of these the captain, mate, bo’s’n, and cook had four, and the other was a spare bunk. In the fo’c’sle there are bunks for four, but there were only three men there, then. On asking one of the men if that wasn’t quite a small crew to handle the schooner, they answered very definitely in the negative.

The captain is a most delightful old fellow, a true sea captain. He will talk for hours at a time. I think he can say as many words in an hour as another man in a day. He told us about various experiences of his in his many schooners⁠—storms, losing deck loads, and so on. He says:

“I’m not boasting, but, folks, I’ve never lost a ship in my life, and only one deck load. Now, that’s a good record for a man that’s been at sea forty year. An’ I’ll tell you, folks, how I lost that deck load. It was in that gale we had last October⁠—on a Friday, I think ’twas⁠—an’ part of the port taffrail got carried away⁠—see there, folks, where you can see that new paint? Well, that’s the piece as got carried away, and I see we had to lose that load. So we give it a little start, and, I tell you, folks, it wasn’t very hard. All we had to do was give it a little start, and off it went. I had it all insured, folks, and I guess the boys would have been glad enough to have the whole lot go, hold and all! Ha! Ha! Ha!” (It was the same gale that carried down one of the oak trees in the woods near us.)

He evidently liked to boast about his early days at sea. One tale he told which particularly took my fancy: “When I was a greenhorn, I got the hang of a sailor’s job pretty quick. I was a smart lad at the helm. The cap’n was particklarly pleased with me. I was proud, I tell you, folks, one time when we was havin’ some rough weather. Another greenhorn that put out to sea with me went up aft to take his trick, but he couldn’t manage it at all⁠—the waves come breaking over the ship, and the cap’n saw he didn’t know the ropes at all. Well, I’d jist had my two hours; I was all through and gone up forrard, but when the cap’n see this lad didn’t know nothing, he called me aft agin, and gave me the helm fer another trick. Well, I was proud, I tell you!”

Heard and Seen on Deck

So he rattled on, tale after tale. He was telling us about the schooner he was in command of before the Norman D. “She was a sweet schooner, folks,” he said; “she would do anything but talk, and she tried hard enough to do that.”

For the matter of that, I have said little enough about the Norman D. herself. She is a 390-ton schooner. The captain said she used to be 425, but she was cut down, because on a schooner of more than 400 tons, there has to be a certified mate⁠—a mate who has passed examinations and has a license or something of the kind to indicate that he is a competent officer. Nowadays there is so little sailing, and the terms of enlistment are so short, and the men are so unsteady, sailing a few months and then going off ashore somewhere, that they don’t get enough training to become certified mates. Therefore mates are very hard to get. So the schooner was cut down. (An ordinary man would have told all that in about three minutes and three quarters, but not so the captain. He told it inside and out, backwards and forwards, two or three times, and we never heard the last of that certified mate.) She has masts of about ninety feet; very fine trees they were once. Her booms are huge, especially the spanker, which is almost as large around as the part of the mast just below the crosstrees. Her jibboom is very long and straight, for she carries an outer jib⁠—jib, flying jib, and outer jib. She is all painted white, with a narrow stripe of red about three feet below the bulwarks, and a little red painted ornament on the top of the cutwater. Her hull seemed to me to be of a beautiful shape⁠—but it was beautiful enough to see a wooden hull at all, these days.

The captain explained to me a great many things about a sailing vessel, and I went home with a much clearer idea of things. He told me all the names of the sails, showed me the gaffs, which I had never quite understood, and told me which sails were usually taken in first in a wind, and which were first hoisted. Like Jim Hawkins when he found Long John Silver, I began to realize that here was a shipmate! If I could live with Captain Avery for a while, I did not doubt but that I should really know something.

Sunday Obstacles

There could be only three or four different results to all this. So far, the result was that we invited the captain out to dinner the next Sunday, and arranged to have the Bryans come over “to meet a real old sea captain.” Accordingly, Sunday morning about half-past ten (five bells), I set out alone for the schooner. Again I had the pleasure of seeing her proud and noble topmasts against the sky, but this time I could go tearing at full speed down Brewery Street. Yet I was not so hasty but that I stopped to think a minute. It was Sunday. Very likely the crew would be ashore: suppose there were no one aboard the schooner⁠—no one to let me aboard? Then I should have to go prowling about alone, without permission, sneaking down into the cabin to search out the captain, and I might be suddenly challenged and questioned by one of the sailors. Also it would look rather curious, to anyone ashore, to see me going over the ship’s side without permission. I might be in some embarrassing situations before the end of the morning! I confess that I was a little worried, and I stopped tearing along, and walked quietly and decently down the street.

The gate to the wharf was closed, and at that time I didn’t know about a certain little side gate, always possible to open by hand. Here was my first barrier. I determined, however, to get to the ship anyway; and I pulled lightly over the fence and dropped down upon a heap of coal. Then I started around it. But I was looking down, walking rather fast, and before I saw what I was doing I had brought up short against the bow hawser of the schooner. I was a bit stunned, for the rope was heavy and very taut. I ducked under it and found my way to the side of the schooner.

At first it looked as though the worst of my suspicions were too true. There was not a sign of a soul upon the decks. The whole ship was as still as night. I didn’t even hear any voices from the cabin or fo’c’sle. But I determined to stick it out until I knew. The silence was positively terrifying. I could only judge that the captain had gone off to Boston (as he had warned us he might), and that all the rest of the crew were ashore. Yet, I thought, someone ought to be aboard; the ship wouldn’t be likely to be left all alone. With this in my mind, I raised a small hail⁠—“Yoo-hoo!”⁠—and, to my delight, someone appeared in the door of the fo’c’sle. Two or three others were behind him, looking curious and rather startled.

I put a very bold and saucy face upon the matter. “Look here,” said I, “I’m the kid who was here a couple o’ days ago, and the captain was coming out to lunch with us today, so I came down to get him. Is he aboard?”

There were many answers to this question. “The captain’s ashore.” “I think he’s gone to Boston.” “No, no,” from the cook, “the captain’s aft. He ain’t gone to Boston.”

I thought I had better cover up the toploftiness with which I had started, and I was very pleasant and friendly for a bit. Then I said: “May I go aft and find the captain?” “Yes, indeed,” they returned. Meanwhile I had slipped rather sure-footedly from the edge of the wharf to the top of the bulwarks, and leaped down upon the deck. (By this time the deck load of lumber was gone.) I found my way down into the cabin.

Forty Winks

Then came the most exciting thing of all, my hunt for Captain Avery. He was not in the dining room or in the other part of the after cabin, where there were a desk and a barometer, a couch and a few chairs. Then I began ransacking the various sleeping compartments⁠—for I did not remember which the captain had said was his. I found him in the second, lying down, fast asleep, his white hair falling over his face, his cheeks rosy, and part of his Sunday clothes on. I waited ten full minutes, I am sure, to see if he wouldn’t wake up of his own accord; for if there is anything I detest, it is waking up sleeping persons. At last I said very softly: “Captain Avery!” No answer. Then I tapped gently on the open door, and said again: “Captain Avery!” He woke as though eight bells had struck, or as though the bo’s’n had suddenly called “All hands on deck!” And, believe me, there was no yawning or coughing or blinking or rubbing. He was wide awake in a flash⁠—which shows what a sailor he is. He recognized me immediately with a smile. “Well, I guess I dozed off all right. I took it into my head to read, ’n’ so I got out my Bible and read a chapter or two. ’N’ then I began to feel sleepy, ’n’ I jist dozed off.” Then he was up and putting the finishing touches to his Sunday dress. I was rather sorry, though, to see the old fellow dressed up. It didn’t look right to see him in a stiff collar and a clean white shirt.

He fell to talking immediately, about this and that and the other and why he didn’t go to Boston and what the crew was doing and what they wanted to do and what they usually did on Sunday and how they went cruising around and how soon he thought the cargo would be discharged and how long he thought the schooner would be in port⁠—everything all in a jumble, with no commas, just as I have written it. Then he told about his home town, Moncton, Nova Scotia, and the various railway routes and harbors. Also he began to tell what he had done in New Haven, and what a pretty town it was, and how glad he was to have a chance to see more of it, and was I sure about the trolley car routes? and did I have plenty of car-fare? and how far out did we live? and what building was this, and that, and the other? and so on, and so forth, and so following. Then he fell to about ships and schooners; and that I was really glad of, and began to pay more attention. And he began yarning about storms and gales, and furling the sails hastily, and coming through dangerous shoals and shallows under bare poles, until I thought that I had never met such an interesting old codger.

Monological

By this time we were in the Whitney Avenue trolley car. The captain was much impressed by the stately elms. They led to a general discussion of all the various trees in all the various parts of the world, especially Nova Scotia. But really the business part of the town was the most interesting to him, and, as I said, he kept asking me about this building and that one till I thought I had never had such a drill on my own home town. All the way up Armory Street he ran on, in a monotone which it often became difficult for me to understand. When we got home I dumped him into a rocking-chair, feeling quite stunned with all the talk I had heard. I was willing to have the air more silent around me, and so I was rather glad when he picked up a newspaper and began to scan it. I never heard anyone so entertaining when reading to himself. He would read the headlines aloud, then the articles to himself, making audible or inaudible comments now and then. And after he had finished he would say: “Hm! And a hard enough time they’ll have of it, too!” or the like incomprehensible ejaculation.

All day Sunday he talked in the same way, pouring forth streams of conversation concerning everything under the sun. Of course I liked his ship talk the best, but, since that was second nature to him, he seemed to prefer talking of other things. Late in the afternoon we all went down to take him back to the schooner, and to show her to the Bryans.

I have never managed to go down there without having thrills run through and through me at the sight of the Norman D.⁠—her long and graceful jibboom, the sharpness of her white cutwater, her mazes of rigging, ratlines, blocks; even the very idea of her⁠—of a schooner, a real schooner, a large vessel under sails⁠—thrilled me. The bo’s’n brought a ladder when he saw the captain coming, and aboard we all went. By this time I had got to feel very much at home on the ship. I wanted to feel at home on her; I loved to, because I felt more than ever like a sailor. I grew, of course, steadily more daring, and now I walked right along the bulwarks without a quiver. The first thing I did when I got aboard was to scramble up the rigging again. Oh, how I loved that rigging! How I loved to grip the shrouds tight, to feel myself going up hand over hand over hand! How I loved the quivering, the shaking, which my weight gave to it! And how I was thrilled, how I was always thrilled, to find myself sitting on the crosstrees!

A New Acquaintance

One thing, however, I had not hitherto dared to venture upon⁠—the topsail ratlines. Just above the crosstrees are five or six more frail rope steps, not nearly so steady and strong as the main part of the rigging. These steps are used when the sailors are aloft working at the topsails. Somehow they looked too frail and shaky for me. I didn’t quite dare begin climbing them, especially when I was starting more than sixty feet above the deck. But I stood out on the crosstrees, and I put my hand to my forehead, and I looked out to sea⁠—feeling a good deal like the lookout man on the fo’c’sle deck.

By this time they had entirely moved the deck load and were working on the hold (though, of course, not on that day), and so the boom of the mainsail had been belayed to the port side of the schooner, to make room for hoisting out the cargo. Now it was loose, and I had a lot of fun pushing it back and forth. Then I scrambled up on to it⁠—and quite a job that was, too⁠—and Daddy pushed it back and forth, until it swung almost out over the water, bringing up hard on the sheet. Afterwards I learned to get up on the boom in one pull of my arms, by means of the downhaul, but of course the sails weren’t hoisted then.

That evening we became acquainted with the mate. He is a very nice fellow. Evidently he had been ashore, for he had on his shore togs. We went up forward on the fo’c’sle deck and had a long talk with him. I happened to hint something about the jibboom. I longed to go out on it, but I didn’t quite dare to. I hadn’t quite got my sailor-familiarity-with-the-ropes on yet. But the mate immediately started to go out on the bowsprit. “See,” said he, “this is a nice, easy little walk out here”⁠—as he went along a shelf of the bowsprit no more than three inches wide, holding on by a wire rope. “See, you just be careful to hold on to this rope⁠—you must be careful to not grab anything that’ll let you down.” Then he reached the jibboom, and stepped down on to the footropes. “But these footropes are a good long stretch for a youngster,” said he. “I tell you, this is a nasty place in bad weather; it certainly is. Imagine how it would be with waves running high, and washing up over you when you are out on there!” Then he told us how once he had managed to fall off the jibboom when a high sea was running, but, happily, had caught by his armpits among the bowsprit rigging and climbed up on again. I surely believed him: I had never known anything, even the topsail ratlines, look more insecure than those footropes. They jerked back and forth, and at every step they sagged ’way down. But I determined to be sailorly, and, though I didn’t go out that evening, I secretly resolved that some day I should surprise everyone by going out on those frail, jogging footropes, where, if I should fall off, I should probably stick fast in nice, oozy harbor mud.

Wanting the Moon

How that schooner haunted me! I was like a caged lion all day, and at night I dreamed that I was sailing off, back to Nova Scotia, with her. The days were drawing on. She would be going in about two weeks. I should see her no more. Perhaps I should never see her again, for Captain Avery has no regular schedule, and he goes into New Haven very rarely. Yes, perhaps I should never see her again. And there would end my brilliantly begun sailor career. Again I should have to resort to the stenching fishing schooners around Boston. The best I could possibly hope for, thought I, would be to go out on the tug which would tow her out of the harbor. Then I could at least see her hoist her sails and sail and roll away. How lonely I should be! I was afraid of the thought. In my imagination I could see her casting her towrope, her sails filling with a fresh breeze, already her cutwater making wings of foam reach out along her sides. I should see her dwindle to a snow-sailed fairy ship in the distance; then she would be a microscopic speck on the horizon. Oh, but that was to die by inches, thought I. I think I could never have borne it.

“Oh! don’t you wish we could go with her when she sails?” said I to Daddy, who was fascinated by her, as I was.

“Why yes, of course I do,” said he. “But we can’t⁠—so there’s no use in talking about it.”

No, there was certainly no use in talking about it. The impossible cannot be accomplished. But the schooner continued to haunt me.

And so Mother and I escaped from the house and went down to see the schooner again. This proved to be one of the most thrilling visits of all. When we got aboard, the mate was sitting on top of the deckhouse piecing the great outer jib. That sail had been ripped in a gale, and they had taken it off the jibboom to mend it. The mate had a huge rope-needle, and he wore a regular sailmaker’s thimble, which is a small metal disk set in a leather strap worn around the wrist. He was putting in a strip of new canvas, which looked very clean and white in contrast to the other. We had a little talk; then I played about the ship as usual, climbing along her bulwarks⁠—in fact, literally skipping and running along her bulwarks, to Mother’s terror. Then, after I had climbed up to the crosstrees two or three times, always looking rather longingly at the topsail ratlines, Captain Avery asked us if we would like to eat supper with him, aft, at four bells (six o’clock). Mother called me down from some high perch and asked me. Would I eat a meal on a real ship? Would I indeed!

Nautical Fare

So down we went, into the room where the massive table was hooked up to the wall. Before that I had become well acquainted with the cook, a delightful old man who told us he was up in the seventies somewhere. (You may believe it or not, but his name was Oscar Follett.) He was, or at least had been, the best sailor aboard; he had served in real square-riggers, and knew a great deal about them. I called him “matey,” and we had a grand time together. Once I had asked him if he wouldn’t like me to go with him back to Nova Scotia. I told him I would wash dishes for him. He replied: “Yes, you could help me a lot.” For the matter of that, I had even asked the captain⁠—in joke, of course⁠—if he wouldn’t like me to sail back with him, and I had told him too that I was willing to wash dishes to earn my passage. Said he: “You wouldn’t have to wash dishes to go with me!” The cook is very amusing. Right off, then, I had a feeling⁠—a doubtful, vague feeling⁠—that all was not quite right between the cook and the skipper. For the cook, seeing company arrive, was in the process of changing the tablecloth, which was rather begrimed. The captain said: “Oh, don’t bother about that, steward⁠—that’s all right.” Then said the cook very violently: “’Tain’t neither! ’s dirty!” And he yanked it off with one good snatch.

Down we sat, the three of us, to a delightful meal of cold fat ham, boiled potatoes mixed up with corned beef and a kind of greasy gravy, very tough ship’s bread, canned pears, and very strong black tea. It was coarse grub⁠—there is no denying it⁠—yet, in the excitement of the moment, it seemed to make everything more romantic and adventurous. I tackled the bread with the determination of one possessed; I hardly heard the cook spinning us a yarn. This is something to the effect of the way he talked:

“The only disadvantage of your comin’ along of us when we sail is ’at ye’re powerful likely to be seasick. ‘Most everyone is seasick for a few days. Me, when I first went to sea, I was seasick ten days, and I lay there in me bunk, and ate nuthin’ at all⁠—nuthin’ ’cepting a little cold water, an’ I’d chuck that right up again. Now, the cap’n I was sailin’ with, he was always nice to me, ’n’ he didn’t see me for ten days, so after a while he come forrard and asked me what was the matter. ‘What’s the matter with you, Si?’ says he. ‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘I’m seasick. I’ve been here ten days.’ ‘Have you eaten anything, Si?’ says he. ‘No, sir,’ says I. ‘Well, but, Si, you must eat something, or you’ll die. You must eat something, Si. Now come, get out of your bunk, and walk around a bit.’ So I got out of my bunk, and I was so weak that he had to put his arm around me, or I should have fallen over. ‘Now, Si, ain’t there anything you’d like to eat?’ ‘No, sir, nothing,’ says I. ‘But, Si, you must eat something, or you’ll die.’ ‘No, sir, I can’t eat anything.’ ‘Now, Si, you jist take it easy, and think if there ain’t something I can get you to eat.’ ‘No, sir, there ain’t nuthing.’ ‘Now, Si, you jist think a minute, and see if there ain’t anything.’ ‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘I believe I’d like a little strong cold tea, without any sweetening in it.’ So he got up and went and fetched me my quart mug full of tea, and I drank the last drop of it, and it stayed down, too. ’N’ I was niver seasick again after that.”

Strained Relations

(I managed to hear that three times before seeing the last of the steward, and each time it was longer and more complicated, with more details.) All the time, the little old man was leaning up against a projecting panel of the wall, with his arms crossed, glaring and glowering and staring and scowling at the captain. He would arch up his bald forehead, making the high wrinkles show, and his eyes would look most keen and piercing⁠—his old blue eyes⁠—beneath his high forehead. I never saw such expressions of hatred in my life; and I confess that I was amused very much indeed. And when Captain Avery looked at the steward to ask him for something, he, too, looked frowningly and hatefully. But the cook was fond of me, partly because I listened to his talk with a long ear, and partly because I had helped him, to my own delight, setting the table and getting the supper ready.

We were through before very long, and the mate and bo’s’n came down to take our places at the table. The most exciting part of the evening was still to come; it was indeed. No sooner was I out on deck than I scurried again up into the rigging. I never got so used to climbing the rigging that I could treat it as a commonplace matter. It was always thrilling to me, and I felt myself growing more and more a sailor. By this time the whole crew knew that I liked to climb around and that I was daring about it, and usually I could see one or two, especially the old cook, looking out of the galley or the fo’c’sle, grinning up at me. I was no longer in their world: I was at the level of the sea gulls.

But on this trip up to the crosstrees I had a new idea in my head⁠—those quivery, frail topsail ratlines when I came down from the ratlines. I went and talked a moment to the cook, who had been sitting on the starboard bulwarks amidships, watching. He immediately said to me: “Why didn’t you go right on up to the truck?” “I see no footropes,” said I. “Well,” said he, “you might have shinned right up.” “Oh, I imagine I’ll come to that in time,” I answered.

Invasion of a New Province

But now I had an even more exciting idea in my mind. I went back to the mate and told him I was going out on the bowsprit. “I’m going out as far as I can,” I said. “I don’t know whether I’ll get any farther than the jibboom, but I’ll get out to those footropes anyway.”

“Well,” said he, “just be careful to hold on to that wire rope, and you’ll be all right.”

So I started. I crawled, step by step, out along that three-inch shelf on the side of the bowsprit, holding fast to the indicated rope. Once the furled jib, which was loosely a-swing amid its tackle, lumbered outwards toward me and nearly pushed me off the bowsprit; but, happily, I ducked under it and went on. As I walked along that shelf, I felt that I could not possibly keep on climbing out so successfully; it was incredible that I should be able to walk so far without any mishap. Yet I reached the frail footropes of the jibboom in safety. Cautiously I stepped down upon them, and they sagged deeply beneath me. From knot to knot I edged, bracing my feet upon the cross-ropes. Without them I could never have made my way out, because the jibboom was tipped uphill so steeply. And at each step I felt new surprises. Why didn’t something happen to stop me? Why didn’t I go suddenly hurtling down into the sea so far below? Was I actually going to be allowed to reach the very end? After a little breathless manœuvring, I did reach it⁠—the very white painted tip of the jibboom, which is one of the most romantic inches of wood in the world. Holding on to the forestay, I stood up and smiled a smile of triumph.

Then I had one of the strangest surprises of my life. It was time for the factory workers to be getting out, and, when I stood up and looked over to the road, there was an audience of at least fifty people, of all ages and sexes, leaning over the bridge and looking at me. Some of them waved and grinned. How like a sailor I felt! Then, cautiously, but not quite so slowly, I edged down the jibboom again, always being careful to brace my feet on the footrope knots so that I shouldn’t slip. When I got back I will not deny that I skipped, danced, ran, flew, all the way down the bulwarks until I reached the taffrail, where I leaped down.

Breaking in a Green Hand

Gradually my reputation was increasing. I was climbing rung after rung of the ladder of sailor fame. I was so gay that I skipped about among mate, cook, and captain, asking the names of ropes and things. I learned quite a lot that evening. But I had more delights coming to me: I still had great duties to perform about the deck. The mate was running about, getting everything ready for the night. The main gaff was hoisted, having been used to swing the main cargo up from the hold and over the side of the ship, where the men working in the lumber trucks had unfastened it. So the gaff had to be lowered. That was where the main part of my work came in. I held the peak halyards; the mate, on the other side of the ship, held something else⁠—I could not see what, but in all probability the throat halyards. The mate came over and said to me: “You want to be a sailor man? See, now, hold this rope, and let it out very slowly.” So I took the rope, and I let it out slowly, hand over hand. Slowly the gaff came down, and I felt an enormous weight pulling at the rope, so that sometimes it pulled itself more quickly than I wished through my hands, burning them. Once it almost got free from me, and I saw it whizzing along. I heard a cry from the mate, and with a little strength I managed to stop it. There was a small bang and the gaff came to rest.

Then a rope had to be uncoiled from the mainsail boom, which the mate wanted to use to make the gaff fast. We uncoiled it together, one on each side of the boom, and pulling the rope across hand over hand⁠—I pulling, the mate loosening the coils. Several times I got the rope’s end in my face with a smart little smack! but that was sailorly, and I minded it no more than the dirt.

After that I helped the mate by carrying coils of rope which he wanted moved, and doing other small jobs. By this time Mother was saying that it was time to go home; so after the mate had finished his work I said to him: “Oh, how I wish I could go along back to Nova Scotia!” and left the schooner.

Sea Fever

I don’t remember whether or not we visited the schooner any more before a certain memorable day, only a few days before she sailed. It was on a Saturday. I had been talking steadily about the schooner to everyone; I had described in full detail my various accomplishments to my old friend Mr. Rasmussen; I had thought more about the beauty and the adventures of the Norman D. than I had ever thought about anything before. And this Saturday morning, more than two weeks after the schooner had come in, the fever which was in me for sailing became intolerable. I shall never forget⁠—never, though I live to be a thousand⁠—how I felt that morning. I strode up and down the porch, feeling, ranting, and looking a good deal like a lion just brought in from the jungle, caged. I was frantic⁠—wild⁠—unpersuadable. I said: “You can’t keep me from it⁠—you can’t, you can’t⁠—I’m going to sail with the Norman D. And I’m going up to the dictionary now to learn the thirty-two points of the compass by heart, so that I shall be well prepared, and so that I shall be allowed to steer. Yes, I’m going with the schooner!”

“But you can’t go alone.”

“I can! I can! I must! I shalt die if I don’t. Of course I can. Of course! I know the captain well, and the mate, and the cook, and the bo’s’n, too, for that matter. Oh, don’t talk to me⁠—I’m going; I must go!”

“But how can you get back?”

“Oh, Lord! I am wild, and I am crazy, but I’m not so wild that I can’t think that out. You know the Norman D. is going to load up at Bridgewater; then she sails for New York; and Daddy can meet her at New York when she comes in. Oh, don’t try to talk to me, or keep me from it, because you can’t. You can’t do it. No! I’m going to sail.”

What a wretched, cruel thing reality is⁠—one of those hideous monsters which ill-fated Pandora let out of her magic chest!

“Now, Bar, be reasonable. You know you can’t go without someone else to go along too, and look out for you⁠—someone we know.”

“But we do know the captain, and the mate, and the cook.”

“Yes, but not intimately. Now, listen a minute, and I’ll tell you something.”

“Not a word, unless you give me permission to go. And if you don’t give me permission, I’ll go without. I’ll run away, I will, and be a stowaway aboard the Norman D. And, if that’s the case, what’s more, I shan’t return home at all. I shan’t come back to New York. I’ll stay aboard her all the time. Indeed I will! And I’ll live the life I’m made to live.⁠—Oh, if I were only sure I had a sailor stomach!”

“That’s right, too: you’ll certainly be seasick.”

“What do I care? Do you think you can break me of my desire to sail just by telling me I’ll get seasick? To be sure I’ll be seasick. And, what’s more, I’ll get over it, too. Now, may I go, or must I go without leave?”

“Now, listen again. You can go if you get someone to go with you. And if you can’t get someone to go with you, you just cannot go with the schooner, that’s all. That’s definite⁠—you cannot sail with her unless someone goes with you. But you can go out on the tug to see her set sail⁠—”

“Oh! I could never stand to see her sail away without me.”

Argumentative

“And you can go with her some other trip⁠—perhaps on her next trip⁠—”

“But she has no schedule, and she only comes into New Haven very rarely.”

“No matter. Perhaps you can sail with her from New York the next time she comes in there.”

“But by that time I may not want to sail any more.”

“Well, that’s absolutely the best that can be done. If you can get someone to go with you, you may sail; if not, no.”

“And so now I’m going to learn the points of the compass.”

“But wait! Not so fast! Supposing you can’t get anyone to go?”

“Why, then I’ll go alone, and heaven help me!”

“No, you won’t go alone.”

“Well, I’m going to learn the points of the compass, anyway, because it may take me a long time to learn them all⁠—and I shan’t mind knowing them anyway, whether I go or not. But I’m going! I’m sure of it. Something tells me so.”

So I fled upstairs to the dictionary and looked up the points of the compass. After about fifteen minutes of hard studying, I could stand off from the dictionary and repeat them all, slowly and rather hesitatingly, from north clean round to north again. In five more minutes I could say them off quite smoothly, and before I got downstairs I could run them off pretty fast⁠—though I still had to think hard about them. Now I can reel them off as fast as the names of the sails of a square-rigger. They are nothing but second nature to me. All the morning ran through my head: “North, north by east, north-northeast, northeast by north, northeast, northeast by east, east-northeast, east by north, east. …” (You have no idea how much harder that is to write than it is to say.)

When I appeared downstairs, the family stared at me as though I had gone absolutely cuckoo. In fact, by this time I had not the slightest doubt that I had. I immediately confronted them with “North, north by east,” and the rest of it. Then I said: “Now whom do you suggest?”

“For what? To go with you?”

“Ay, ay! What else should I mean? For what else can anyone possibly serve?”

“Bar, are you serious? Is it true that you really want to go so badly as all this, or is it just one of your jokes?”

Free Fantasia

“Lord! Do I joke? Can’t you tell that I am serious? What? Have you never seen me serious before? Or possibly you haven’t. Anyhow, don’t you know when I’m serious, and when I’m not?”

And through me flowed a stream of the most marvellous sea dreams I have ever known. I thought of having the high white sails puffing with wind over my head. I thought of a great ship leaning over, I thought of pirates, buried treasure, mystic isles. I thought of the delight of sailing, not to New York or Boston, but to Nova Scotia⁠—a strange country, new to me. I thought of the companionship I might develop with the crew. I thought of the storms, gales, perhaps even typhoons, I might encounter. I thought of the stories I should have to tell when I came back, swinging to and fro in my sailor walk, sunburned, brawny, knowing everything about the ropes which looked as numerous to my inexperienced eyes as sea shells on the seashore. I thought of how strange it was that, only two weeks ago, I had considered the whole thing well-nigh an impossible dream, and of how, now, here I was on the point⁠—perhaps⁠—of sailing myself.

To be reasonably brief with the matter, there was a whole lot more talk, but eventually it was decided that, if I could get G. S. Bryan to go as my shipmate on this adventure, the chances were all in favor of my going⁠—that is, if Captain Avery assented. Otherwise the chances were distinctly unfavorable. And so, after a lot of complicated long-distance telephoning, I communicated the idea to the Bryans and got them to come over Sunday (the next day) to talk it over with us and with Captain Avery.

Of course, I spent most of my time skipping wildly around the house, shouting out “North, north by east …” and other ship words. Also, I spent a good deal of time with my face buried in the dictionary, learning new words and names, so that I should not be landlubberly when I went off sailing in that schooner. Off sailing⁠—think of it! My dreams realized so soon⁠—so soon!

The Art of Digression

Well⁠—and this is leaving out a great, great many details⁠—the Bryans did come over on Sunday, and we all went down to assault Captain Avery. The old skipper was most entertaining that day. He spread out all his charts on the dining room table and showed us his various passages, and by which way he would go up to Nova Scotia, and which way he had come on all of his previous trips; and, of course, that involved us in listening to a great many tales of all kinds, I really thought the man was powerless to stop talking. He spread out chart after chart, and explained them all to us⁠—all the various things which the mysterious little signs indicate. This was a whistling buoy, that a bell buoy⁠—and so on, absolutely endlessly. (Charts are certainly fascinating. They show the stretches of sea all marked and written up, even more than a land map shows the land. They show soundings everywhere, marks for buoys, lighthouses, and the rest, and also signs which indicate what kind of bottom you are sailing over. As for the land, it is simply blank, just as the sea is in land maps⁠—blank except for a few of the important shore towns.) Then, after they had been rolled up and put away, he fell to telling tales once more. He came into a description of rough weather; and that evidently reminded him to show off his trick furniture, for he immediately put his hand beneath the table and pushed a shutter of some kind, and instantly little racks, crisscrossing each other and running all around the edge, shot up two or three inches above the rest of the table. “It’s a very primitive arrangement, folks, but it certainly does come in handy in rough weather.”

He pointed to a hook on the wall of the cabin just beside his desk, to which was attached a long string with an empty ink-bottle hanging at the end of it. “Now, folks,” said he, “do ye knaow why I hung that up there? Well, I’ll tell you. You look very carefully and see ’f you can tell which way the schooner is listing.” We all studied the empty ink-bottle for some time in silence. At last Daddy said: “It strikes me she lists to port a little.” “That’s right, folks; she lists just a leetle bit to port. Yes, I allus did have an idea that she listed a little.”

He described everything in absolute detail. He would tell us exactly what sails he took in or let out during such and such a trip; also exactly how many reefs he took in this sail or that during this or that kind of weather. And some of his pronunciations were delightful. He was continually saying: “Ye knaow, folks …” and he always pronounced “route” as “rout.”

The Reward of Persistence

We fell to giving little hints about our going on the trip back with him. But he was rather obstinate, and persisted in his own material. Some of the hints he would take, and then slyly pass them over, with “Oh, yes, I guess that girl would like to go along with us! I wouldn’t mind taking her either, if she had another girl friend to go along with her.” This seemed to suggest something like accordance, and we redoubled our efforts. But he persisted gently in his “girl friend” idea, and wouldn’t take the most obvious hints. At last we all withdrew from the schooner, except Daddy, who stayed behind, talking. We considered ourselves vanquished in our hopes, and there were some pretty gloomy moments. But Daddy shortly afterwards came tearing out on to the wharf, looking very excited about something or other. “Now you,” he said, “you’re going to go down to the schooner on Tuesday morning, to find out when she sails. And then you telephone your shipmate here, and tell him when; and then the two of you pile aboard and away to Nova Scotia. And I think I make out that it would relieve Captain Avery of considerable embarrassment if you would take along some blankets.”

My head was in a whirl, being mixed up with the captain’s indifference to hints and Daddy’s explosion of the welcome which the captain had apparently given to the situation when it had been placed before him directly. But the delight that possessed me! I was really going to sail! Yes, in spite of all obstacles, I was going to sail. And not long before that I had thought of sailing only as a vague dream far off in the future; and not long before that I was only beginning to know a few of the simplest things about ships, which were all vague and romantic and fairy-like to me; and not very long before that I didn’t know the slightest thing about sails of any kind, and, not knowing, had not cared. But now! Something had suddenly started to open up to me, like a great window overlooking ships and the sea.

And I could not help a few doubts crossing my mind. It was really a bit too good to be true, and I was inclined to disbelieve it a little. For my superstition warned me that something would turn up to keep me from sailing⁠—that an accident might occur aboard, or an accident at home, or an accident that would prevent my shipmate from accompanying me. And, after all, it was too good to be true.

Anticipatory

Yet nothing did occur. The few days flowed on smoothly. On Tuesday morning, as had been previously arranged, Mother and I went down to see Captain Avery and find out when he “calculated on” sailing. We walked down Brewery Street in a drizzling rain, and just before reaching the wharf we encountered the skipper himself, walking up the street to town, with a huge umbrella over his head. We consulted with him, standing there in the rain, for a few minutes. He told us to be aboard the schooner by four bells (six o’clock) that afternoon; he told us to bring blankets, and also any small snacks, such as crackers or fruits, which we might want for luxuries, in case we were seasick. It seemed almost certain that I should go. I didn’t see anything standing in the way. Again the romance, the adventure, the piraticalness of it overwhelmed me, and I could not believe my senses. We walked down close to the wharf gate and stood there for a short time, watching them discharge the lath from the bottom of the hold. They were using the main gaff as a crane. They would swing it over the hold, tie several bundles of the lath on to a rope from the end of it, and then swing it out over the lumber carts, where the teamsters would unfasten the bundles. They were working the gaff, of course, by the machinery in the engine-room. I was thinking about the next day, and of being towed out into the open sea; I hardly saw the crew toiling away in the rain, hardly heard the steady drone of the engine.

To my delight, who should be riding back in the same trolley but my old friend Mr. Rasmussen? I fell immediately to telling him all about it. “Well,” said I, “the captain says for all hands to be aboard by four bells this afternoon.”

“So!” said he. “And you⁠—are you all ready? Have you got your oilskins, sea boots, sou’wester?”

“Well, no. You see, I haven’t had very much time to get ready. I only decided a few days ago that I would sail with the schooner.”

“Why, what kind of a sailor are you?” said he.

“You see, mate,” I replied, “I haven’t yet decided whether I shall enlist as a regular member of the crew. I’m still only a passenger.”

We talked some more, about his own sloop, and what the chances were of my having a sail in her sometime. He told us all about her⁠—how he had bought her, and how he had taken her all apart to find out what she was made of and whether she were really seaworthy, and how he repaired her here and there until she was as snug and tight as he could wish, and how now he was not afraid of any weather for her, knowing her to be as strongly made and ship-shape as a sailor’s heart could desire.

We telephoned, and the Bryans agreed to be over at two bells, so as to have a good margin left over. The day seemed horribly long, I was so wild and excited. After lunch I went to the most tipsy rocking-chair in the house and rocked, and rocked, and rocked⁠—so that I should be ready for a little rolling after meals. I didn’t honestly think I should be seasick⁠—but I am a very suggestible sort of person.

There was something darksome and fearful in the air⁠—and, in spite of my common sense, I could not help a vague misgiving. I found myself repeating hotly: “I’m going! Of course I’m going! There is nothing to prevent it.”

Anxious Moments

In the early part of the afternoon the telephone rang. I jumped like a madman for it. It was Captain Avery’s familiar croaking voice, and I was so startled that my heart sank down into the toes of my boots. He was pleasant, even though he didn’t sound as if he were accustomed to telephoning. All he wanted was to know my address and that of my shipmate; evidently he had to register us.

I was indescribably relieved. But the telephone rang again a very few minutes afterward. Again I sprang for it, and again I could feel my heart running downstairs. Again it was Captain Avery. But this time his voice seemed to denote trouble. “Barbara,” he said, “do you realize that you will have to have some identification to go into Canada⁠—something to show that you’re an American citizen? You’re likely to be held up at Boston, coming back, as an immigrant.”

“But⁠—but⁠—what sort of identification must I have, Captain Avery?”

“Just a minute.” (Pause.) “I think a letter from your father would do, Barbara.”

“Hold the line, please, Captain Avery.” I was absolutely terrified, now, and I was about to call for help, when another person took up the line and said, in a pleasant, expressionless voice, “Is your father or mother there?”

“Just a minute,” I said again⁠—and, at the same time, I heard the voice of Mother answering on the telephone downstairs. For that I was grateful⁠—so grateful! My heart was still going like a perfect sledge hammer, but I had to pick up the upstairs receiver and listen. This is what I heard (or something to this effect, for my brain had gone absolutely crazy, and my senses had forsaken me. I found myself saying: “You fool! Didn’t you know all the time that you couldn’t⁠—couldn’t⁠—couldn’t go on this trip? Didn’t you know that something would come up? You mean to say you didn’t know that it was far too good for yourself?”).

“Do you realize,” said the pleasant, expressionless voice, “that an adult male is taking a minor female into a foreign country?”

“Well,” said Mother, characteristically, “I hadn’t thought of it in just that way, but, now you speak of it, those do seem to be the facts.”

But I could listen no more. I couldn’t listen⁠—it was like hearkening to my own doom, and I put down the receiver. I afterwards found out that the rest of the talk was simply on the necessity of identification of some kind, and what kind, and the need of going to a lawyer about it, and so on. And here it was, the afternoon I was supposed to sail; undoubtedly the Bryans were now on their way; and it looked pretty black and desperate.

Mother came dashing upstairs and assaulted me: “This is very serious, Bar. It looks as if you mightn’t be able to go, after all. We have to go down-town to see a lawyer, and we may not be able to get through in time.”

Calamity Threatens

We bustled into good clothes and bustled at full speed down-town, through the same sort of drizzling, melancholy rain that we had had earlier in the day. Even the rain and the dull greyness of the day seemed to predict no good. Yes, everything was going wrong now⁠—everything which, up to half an hour ago, had been going right. What a difference a telephone call may make! It might make, in this case, the difference between a week of the most piratical, adventuresome, glorious days that I had ever known, and a week of gloomy days at home, lamenting the marvellous chance which I had lost through carelessness, and through not having a wider margin of time left over. I was prepared for the blackest. But my piratical fancies did not forsake me altogether, and I dreamed of how delightful it would be if I could leave home suddenly⁠—snooping out, and flying down the street; down to the Norman D. Then I should tell my friend the mate all the trouble, and I was sure he would sympathize, and allow me to stay aboard until she sailed back to New York. There he would smuggle me ashore as a bundle of old clothes, and Daddy would pick me up. Everything would go in a mysterious, piratical fashion. It seems strange, but none of us had ever thought of Canada as a foreign country.

Subscribed and Sworn to

And now I was to be put to the trial of facing one of those formidable persons called lawyers. But the hope of going even now put courage into my heart, and I strode eagerly. We went into Mr. Holbrook’s high office feeling very queer indeed. In that place I looked for no surprise; but one exciting thing did happen. When I went desperately over to the window to get a little light, if not air, while Mother was stating, in her most pitiful tones, the entire case, I saw, over tier after tier of roofs and high buildings, the blue water of the bay, and, looking like a child’s toy dock, the old, broken wharf, and, lying alongside it, like a child’s toy ship, the Norman D., mirrored in the calm water, white, noble, with her beautiful tall masts towering up against the sky. While Mr. Holbrook was in some of his most solemn moments of discussion, I shrieked out: “Oh, look! There’s the schooner now! See, down there by that tiny little wharf. That’s the Norman D. See? Isn’t she beautiful?” At the same time Mr. Holbrook was dictating the necessary affidavit to his secretary. It had to be signed by each of us; and it had to be certified and sealed by the Clerk of the Superior Court; and arrangements had to be made for my birth-certificate to be mailed to Nova Scotia for us on the return trip. While Mother took care of these grave matters, I was dashing furiously homeward in the first trolley, to arrive before the Bryans, if possible, and explain the whole complicated mess to them. And again I fell into my dreams of adventure. It happened that the Bryans had not arrived when I got home, but they had called up from Derby, and been told as much as the house knew about it, and that had put them into confusion, and I was very much afraid that they had gathered from the report that they weren’t to come at all. What a grand mess that would be! But they did come, soon after Mother, and again the mess was gone through, and pored over, and thought about. We felt truly safe and sound, having such a ponderous affidavit with us; we did indeed! “… By and with the full consent of the deponent …”!

We drove down to the schooner to find out for sure whether she was to sail that afternoon or the next morning. We hoped it would be in the morning, because we were very much crowded and confused, and rather giddy with so many accidents and telephone calls and lawyers and affidavits, and we wanted time to get settled down a little and to think things over, and to buy crackers and fruit as Captain Avery had suggested. But I, secretly and against my common sense, hoped to sail right then. I was furiously eager to get away from New Haven and all its traps and snares. Also, I feared that, if I had to spend another night at home, I should be so excited that I shouldn’t sleep. I should be so full of ideas about the sea, and ships, and pirates, and adventures⁠—and the trip, the actual trip that I was going on⁠—that I knew I shouldn’t sleep a wink.

We drove down in the same sort of rain we had been having all day. We told everything to Captain Avery; also Mother, following one of Mr. Holbrook’s numerous advices, asked him if he would please write a note to certify that we really were his passengers, on board his schooner, from New Haven to Bridgewater. This note we should present to the officials at Boston if challenged.

But we found, to everybody else’s joy and my dismay, that the schooner was not to sail until Wednesday morning. Tired and confused and a little dizzy, I ran about among the various members of the crew⁠—especially the cook and mate⁠—and told them, with huge glee, that I should be sailing with them. The cook, good old soul, seemed very much delighted, and at once retold his favorite yarn about the cold tea. The mate said he was sure I should make a splendid sailor.

The Day of Days

Glorious! But I need not repeat my new dives into even more wonderful sea dreams. Now, for the first time, I could really shake off the misgiving; now I really knew that I was to do what I had, though for so short a time, longed to do. We ate supper down-town sleep. I never slept more soundly in my life⁠—except, perhaps, afterwards, when⁠—but wait a page or two.

The day dawned fair, and there seemed to be a breeze where we were, for white fair-weather clouds were scudding across the sky. I woke rather early; I was wide awake in a flash, and I leaped out of bed, clapping on my old clothes as hastily as I could. My hair I braided up tightly, as I always do when I go on any wild enterprise. Mother fussed a little over the braids, and said I looked like a hobgoblin. I said that braids were nautical, and befitted the schooner and the sea.

We took three jars of our own homemade orange marmalade, some of which was to go to the men in the fo’c’sle, the rest aft. We thought this would please Captain Avery. Then, with my sailor rags fluttering about me like a proud banner of triumph, Mother and I marched down Armory Street to the trolley. Mother left me down-town to wait for the Bryans and to buy those everlasting crackers and fruits, but I simply couldn’t wait, and I transferred into another trolley and sailed down Chapel Street. I was so absorbed in my own dreams that I almost went past Brewery Street. But I saw the topmasts of the schooner just in time, and got out. I couldn’t resist saying to myself: “Oh, thank heaven! She is still there.” You see, my superstition tried its hardest to make me believe that I still might possibly be hindered from going. It was still trying to make me see imaginary obstacles. But I didn’t see any, and I wouldn’t see any, and I went tearing down Brewery Street, vaulted lightly through the little gate, and reached the side of the ship, with my suitcase and the three jars of marmalade.

But⁠—what is this? Is my superstition right after all? Are there still more difficulties? It seemed so, for not a soul stirred on deck. I stood there, gazing at the ship, with my suitcase in one hand, and my heart again sinking into my boots. I was just about to raise a hail, as I had done once before, when a sailor-like man, in a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders⁠—he was very brown, almost coppery, with terrific muscles⁠—strode up to me and asked if I wanted to go aboard. He hopped aboard, brought a ladder instantly, and lowered it over the side.

Wager on a Delicate Subject

In no time I was having delicious conversations with the cook, who was telling me he was sure I should be seasick, while the mate sat on the bulwarks on the other side of me, telling me he thought I shouldn’t be. The mate and the cook fell into a sort of playful arguing, and finally they laid a wager on me⁠—the mate wagering a quarter that I shouldn’t be seasick, and the cook wagering his quarter that I should.

The delight of it! Already, this intense familiarity with the crew⁠—and two of them wagering about my seasickness! I could contain myself no longer. I slipped down off the bulwarks and ran to the foremast shrouds; then up on to the bulwarks again and up the ratlines, quick as a squirrel, hand over hand. There I sat on the crosstrees, in the blazing morning sun, watching three or four of the crew who were out on the jibboom replacing the repaired outer jib.

When I came down, the mate and the cook were still talking where I had left them. The mate began to compliment me again on my daring aloft. He told me about one of the crew, Richardson, who had never been much good as a sailor, and who couldn’t climb nearly so well as I. We watched that same Richardson, a foolish-looking lad, going up the port main rigging on some little task, and he seemed, indeed, very timid and scared. He turned almost white when he was ordered up, and he went very slowly and cautiously. It was perfectly true that he couldn’t climb so well as I. Then the mate came back to my seasickness. The cook had gone back into the galley, and evidently the mate wanted very much to argue in favor of his wager, and strengthen his side a little. So he said to me: “Now, ’tain’t likely as you’ll be seasick. And, if you are, you’ll certainly get over it in a couple o’ days. As long as you’ve a good head, that makes all the difference in the world. Now, Richardson here, he hasn’t got a head⁠—he can’t stand the height, and he gets seasick every trip. But you⁠—look at the way you go scrambling up to the crosstrees. Them as can climb like that never get sick.”

We talked about the trip, and what time the captain thought he should be getting out. The captain was then ashore, collecting the last provisions, and they were all anxiously awaiting him and the tug which was to tow us out of the harbor. It was, of course, dead calm in there, but there was a line of vivid blue out beyond, and it looked like a breeze. I asked the mate, in order to air my knowledge a bit, if four bells had yet struck. But the mate evidently saw my trap and thought that I was talking about what I knew nothing of, and he queried in a tone of obvious scorn: “What is four bells?” And I was proud to reply without the slightest hesitation: “Ten o’clock, mate.”

A Purchase on Suspicion

But now, in spite of the pleasure of sitting and yarning with my matey, I began to think over again the delight, the impossibly delightful idea, of the voyage. And I fairly squirmed and itched all over. Of course I was impatient for the return of the captain. Shortly he appeared, with a large and mysterious-looking bundle under his arm. Said he to Mother, who was standing on the wharf: “I bet you can’t guess what I’ve got here!” and he chuckled mysteriously.

“No; what is it?”

He chuckled some more. “Well, I’ll tell you! I’ve got two brand-new pails, in case they get seasick!”

To myself I was thinking: “Supposing we fool you? Then your new pails would go to waste, wouldn’t they?” For I was secretly pretty sure I should be steady. I talked a little to the captain, asking him what time he thought we should be under way, and how soon he expected the tug; for now everything was ready, and we were to slide out to sea as soon as the tug appeared. The mate got up instantly when the captain drew near⁠—not to be caught idling, I suppose⁠—and began to busy himself about the deck. That man has a marvellous knack of finding things to do. When he feels like working, he can always find a thousand little jobs to do here and there.

Mother came aboard, too, and talked with the captain and the mate. The mate was extraordinarily pleasant, telling her all about what a fine climber I was and what a good head I had, and saying that he didn’t think I would be sick. A man had come from town along on to the wharf⁠—seemingly a very nice person, dressed in city clothes. He leaned over the bulwarks, talking to Mother, and telling her how he loved to see the schooners that still came into New Haven now and then, and how rare they were now, and how lucky I was to be sailing with the Norman D., and how soon he’d go if he had the chance.

And, amid all these happenings, the tug which was to tow us out to sea had chugged up slowly, and now lay alongside the schooner to port. There was shouting and yoho‑ing among the two crews, and through the confusion could be heard the hoarse, loud voice of Captain Avery, rapidly giving his orders. He seemed to me to have a clear idea of what he wanted done, but, if a moment were lost in the execution of his orders, he immediately became nervous and hectic. Towropes were got out and thrust through the cable-holes. Now our mate had skipped ashore and loosened the ropes which held the ship to the posts on the wharf; then he called out to me to untangle the rope where it was snarled around the capstan. Shortly afterwards I was sent to coil it up in a snug, neat coil.

Outward Bound

Now everything was astir. The schooner was securely made fast to the tug by a long, stout towrope. This was let out, and the schooner began slowly, slowly to move from the wharf. Now she was quietly turning upon her heel, and soon she was headed out for the open sound, past the breakwaters, past the lighthouses. I felt her sliding on beneath me. There were several little yachts and small sailboats in the bay: they turned and stared at us as we went gliding past. Beautiful indeed we must have looked⁠—but of that I was hardly thinking; indeed, I was thinking of few things, my head was in such a whirl with the delight of the moment.

The wharf grew more and more distant, and the smoking town, too. I was glad to realize that, at length, we were leaving it behind and were bound for the open, free sea and the wild winds and waves. Now we saw East Rock and West Rock as small nubbins of hills in the distance. The tug was to stay with us until we had rounded the tip of a long green peninsula which jutted out into the bay. Beyond this I could still see the bright blue which seemed to denote wind. Now the tug had reached full momentum, and the great schooner was gliding pretty swiftly through the water. More and more distant grew the land behind us⁠—nearer and nearer the open sea.

I was called back to myself by the sudden sound of an engine running. The bo’s’n had started our engine, and now the sails were to be run up. Oh, was it true? Could it possibly be true that we were going to run up sails? that there really were a few sails left in this modern world? I heard the voice of Captain Avery giving orders. “Mainsail up first⁠—then foresail, forestaysail, and jibs⁠—put up the spanker and topsails last. Lively there, boys!” And⁠—it was so glorious that I had to pinch myself and rub my eyes hard⁠—the peak halyards were wound around the winch on one side of the engine-room, and the throat halyards around the other, and now, amid the roaring of the engine and the quivering of the great tackles, up went the gaff slowly, quivering and shaking; up went the sail, spreading out gracefully, as white hoop after white hoop ran up the tall mainmast. Up and up and up! Then the mainsail was stretched to its full length, and the gaff came to rest just below the crosstrees. Never had I realized what a vast expanse the sails have. The halyards were made fast. And now the foresail, too, shivering and groaning, began to reach up. It, too, was soon made fast. And then the beautiful jibs, two at a time, went rolling up, their long points seeming to reach into the sky itself. The first two were the forestaysail and jib, the last the flying jib and outer jib. The schooner shuddered. The engine had awakened her; the sea had called, and she was answering.

Under Sail at Last

We were now almost out of the bay. A gentle puff of wind rose, and I saw the great white sails lifting and filling. Then, when the wind died down, they collapsed. And now we had cast the towrope. The tug fell away. We felt like a queen on the ocean, dominating the little boat proudly. Now the tug circled, wheeled about, and started for the wharf again. The Norman D. ran up her spanker, the largest sail of all, headed her nose for the open, and began to sail gently on with a steady little breeze puffing out the sails. We were off! We were headed for who knows what strange and mysterious adventures?

About the first thing we did was to have dinner. We went below aft, and fed on the same sort of sailor grub that Mother and I had had the night we ate supper there. I was sorry that I had to break up the delight by having dinner, and I finished hastily, and went back on deck as soon as possible. Yes, we were sailing. The bo’s’n was at the wheel. I talked to him a while. The wind seemed to be rising just a little bit. I tried my best to make the schooner seem to be rolling, but all I could see was a slight waving of the horizon up and down; I couldn’t feel it at all. But the sails were full and steady, and oh! so beautiful they seemed to me. I could see myself entering into the spirit of sailing right off. I had the most curious sensations I have ever experienced⁠—of mystery, of adventure; I can’t describe it at all. But I could think myself a sailor. The crew were now unfurling the topsails. When they were all loosened, the topsail halyards were hauled, and up went the topsails, one at each topmast, sharp mountain-peaks on the lower sails.

Amenities in the Galley

But, thought I, I mustn’t neglect my duty through sheer delight. I ran up to the galley, had a talk with the cook about almost everything under the sun, and dried his dishes and helped clean up the galley for him. He thanked me cordially and very touchingly, and I resolved to help him a great deal. He seemed like such a sad little old man! I never knew quite what to make of him. The arched wrinkles upon his high, bald forehead, his smallness and robustness, all combined to make him a very curious-looking specimen. He wore, too, a sort of butcher’s apron arrangement, and somehow the strings dangling behind always seemed comical to me. But he knew more about ships than anyone there, and he seemed rather disgusted at the greenness of this young crew. “Oh, Lordy, Lordy,” he would say, “that crew⁠—they give me a pain. Why, in old days, when the sails were much harder to hoist up, and when all the work was a cursed sight harder⁠—why, we poor sailors would get flogged and fired fer bein’ so slow as on this schooner. And here, they have an engine and everything made to suit them, yit they dawdle and lazy around and don’t seem to know how to do nothing.”

There seemed now to be quite a breeze outside. I could somehow feel the deck sliding from beneath me, and I staggered around in the galley, much to the amusement of the cook, who put his hands on his hips, and roared aloud, and told me I hadn’t got my “sea legs on yit.” I stepped out of the galley to see what the weather was doing. It was sparklingly clear. The sun made mazes of color on the blue sea. The wind was coming up, and I could see the waves sloshing against the side of the schooner. We were slipping down along the coast of Rhode Island, a low green bar far off. The ship was leaning gently and quietly before the rising wind. The sails looked fuller and puffier than ever, and the breeze was very fresh and delightful. I returned to the galley and said: “Well, there seems to be quite a breeze out, cook.” But the cook was not to be fooled with a landsman’s idea of a breeze. And he replied in a truly pathetic tone of voice: “Oh! Oh! There’s such a terrible wind out⁠—I’m seasick!” and he laughed and laughed.

The dishes were finished very shortly. I went on deck and sat and watched the sea. I had such a marvellous sense of remoteness! In spite of the long green coast, I could not help feeling that we were out in mid-ocean⁠—and when I turned my back to that edge of land I was sure of it. The sea seemed to stretch away boundlessly. The sky was of a marvellous color, but away off on the horizon there were banks of clouds, casting weird and lovely shadows down on the far skyline⁠—maroons, wine-colors, green, and dark, dark blue. Very strange! And the sails seemed white⁠—oh! so white⁠—in spite of the fact that they were somewhat dirty with rough handling.

The wind was steadily rising all the time, and the schooner keeled over gently and quietly, more and more, on her starboard side. When I ran to the starboard bulwarks to look down into the waves, all I saw was the raging white bone which the schooner carried proudly in her white teeth⁠—a mass of foam, white, whiter than fresh-blown snow, curling into gorgeously weird and beautiful shapes, with a rushing noise as its small bubbles went out, thousands at a time. How angry the sea was becoming! The waves rose high and high⁠—ten times higher than in any gale I had ever fought in the canoe. The waves roared, the wind moaned, the whitecaps rose up mysteriously like snow-palaces and then subsided again. All this time the sea was becoming overcast with clouds, and now the waves were shadowed and strange. And to see them, in their dark green and blue, with those castles of foam surmounting each wave like proud ivory⁠—oh, this was sailing! And yet it was nothing to what was to come.

Waves and Foam

The schooner was keeled away over now, but she didn’t roll a bit. She was absolutely steady, and kept on her course without varying a quarter point, straight as an arrow. I shall never forget the delight with which I went to the fo’c’sle deck, where I sat as far as I could squeeze into the peak of the bow and looked down on the port side, where the raging sea seemed far, far below; and then down on the starboard side, where it was near, and angry, and lapping furiously at the ship, and reaching hungrily for it. And from there I could look down straight ahead and see the foam, I could see where the sharp cutwater divided the seas in half, and I could see one long chain of foam reaching down the port side and another down the starboard⁠—each of them like a range of towering snow-capped mountains. And three or four white-winged gulls swooped and darted about, looking, as they flew low over the waves, like whitecaps themselves.

For a good part of the afternoon this kept up. But, alas, towards night I could feel the breeze going down, and the schooner slowly and gradually righted herself, and the sails were close-hauled a little to catch every bit of breeze that was coming to us. And then I began to feel the roll. I could see the horizon ahead of us waving up and down. It was a delightful sensation, like that of a seesaw, for the schooner was not pitching, but only rolling head-on. All the same, I was sorry to find the sails flapping. First they would puff out suddenly at a little spurt of wind, then slowly empty again and hang idly flapping. Calmer and calmer it grew, and then the tackle began to rattle and groan: and what a racket it did make!