The Seiners Part 6

"No, I didn't take it--and why? I didn't take it--and why? Because, though the mothers that bore us both were great women--all fire and iron--'twas in me to last longer--you a boy and your first winter fishing, and me a tough, hard old trawler. And you had all of life before you, and I'd run through some hard years of mine. If I'd gone 'twould have been no great loss, but you, Maurice, innocent as a child--how could I? I'd known men and women, good and bad--I'd lived life and I'd had my chance and thrown it away--but at your age the things you had to learn! Maybe I didn't think it all out like that, but that was why I didn't take the plug strap. But, Maurice-boy, I never forgot it. 'Take the plug strap, you, Tommie,' you says. We were dory-mates, of course, but, Maurice-boy, I'll never forget it."

Clancy took off his hat and drew his hand across his forehead. "And where were you bound when we stopped you, Maurice?"

"Oh, I don't know. To take a walk maybe."

"Sure, and why not? Let's all take a walk. Let's take a walk down to the dock and have a look at the vessel. Too dark? So it is, but we can see the shadow of her masts rising up to the clouds and we can open up the cabin and go below and have a smoke. Come, Maurice. Come on, Joe."

And down to the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan we went, and Clancy never in such humor. For three hours--from a little after three o'clock until after six--we sat on the lockers, Clancy talking and we smoking and roaring at him. Only the sun coming up over Eastern Point, lighting up the harbor and striking into the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan, brought Clancy to a halt.

He moved then and we with him. We left Maurice at the door of old Mrs.

Arkell's, the old lady herself in the doorway and asking us if we had a good time at the ball. Standing on the steps, before he went in, Maurice said to me: "Tell your cousin, Joe, that when I do race the Johnnie, I'll take the spars out of her before anything gets by--take the spars out or send her under. I can't do any more than that."

The Johnnie Duncan was to leave at ten o'clock and so I left Clancy at his boarding-house. He looked tired when I left him. But he was chuckling, too. I asked him what it was that made him smile so.

"I'll give you three guesses," he said, but I didn't guess.

VIII

THE SEINING FLEET PUTS OUT TO SEA

The rest of that morning, between leaving Clancy and getting back to the dock again, I spent in cleaning up and overhauling my home outfit.

My mother couldn't be made to believe that store bedding was of much use--and she was right, I guess--and so a warranted mattress and blankets and comforters and a pillow were made into a bundle and thrown onto a waiting wagon. Then it was good-by to all--good-by to my cousin Nell, who had come over from her house, good-by and a kiss for her little sister--late for school she was, but didn't care she said--and then good-by to my mother. That took longer. Then it was into the wagon with my bedding and off to the dock.

At Duncan's store I had charged up to me such other stuff as I needed: Two suits of oilskins, yellow and black, two sou'westers, heavy and light, two blue-gray flannel shirts, a black sweater, a pair of rubber boots, two pairs of woollen mitts and four pairs of cotton mitts, five pounds of smoking tobacco, a new pipe, and so on. When I had all my stuff tied up, I swung up abreast of Clancy and together we headed for the end of Duncan's dock, where the Johnnie Duncan lay.

Quite a fleet went out ahead of us that morning. Being a new vessel, there was a lot of things that were not ready until the last minute.

And then there was the new foretopmast--promised at nine o'clock it was--not slung and stayed up until after ten. And then our second seine, which finally we had to leave for Wesley Marrs to take next morning. And there were the usual two or three men late. Clancy and Andie Howe went up to have a farewell drink and were gone so long that the skipper sent me after them. I found them both in the Anchorage, where Clancy had met a man he hadn't seen for ten years--an old dory-mate--thought he was lost five years before in the West Indies.

"But here he is, fine and handsome. Another little touch all around and a cigar for Joe, and we're off for the Southern cruise."

We left then and started for the dock, with Clancy full of poetry.

There happened to be a young woman looking out of a window on the way down. Clancy did not know her, nor she him, so far as I knew, but something about him seemed to take her eye. She leaned far out and waved her handkerchief at him. That was enough. Clancy broke out--

"The wind blows warm and the wind blows fair, Oh, the wind blows westerly-- Our jibs are up and our anchor's in, For the Duncan's going to sea.

And will you wait for me, sweetheart?

Oh, will you wait for me?

And will you be my love again When I come back from sea?

"Oh, sway away and start her sheets And point her easterly-- It's tackle-pennant, boom her out And turn the Duncan free.

You'll see some sailing now, my boys, We're off for the Southern cruise-- They'll try to hold the Johnnie D, But they'll find it of no use."

I didn't wait any longer than that for Clancy, but ran ahead to the Duncan. I found her with jibs up and paying off. I was in time to get aboard without trouble, but Clancy and Howe coming later had to make a pier-head jump of it. Clancy, who could leap like a hound--drunk or sober--made it all right with his feet on the end of the bowsprit and his fingers on the balloon stay when he landed, but Howe fell short, and we had the liveliest kind of a time gaffing him in over the bow, he not being able to swim. They must have heard us yelling clear to Eastern Point, I guess. Andie didn't mind. "I must be with a lot of dogs--have to jump overboard to get aboard." He spat out what water he had to, and started right in to winch up the mainsail with the gang.

He had on a brand-new suit, good cloth and a fine fit.

"You'll soon dry out in the sun, Andie-boy," they all said to him.

"I s'pose so. But will my clothes ever fit me again like they did?--and my fine new patent-leather shoes!"

Drifting down by the dock next to Duncan's our long bowsprit almost swept off a row of old fellows from the cap-log. They had to scramble, but didn't mind. "Good luck, and I hope you fill her up," they called out.

"Oh, we'll try and get our share of 'em," our fellows called back.

There was a young woman on the next dock--one of the kind that quite often come down to take snap-shots. A stranger to Gloucester she must have been, for not only that Gloucester girls don't generally come down to the docks to see the fishermen off, but she said good-by to us. She meant all right, but she should never have said good-by to a fisherman. It's unlucky. Too many of them don't come back, and then the good-by comes true.

Andie Howe looked a funny sight when we were making sail. Clancy, who, once he got started, took a lot of stopping, was still going:

"Oh, the Johnnie Duncan, fast and able-- Good-by, dear, good-by, my Mabel-- And will you save a kiss for me When I come back from sea?"

"Yes," roared Andie,

"And don't forget I love you, dear, And save a kiss for me,"

with the salt water dripping from his fine new suit of clothes and the patent-leather shoes he was so fond of.

And Clancy again:

"Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue sea And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me,"

and Howe,

"Oh, too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree And a hi-did-dy ho-did-dy ho-dee-dee,"

and Clancy,

"Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree, The Johnnie Duncan's going to sea,"

and Howe--a little shy on the words--

"Tum-did-dy dum-did-dy dum-did-dy-dum, Hoo-roo-roo and a dum by gum."

And by that time the gang were joining in and sheeting flat the topsails with a great swing.

I don't suppose that Gloucester Harbor will ever again look as beautiful to me as it did that morning when we sailed out. Forty sail of seiners leaving within two hours, and to see them going--to see them one after another loose sails and up with them, break out anchors, pay off, and away! It was the first day of April and the first fine day in a week, and those handsome vessels going out one after the other in their fresh paint and new sails--it was a sight to make a man's heart thump.

"The Johnnie Duncan, seiner of Gloucester--watch her walk across the Bay to-day," was George Moore's little speech when he came on deck to heave his first bucket of sc.r.a.ps over the rail. George was cook.

And she did walk. We squared away with half a dozen others abreast of us and Eastern Point astern of us all. Among the forty sail of fishermen that were standing across the Bay that morning we knew we'd find some that could sail. There was the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley's vessel. He worked her clear of the bunch that came out of the harbor and came after us, and we had it with him across to Cape Cod. Forty miles before we beat him; but Pitt Ripley had a great sailer in the Ruth, and we would have been satisfied to hold her even. "Only wait till by and by, when we get her in trim," we kept saying.

"This one'll smother some of them yet," said Eddie Parsons, looking back at the Ruth. He felt pretty good, because he had the wheel when we finally crossed the Ruth's bow.

"With good steering--yes," said Clancy.

"Of course," exclaimed Eddie to that, and filled his chest full, and then, looking around and catching everybody laughing, let his chest flatten again.

The skipper didn't have much to say right away about her sailing. He was watching her, though. He'd look at her sails, have an eye on how they set and drew, take a look over her quarter, another look aloft, and then back at the Ruth, then a look for the vessels still ahead.