A Man in the Open Part 2

I'd allus watched for a chance to run away, and thar was Jim, the anchor-watch, squatting on the bitts dead asleep. He used to be that way when n.o.body chased him.

I daresn't make for the coast. You see I'd heard tell of n.i.g.g.e.rs ash.o.r.e which eat boys who run away. But I seen the lights of the three-masted schooner a couple of miles to windward. I grabbed a sealing gaff and slid down on to the ice.

First, as the pans rocked under me, I was scary, next I warmed up, gettin' venturesome, until I came near sliding into the wet, and after that I'd look before I lep'. There'd been a tops'l breeze from the norrard, blowin' up since nightfall to a hurricane, and then it blew some more, until I couldn't pole-jump for fear of being blowed away.

With any other ship, I'd have wished myself back on board.

You know how the grinding piles an edge around each pan, of broken splinters? That edge shone white agin the black of the water, all the guide I had. But times the squalls of wind was like scythes edged with sleet, so I was blinded, waiting, freezing until a lull came, and I'd get on. It was broad day, and I reckon each step weighed a ton before I made that schooner.

A gray man, fat, with a chin whisker, lifted me in overside. "Come far?"

says he, and I turned round to show him the _Zedekiah_. She wasn't there. She was gone--foundered.

So that's how I came aboard of the _Happy Ship_, just like a lil' lost dog, with no room in my skin for more'n bones and famine. Captain Smith used to say he'd signed me on as family ghost; but he paid me honest wages, fed me honest grub, while as to clothes and bed, I was snug as a little rabbit. He taught me reading and writing, and punctuation with his belt, sums, hand, reef, and steer, catechism, knots and splices, sewing, squeegee, rule of the road, soojie moojie, psalms of David, const.i.tution of the United States, and playing the trombone, with three pills and a good licking regular Sat.u.r.day nights. Mother's little boy began to set up and take notice.

Then five years in the _Pawtucket_ all along, from Montreal to Colon, from banjos plunking in them _portales_ of Vera Cruz, to bugles crying revally in Quebec, and the oyster boats asleep by old Point Comfort, and the Gloucester fleet a-storming home past Sable, and dagos basking on Havana quays. Suck oranges in the dinghy under the moonlight, waiting to help the old man aboard when he's drunk; watch the n.i.g.g.e.rs humping cotton into a tramp at Norfolk; feel the tide-rip snoring up past Tantramar; reef home trys'ls when she's coming on to blow, with the Keys to lee'ard; can't I just _feel_ the old _p.a.w.nticket_ romping home to be in time for Christmas!

Did you hear tell that the sea has feelings--the cryin', the laugh, dumb sorrow, blazin' wrath, the peace, the weariness, the mother-kindness, the hush like prayers of something which ain't brute, or human, but more'n human, so grand and awful you hardly dare to breathe?

Words, only words which don't fit, the misfits which make fun of serious thoughts. We men is dumb beasts which can't say what we mean, whereas I've allus reckoned persons like cats and wolves don't feel so much emotions as they exudes in song.

Seafaring men is sea-wise, sea-kind, only land-foolish, for there's things no sailorman knows how to say, things even landsmen can't figure out in dollars and cents.

Seems I'm a point off my course? I'm only saying things the captain said, times on a serious night when we'd be up some creek for fish, or layin' low for ducks. If ever he went ash.o.r.e without me, I'd be like a lost dog, and he drunk before the sun was over the yard-arm. But away together it wasn't master and boy, but just father and son. He'd even named me after himself, and that's why my name's Smith.

I disremember which port--somewheres up the St. Lawrence where we loaded lumber for the Gulf o' Mexico, but the captain and me was away fishing.

Mother had come from the Labrador to find me, old gray mother. They dumped her seal-hide trunk on our wharf, so one of the china dogs inside got split from nose to tail; but mother just sat on a bollard, and didn't give a d.a.m.n. She put on her round horn spectacles to smile at the mate aft, and the second mate forward, the or'nary seaman painting in the name board, and Bill in his bos'n's chair a-tarring down the rigging, and the b.u.mboat laundress who'd been tearing the old man's shirt-fronts. Yes, she'd a smile for every man jack that seemed to warm their hearts, but nary a word to interfere with work, for she just sat happy at the sight of the _p.a.w.nticket_, and she surely admired everything, from Old Glory to Blue Peter--until our n.i.g.g.e.r cook came and spilled slops overside. Seems he'd had news of the lady, and came to grin, but he was back in his galley, like a rabbit to his burrow, while she marched up the gangway. "Can't abide dirt," says mother, and even the new boy heard not a word else 'cept the splash. For mother just escorted that n.i.g.g.e.r right through the galley, out at the other end, over the port rail, and boosted him into the blue harbor, for the first and only bath he'd ever had. Then she took off her horn spectacles, her old buckskin gloves, and her bonnet, and sot to cleaning a galley which hadn't been washed since the days of President Lincoln. Floor, range, walls, beams, pots, kettles, plates and dishes, she washed and scrubbed and polished. She hadn't time to listen to the wet n.i.g.g.e.r or the mate, and narry a man on board could get more than yea or nay out of mother.

She cooked them a supper too good to be eaten and spoilt, then set the dishes to rights, got the lamp a-shining, and axed to be shown round the ship. You should have seen the idlers aft and the boys forrard, redding up as if all their mothers was expected. As to the n.i.g.g.e.r, the fellers made a habit of pitching him overboard until he got tired of coming.

The cap'n and me comes back along with the dinghy, makes fast, and climbs aboard. There's old gray mother, with the horn specs, calm in her own kitchen, just tellin' us to set right down to supper. Cap'n lives aft, and I belongs up forrard, being ordinary seaman, and less important aboard than the old man's pig. Yet somehow mother knew, feeding us both in the galley, and standing by while we fed. Never a word, but mother had a light for Captain Smith's cigar, and her eyes looking hungry at me for fear she'd be sent ash.o.r.e.

"Well, ma'am," says the captain, "sent your baggage aft? Oh, we'll soon get your baggage aboard."

Then I heard him on deck seeing mother's dunnage into the spare berth aft, and the n.i.g.g.e.r's turkey thrown out on the wharf.

Sort of strange to me remembering mother, gaunt, bitter-hard, always in the right, with lots to say. And here was little mother sobbing her heart out on the breast of my jersey. Just the same mother changed. Said she was fed up with the Labrador, coming away to see the world, meet folks, and have a good time; but would I be ashamed of having her with me at sea? Surely that had been old mother back there in the long ago time, and now it was young mother laughing just because she'd cried.

Shamed? All the ways down from Joe Beef's clear to Rimouski you'll hear that yarn to-day, of how the old sea custom of winning a berth in fair fight was practised by a lady, aboard of the _p.a.w.nticket_.

You've heard of ship's husbands, but we'd the first ship's mother. And the way she crep' in was surely insidious. Good word that. Let her draw stores, you find she's steward and purser, just surely poison to the chandlers. Oh, she'll see to the washing, and before you can turn around, she's nurse and doctor. She's got to be queen, and the schooner's a sea palace, when we suddenly discovered she only signed as cook.

Now we're asleep at eleven knots on a beam wind, and Key West wide on the starboard bow, the same being in the second dog-watch when I'm invited aft. There's the old man setting in the captain's place, there's mother at the head of the table sewing, and she asks me to sit in the mate's seat as if I was chief officer instead of master's dog.

"Son," says she--queer, little, soft chuckle, "son. You'll never guess."

I'm sort of sulky at having riddles put.

Then the old man gets red to the gills, giggling. He slaps hisself on his fat knee and wriggles. Then he up and kisses mother with a big smack right on the lips.

"Can't guess?" says mother.

"I'm the old man," he giggles, "she's the old woman." Then he reached out his paw. "Put her there, son!" says he; "what's yer name, boy?"

He'd a hand like a bear trap. "Smith!" I squealed. "Smith!"

"Fact," says he. "Fill yourself a goblet of that 'ere sherry wine, with some sugar. Drink, you cub, to Captain and Mrs. Smith. Now off with ye, and pa.s.s the bottle forrard."

There's me chuck-a-block with shyness, spluttering wine, dumb as a fish 'cause I've only one mouth to my face; then I'm to the foc'sle, tellin'

the boys there's mutiny on the high seas with the cook commanding, and we're flying the aurora borealis for a flag, till we load a cargo of stars, and clears for paradise.

Next day, or next week, or maybe the Monday following, the ship's got a headache, with the sky sitting down on the mastheads, the sea like oil, the sheets slapping the shadows on the deck, where the tar boils, and our feet is like overdone toast.

We sailors is off our feed, and Pierre Legrandeur telling his beads till they get pitched overboard for luck. Old man's in a stinking temper, mother abed with sick headache, first mate like a wounded seal, the second has a touch of the sun, and bo's'n got a water-pup on his neck.

We stows every st.i.tch of canvas, sets a storm stays'l reefed to the size of a towel, everything on deck's lashed solid, and the gla.s.s is lookin'

sicker'n ever. Then dad says we'd best take precautions, so he tries to house the top-masts, and sends down for a drum of oil.

The sky's like copper edged with sheet lightning, then there's scud in a hurry overhead, the horizon folding in, and a funnel-shaped cloud to the southard wrapping up the sky. There's no air, and I noticed the binnacle alight, so it must have been nigh dark under that funnel cloud. Just as it struck, some one called out "All aboard!" and I heard the mate yell, "You mean, all overboard!"

Couldn't see much at first, as I was busy getting mother out of the drowned cabin. When I'd pa.s.sed a halyard round her and the stump of the mizzen, I'd just breathing time. The sea was flattened, white under black sky, and what was left of us was mostly blowing about. I felt sorry for Pierre--gone after his rosary beads, and Mick, too--he'd owed me a dollar. I missed the masts some, and the bowsprit. Galley gone, too, and the good old dinghy staved to kindlings. The ship's cat was mewing around with no curling-up corner left.

Dad was just taking command again of what remained. No use shouting either, so he hung on and beckoned. The masts overside were battering holes in us, until we cut adrift. Then to the pumps, but that was sort of _ex officio_ just to keep us warm. Working's warmer than waiting.

Being timber-laden we couldn't sink, which was convenient. But, as mother said, there wasn't any grub on the roof, and we couldn't go down-stairs. For instance, we wanted a drink of water.

Well, now, we been three days refreshing our parched mouths with beer stories, when a fishing vessel comes along smelling salvage. Happens he's one of them felucca-rigged dago swine out of Invicta, Texas.

Daresn't tow a hair-brush across a wash pail for fear of getting fouled in his own hawser. But he's a champion artist at gesticulations, so he'd like to get his picture in the papers for rescuing shipwrecked mariners.

His charges was quite moderate, too, for a breaker of water and some fancy grub--until we seen the bill.

I never knew till then that our old man was owner. Of course that's all right, only he'd run astern with his insurance. That's why he'd stay with the ship, so it's no good talking. As to mother, she come aboard the feluccy, ship's cat in her arms, and a sort of cold, dumb, going-to-be-good-and-it's-killin'-me sort of smile. She bore up brave until she struck the number-one smell in the dago's cabin. "It's too much," she says, handing me the cat, "too much. I'm goin' back to drown clean."

She kissed me, and went back aboard the wreck.

But I was to stay with our sailors aboard the dago, to fetch Invicta quick, and bring a tug. Dad trusted me, even to play the coward and quit him. I dread to think back on that pa.s.sage of four days to the port of Invicta.

Now in them days I was fifteen, and considered homely. The mouth I got would be large for a dog, smile--six and three-quarters. Thar ash.o.r.e at Invicta, I'd still look sort of cheerful, so all them tug skippers took me for a joke. It was four days and three nights since I'd slept, so I suppose I'd look funny wanting to hire a tug.

I showed power of attorney, wrote in indelible pencil on dad's old d.i.c.ky cravat, but the tugs expected cash, and the agents went back on me.

There was our sailors playing shipwrecked heroes, which is invited to take refreshments, and tell how brave they'd been, raising the quotations on tugs up to ten thousand dollars. Better have a whisky to lessen that smile before it takes cramp, they'd say. And mother's voice seems to call out of the air.

Nothin' doing Sat.u.r.day nights at the office, tug crews all ash.o.r.e, but the port will get a move on Monday. Trust grown men to know more'n a mere boy. Keep a stiff upper lip, cheer up and have a drink. The gla.s.s is down, the gulls is flying inland, thar's weather brewing. I seen in my mind the sprays lash over the wreck.

It was dark when I went to the wharves with Captain McGaw to see the _Pluribus Unum_. He'd show me a tug cheap at ten thousand cash--stores all complete, steam up, engineer on the premises, though he'd stepped ash.o.r.e for a drink. Cute cabin he'd got on the bridge, cunning little glory-hole forrard. Why, everything was real handy, so that I only had to bat him behind the ear with a belaying-pin, and he dropped right down the fore hatch. All I wanted now was a navigating officer I could trust.

Which brings me to Mr. McMillan, our own second mate, buying a dozen fried oysters in a card box with a wire handle, all for twenty-five cents, though the girl seemed expecting a kiss.

"h.e.l.lo, Frankie," says I, slapping him on the back. A foremast hand can make his officer act real dignified with less. "Say, Mac! D'ye know what Greed done?" I grabbed his oysters. "Greed, he choke puppy," says I, and in my mind I seen the gulls wheel round the wreck, where something's lying huddled. "Come on, puppy!" says I, waving Frankie down street with them oysters, so all the traffic pauses to admire, and our second officer is running good. More things I said, escorting him maybe a mile aboard of the _Pluribus Unum_. And there I ate them oysters while he was being coa.r.s.e and rude, but all the time I seen the wreck heave sick and sodden on the swell of the gulf, the circling gulls, and how they dove down, pecking at a huddle of torn clothes beside the wheel.

Up thar on the tug's masthead I was owning to being in the wrong, while Frankie Mac was promising faithful to tear my hide off over my ears when I'm caught.