THE NAMING OF THE BOAT
Some days later, _tio_ Mariano handed Pascualo the tidy sum of twelve
thousand _reales_, the captain's share in the proceeds of the venture.
But money was the least of the Rector's earnings. He had established
himself now solidly in his uncle's grace, for the old man, with very
slight risk to his own hide, had cleaned up twice that amount. Besides,
the moment the whole story had gone the rounds, Pascualo became the lion
of the Valencian water-front. A stroke of genius, that break from the
Columbretas in a full gale! The cutter put in there at the height of the
storm--and that was no child's play either--but she had her trouble for
her pains!
The Rector stood quite aghast at his own good fortune. Adding the
profits on the "moonshine" to the pile of money that, dollar by dollar,
he and Dolores had stowed away in the place they only knew, you got a
figure with which any honest man could start "something." And this
"something" must of course have to do with the sea; for Pascualo was not
the man to sit around in an easy chair, like his uncle, and skin poor
people on shore alive! Smuggling, meanwhile, as a regular thing, was out
of the question. That's a thing a young fellow ought to do once, to get
his hand in; just as he ought to gamble--for once--since fortune is
likely to favor the beginner. But it doesn't pay to flout the devil, in
the long run. For a man like the Rector, fishing was the only certain
trade, but in his own boat, with nothing lost to outfitters, who sit
quietly at home and skim the cream of every catch.
There were many sleepless nights for the sturdy sailor, who kept rolling
over and over between the sheets and waking Dolores up to get her
opinion on each new idea. At last he made up his mind. His capital must
go into a boat, not an ordinary boat, you understand, but the very best,
if that were possible, of all the craft that ever set sail from the
beach in front of the ox-barn there. His day had come at last, _rediel!_
No more deck-hand business for him, and no more of this going halves. He
would own a vessel, and the pole he would plant in front of the house,
to carry the nets when drying, would be the tallest in the neighborhood!
And that hull on the ways there, ladies and gentlemen, belongs to the
Rector from the Cabanal! His wife, Dolores the beautiful, Dolores the
charming, will still have a stall in the Fishmarket, for all her wealth;
but she will be selling her own fish soon, her own, I'll have you know.
And as the women on their way to the _Pescaderia_ now walked along the
Gas House drain past the boat yard, with envious eyes they noticed the
Rector always hanging around there chewing the end of a cigar, and
supervising the carpenters as they sawed and hammered and planed away at
the long yellow pitchy brand-new timbers, some of them straight, and
strong, and thick, others of them light and curving--the keel, the ribs,
the sheathing, of the projected boat! Now, not too fast, boys, not too
fast! The Rector is taking his time at this job as at everything else.
Go slow and then you'll be sure. No mistakes allowed! There's no hurry!
The main thing is to see that this boat is the very best along the
shore!
While Pascualo was putting body and soul into his new enterprise, Tonet,
with his share in the booty--the Rector had done his best to make it as
large as could be--was enjoying one of his seasons of prosperity. In the
tumble-down shack where he lived with Rosario to the tune of quarrels,
swear-words and cudgelings, not the slightest trace of abundance entered
after the lucky trip "across the way." The poor woman was as usual up at
sunrise to carry her baskets of fish to Valencia or even to Torrente or
Betera, at times--always on foot--to save the price of a wagon. And when
the weather was not right for fishing, she spent her days in her hovel,
in company with her poverty and her despair. But Tonet, her Tonet, was
handsomer than ever, in a new suit of clothes, with money in his
pockets all the time, and a regular seat in the cafe, except when he was
away, with some of the boys, at Valencia, going the rounds of the
gambling joints, or spending gay nights in the Fishmarket section.
Nevertheless, whenever he saw his uncle, and not to allow any of his
claims on that worthy gentleman's pull to lapse, he would bring up the
subject of the job on the harbor survey; for, chasing that position was
his one serious occupation in times when he was out of money.
The fleeting prosperity that the African venture brought took him back
to the joyous days of his marriage. With that happy virtue he had of
taking no thought for the morrow, and with all that cynical gayety which
endeared him so to women, he was not worried about what would happen
when the wind-fall his brother had brought him should be exhausted. For
that matter, his companions in roistering sometimes paid, and he had an
occasional run of luck at cards. He would come home late at night to go
to bed, scowling and cursing between his teeth. But woe to Rosario if
she ventured any protest. For periods of two or three days, at times, he
would not be seen there at all. Not so, however, in his brother's house.
There he went frequently, loafing about the kitchen with Dolores, if the
Rector was not at home, listening with bowed head and resigned humility,
to the lectures she gave him on his scandalous conduct. When Pascualo
happened in on one of these dressing-downs, he always seconded loyally
the sound preaching of his wife. Yes, sir, Dolores was cross like that,
because she was really fond of him! As a respectable woman, she couldn't
afford to have a brother-in-law tearing around all the time and being
the talk of the town. And the fat good-natured sailor's eyes would fill
with tears, _ira de dios_, at what his Dolores was saying, a real woman,
by God, as kind as a mother to that fool of a boy!
As his funds got lower, Tonet's attendance on his brother's household
was still more assiduous. He was turning the motherly advice he got
there to good account. And to avoid any chance of gossip, he showed
himself day after day with the Rector up at the boat-yard, watching the
progress of the big frame which was now receiving its planking and was
gradually taking shape under the persistent efforts of hammer, ax and
saw.
And summer was coming on. The stretch of seashore between the Gas House
drain and the harbor, so solitary and deserted at other seasons of the
year, was busily returning to life. The heat was beginning to drive the
whole city to the water's side, where a veritable town of movable
houses, like the temporary encampment of an army, was growing up. In a
measured line along the sands ran the shacks of the vacationers, cheap
structures with walls of painted canvas and roofs of cane, front doors
labeled with fantastic names, and, to distinguish one camp from so many
others like it, flag-staffs on the gables with banners of all colors,
and above the flags, queer weathervanes--boats, dragons, dolls, gew-gaws
of every shape and form. In a second line, farther from the shore, and
speculating on the appetite that salt air awakens in dyspeptics, came
the more pretentious and the more permanent structures of the
restaurants and eating-places, with stairways and verandas, facades of
ornate but inexpensive stucco, masking the frailty of such pomp under
ostentatious names: _The Paris Hotel and Restaurant_, _The Miramar_,
_The Fonda del Buen Gusto_; and between these pedants of summer-time
gastronomy, the lunch-rooms of the natives, huts with roofs of matting,
rickety tables with wine jugs in the center, and outdoor kitchens,
dispensing shell-fish with vinegar dressing from Saint John's day till
mid-September, under signs of delightfully capricious spelling: _Salvaor
and Neleta, wines, bears and likers_.
Along the roads through this mushroom city, that vanished like a fog
with the first gales of autumn, street and steam cars dashed full speed,
whistling to scare you before they crushed you flat; or _tartanas_
creaked along, their red curtains flapping like banners of pure joy; or
crowds of people pressed their way, with the murmur of many, many
voices. It was the humming of a bee-hive, varied with the calling of
vendors, the thrumming of guitars, the nasal screaming of accordions,
the clack-clack of castanets, the wailing of hand organs, all the kinds
of noise that men with smoothed hair and soft white shirts can dance to,
after internal baths with anything but water and preparatory to the
return to town for a slashing or boxing fray with the first innocent
policeman they come across.
The people of the sea, beyond the drain, watched the gathering of this
annual invasion with interested eyes, but without taking part in all its
jollity. Let them enjoy themselves--if they were willing to pay for it!
All that merry-making was the source of the Cabanal's pin-money, for the
other seasons of the year.
On the first of August the Rector's boat was, you might say, done. And
what a beauty she was, come now, tell the truth and don't be envious!
The proud owner spoke of his creation much as a grand-daddy sizes up a
new baby in his son's family. "The timber? Well, did you ever see
solider beams than hers! And look at the finish on that mast! Not a
cross grain to it from deck to point! A bit thick amidships! But I
wanted her like that--handles rough water better. But just take a peep
at that bow of hers! Sharp enough to cut paper with! Black along the
scuppers, but with a shine like the patent leather shoe of a Grandee of
Spain; and the body of her, white, but smooth as an eel, and just as
fast, by God, in the water!" The rigging, the fishing gear and other
trappings, were not yet aboard. But the best tackle makers along shore
were at work on them, and by the fifteenth, the whole trousseau would be
ready, and, pretty as a bride on the way to church, would she take the
water! All this and more, the Rector was saying one evening to the
circle of neighbors who, as usual, were sitting around his door.
He had invited his mother and his sister Roseta to supper that night.
Dolores was at his side. Some distance away, with his rope-seated chair
tilted back against an olive tree, and looking up at the moon through
the branches in the dreamy pose of a chromo troubadour, sat Tonet,
picking at the strings of a mandolin. On the walk in front some fish
were frying on a little earthen stove. A number of children, Pascualet
among them, were chasing a dog about in the mud of the gutters. Groups
were sitting in front of the other houses along the road, to get full
benefit of the faint breeze that was blowing off the sea. _Redeu!_ How
people must have been stewing in Valencia that night!
_Sina_ Tona was getting very old. She had "taken her jump," as she put
it. From comely buxomness she had passed abruptly into old age, and the
raw bluish light of the moon made evident that the hair on her head had
thinned, leaving a scant network of taut gray locks over her sunburned
scalp. The wrinkles now sank deep into her emaciated face while her
cheeks hung loose and baggy, and her black eyes, once the talk of the
whole shore, peered sad and faded from the folds of skin that drooped
about them. Old long before her time, and from heartbreak, mostly, the
spite and the worry that men had given her! And this she said with a nod
in Tonet's direction, but with her thoughts, almost certainly, on the
guardsman who had long before betrayed her. Besides, times had been
getting harder and harder! What the tavern now brought in was nothing,
practically. Roseta had had to go to work in the tobacco factory in
town; and every morning, with her lunch-box on her arm, she went off
along the highway to Valencia, joining the bands of pretty, bold-faced
girls who marched with tapping heels and swishing skirts to sneeze all
day in the snuff-laden air of the Old Customs House. And what a girl
Roseta had grown to be! Roseta was just the name for her! When her
mother, sometimes, looked at her out of the corners of her eyes, she
seemed to see in her all the florid exuberance of the handsome _sinor
Martines_.
Even now, while complaining that her daughter would have to take the
long walk on winter mornings, she could not help feasting her eyes on
that head of tangled golden hair out there under the olive tree, those
dreamy sea-green eyes, that white skin that neither sun nor wind could
darken, flecked now by the shadows of the branches which the moon
outlined in arabesques of light and shade on the girl's face. Roseta,
with her air of a maiden who knows all there is to know, kept looking
from Dolores to Tonet and from Tonet to Dolores. At the fulsome praises
that Pascualo kept showering upon his brother--for drifting away from
the waster's life he had been leading to spend more and more of his time
in that house where he found a peaceful, homelike kindliness he had
never known in his own--the young half-sister smiled sarcastically. Oh,
these men, these men! Just as she and mama had always said! Either
scamps like Tonet, or puddingheads, like the Rector. Men! She would have
none of them! And the Cabanal could never make out why she refused every
boy who proposed to her! She would never have one of the wretched
animals kicking around between her feet. She had taken well to heart all
the curses she had heard her mother heap on men in her bitterest moments
of despair down there in the loneliness and gloom of the tavern-boat.
No one had spoken for some time. The fish continued sizzling in the
frying-pan. Tonet was still picking disconnected chords from his
mandolin. The band of youngsters playing in the street were staring up
at the moon as though they had never seen it before, singing in cadenced
monotone with silvery little voices:
_La lluna, la pruna_
_Vestida de dol ..._
"Eh, will you brats shut up!" Tonet protested, claiming that he had a
headache. "You come and make us!" came the answering challenge:
_Sa mare la crida;_
_Son pare no vol ..._
And the dog joined in this children's hymn of adoration to Diana's
glory, with barks that filled the neighborhood with chills.
The Rector could think of nothing but the boat. Everything had been
fixed for the fifteenth, even the matter of the curate, who would go and
give her a dash of holy water in the middle of the afternoon.
Everything, except one thing, _futro!_ And that had occurred to him that
very moment! Of course! She never had been named ...! Well, what shall
we call her? This unexpected and exciting problem set the whole group
a-talking. Even Tonet laid his mandolin down on the ground and seemed to
be meditating deeply. He, at any rate, came out with the first
suggestion: "Spit-Fire"! Now, what do you say to that!
The Rector's corpulent agreeableness saw nothing wrong with that name.
Spit-Fire! What pride it would be for him to command a boat that,
faithful to such a christening, would go saucily crashing through the
storms with the untamed arrogance of a Portuguese! It was the women who
objected. Spit-Fire! Nonsense! Who ever heard of a fish-boat spitting
fire! That would make her the joke of all the Cabanal. No, _sina_ Tona
had the right idea--"Fleet-Foot," the name of old Pascualo's boat, the
one he had died in, and that, later on, had been the home of all the
family. But now it was the men's turn to shout something down. No, that
would bring bad luck, as the fate of _Fleet-Foot_ herself had shown.
Dolores had a good one. Why not "Rose of the Sea" ... a pretty name ...
as pretty as she was, and in fine taste.... But the Rector observed that
that name was on a boat already.... Too bad, too.... It was a beauty!
Roseta, who had pouted in disdain at every suggestion thus far, finally
came out with her own proposal. She had thought of it at home, the
evening before, on looking at a picture that came in a package of
tobacco from Gibraltar. She thought the name looked so pretty! It was
printed in colors around the trademark on the box--a girl in dancing
costume, with roses red as tomatoes on the little white skirt and a
bunch of flowers in her hand, as bright and stiff as radishes! _Flor de
mayo!_ The boat should be called "Mayflower!"
_Recristo!_ The Rector rubbed his hands in glee. Of course, just the
thing, just the thing! Think a moment! "_Flor de mayo_"--the famous
brand of Gibraltar! Well, the boat was built of tobacco, you might say.
Most of the money in her had come from smuggling those very rolls that
showed the gay dancer in the bright colors! Roseta was right! _Flor de
mayo! Flor de mayo!_
The name pleased everybody, awakening in those sluggish imaginations a
thrill of poetry and romance. They found something mysterious and
attractive in the name, without suspecting the charm attached to it by
that historic boat which carried the Puritans to the new world and
marked the birth of the great republic of the West!... The Rector could
not contain his joy. Roseta had the brains for you! Let's have dinner on
that, ladies and gentlemen! And we'll have a real toast afterward ... to
_Flor de mayo_!
The frying-pan was lifted from the stove and carried into the house, and
the whole family rose to follow--significant happenings that did not
escape the watchful eyes of little Pascualet. He deserted his orpheon of
tiny choristers. The monotone of _la lluna la pruna_ came to an end, and
peace settled over the moon-lit country-side.
It was not long before the whole Cabanal, with that gift for rapid
perception of important things that little places have, was aware that
the Rector's new boat was to be christened _Flor de mayo_. And when,
the evening before the blessing of the vessel, she was dragged down to
the water's edge in front of the _casa del bous_, the beautiful
mysterious name could be read on the inside of her stern sheets, painted
in letters of fetching blue.
The next afternoon, the cabin section of the Cabanal was in festive
mood. Occasions like that were few indeed! Standing god-father in the
baptismal rites was "_Senor_ Mariano _el Callao_," no less a stingy old
fat-purse, granted, but with enough heart in him to shell out a penny or
two for a nephew like that on a day like that. Sweets a-plenty were to
be passed around on the shore, with barrels of drinks. Barrels! Besides,
that Rector boy knew how to do things well. He took the crew he had
engaged for the first trip and went off to the church to escort don
Santiago, the curate, to the beach. The priest welcomed him with one of
those smiles he kept for his very best parishioners only. "What! Ready
so soon? Well, son, won't you just run around and tell the sacristan to
get the water and the hyssop ready! I'll just get into my cassock, and
be with you in a jiffy...." "Not quite so fast, don Santiago!" observed
the Rector. "Not quite so fast! You ought to see this is not an occasion
for any cassock business, or stuff like that. Your cope, father, your
cope, and the best you've got, see? You don't launch a boat like this
every other day. Never mind about the money! I'll pay what's right!"
The good priest smiled. "Very well ... the cope isn't just the thing,
but cope it is, if you say so.... We're ready to accommodate good
members of our flock, who know how to appreciate favors."
And they started back from the rectory, the sacristan in front with the
hyssop and the holy vessel; then the curate surrounded by his guard of
honor, the captain and his men. In one hand don Santiago was carrying
his book of prayers, in the other the train of his old but sumptuous
cope, to keep it out of the mud. The handsome robe was of a white
somewhat yellowed with age; and the heavy gold borders had tarnished
green, while the padding over the lining peeped through in places where
the outer cloth had been worn thin.
Children came up in droves to press their sniffling noses on the good
priest's hand, which at every step, almost, had to let the train fall
into the muck. Women greeted smilingly from the sidewalks. The dear old
_pae capella_! What a good-natured soul--never too harsh on penances,
but able to see through you, just the same, if you tried to fool him.
Don Santiago had the secret of adapting himself to the weaknesses of his
flock. Many a time he would stop in the street to extend his blessings
over the fish baskets of some woman of the market, or touch his fingers
miraculously to a pair of short scales to charm it against any danger
lest the inspectors of Valencia detect its fraudulent weights!
When the procession reached the shore, the bells began to ring, mingling
their garrulous ding-dong in the gentle crunching of the surf. Late
comers could be seen running along the sands to arrive in time for
everything. There, on a stretch of beach that was quite free of boats,
the _Mayflower_ rose from the middle of a swarming crowd, her bright
varnished sides gleaming white in the sunlight, her rakish mast,
gracefully tilted forward, standing out against the blue, its peak
adorned with the baptismal insignia of a new boat, sheaves of grass and
bunches of cloth flowers, that would hang up there till the storm winds
finally wrenched them loose.
The Rector and his party elbowed their way through the crowd pressing
around the boat. At the stern were the two sponsors--_sina_ Tona,
godmother, in a new shawl and skirt; and "Senor" Mariano, god-father, in
his tall hat and with his cane, in the very get-up that he wore at his
talks with the Governor in town! The whole family offered a spectacle of
gay and showy magnificence. Dolores had her pink dress on, and a new
kerchief of flaming colors; while her fingers gleamed with every ring
she owned. Tonet was strutting about on deck in his new suit, his
shining silk cap pulled down over one ear, twirling his mustache in
immense satisfaction that his conspicuous position enabled so many
pretty girls to sate their eyes on him. On the ground, with Roseta, was
his Rosario in the least shabby of her gowns, and sure not to make
trouble with Dolores on such a solemn day. The Rector, for his part, had
turned Englishman over night. He was sporting a blue woolsey suit that a
friend of his, an engineer on a steamer, had brought on from Glasgow. On
his vest shone a watch chain as big as one of the stays on his boat--and
that was the real surprise he had saved for the celebration. He was
sweating like a stoker in that garment that might have done very well in
winter. He had taken upon himself the task of keeping order, shoving
people back when they edged up too close to the priest and the baptismal
party. "The idea, gentlemen.... That talking, there! Sh-h-h. This
ceremony is not a thing to laugh about. The fun, later on ...!" And he
set a good example by taking off his cap and putting on a long face, as
the chaplain, sweating just as much under that stifling cope, was
fumbling through his book to find the prayer beginning _Propitiare
Domini supplicationibus nostris et benedic navem istam_.... _Sina_ Tona
and _tio_ Mariano on either side of the curate stood with eyes nailed to
the ground. The sacristan watched his master like a cat after a mouse,
ready to say _amen_ on the slightest pretext. The multitude with heads
bare was hushed and still, as though something extraordinary were about
to happen.
Don Santiago knew his public. He read the simple prayer slowly and
solemnly, making each syllable stand out, and introducing impressive
pauses to take full advantage of the general silence. The Rector, quite
beside himself with emotion and not knowing what he was doing, nodded
assent to every word, as though taking those Latin phrases that were
falling on his _Mayflower_ seriously to heart. What he really caught was
all that about _Arcam Noe ambulantem in diluvio_; and he straightened up
to his full height in pride, at the vague feeling that his boat was
being likened to that ancient craft, the most famous in Christian
annals! So he was a real comrade now of that wicked old patriarch who
invented wine and became the first and best sailor of his time, on
earth! _Sina_ Tona could stand the strain no longer. She crammed her
handkerchief into both eyes to keep the tears from bursting out. When
the prayer was over, the curate reached for the hyssop: _Asperges_ ...
and he sprinkled a rain of water upon the boat's stern, and the spray
dripped down in shining drops over the painted sides. _Amen_, said the
sacristan; and don Santiago, with the Rector in front of him to clear
the way, and followed by the sacristan, amening every word, started
round the boat, showering Latin and holy water at every step.
Pascualo could not understand that the ceremonies were over. "See here,
don Santiago! There's the rigging still to do, and the deck, and then
down in the hold! There's a good fellow! It won't take you long ... and
I'll do what's right, you know!" And the curate, smiling at the
earnestness of the young man's plea, went up, finally, to the ladder
that had been set up against the _Mayflower's_ bilge, and began the
ascent, catching the floundering cope underneath his feet on every rung.
And the vestment of white and gold caught the afternoon sun and gleamed
afar like the shell of a bright climbing scarab. But when he had blessed
everything to the Rector's full content, he withdrew with his assistant,
and the throng rushed for the boat like an army storming a wall.
They would give her the right send-off, that crowd of bedraggled
loud-talking ragamuffins, the scrapings from the whole beach, already
besieging the sponsors with their petulant whining: "Our candy now, and
the almonds, the almonds!" "Senor" Mariano's face was beaming omnipotent
over the vessel's side. "Candy, eh! It's candy you want!" He well knew
what all the good things he had brought to eat had cost--one whole
_onza_--gold--to keep on good terms with nephew! And he bent over, and
sunk his hands into the baskets between his legs. "Well, candy it is!"
And he began to rain nuts and cinnamon lozenges, as hard as bullets,
upon the heads of the clamoring mob, and the young ones, girls and boys,
began to scramble on the sand, fighting for the goodies, dirty
underskirts squirming about among trousers with huge rents that showed
the bare scaly skins of the beach-combers underneath.
Tonet was uncorking bottles of gin and pointing them out to special
friends with lavish and condescending urgency as if he were doing the
honors himself. Liquor began to pass around by the jugful. Everybody was
drinking--the beach guards, their guns on their shoulders, retired
sea-captains from the village, men from other boats--barefoot, mostly,
these, and dressed in yellow baize, like clowns--and tiny "cats," with
knives of grotesque proportions thrust crosswise into the sashes about
their ragged waists.
The real carousal was going on up on deck. The planking of the
_Mayflower_ was beginning to clack like the polished floor of a
ball-room, and the rich smell of a tavern was filling the atmosphere
about the boat. Dolores, who could resist the call of all that gayety no
longer, started to climb the ladder, kicking out at every rung at the
crowd of pestering "cats" who gathered round for one look at the ankles
of the pretty girl as she went higher. The Rector's wife knew that her
real element was up there where there was so much man around, where her
charms would be certain of voracious admiration as she stamped about on
boards that belonged to her--every inch of them--and where the women
down below, especially Rosario--she would be green with envy--could get
a good look at her success.
Pascualo, meanwhile, was with his mother. On that solemn occasion, which
meant so much to him, which he had looked forward to for so long, he
felt a strange return of his affection for the poor old woman. He forgot
his beautiful wife and even Pascualet--the rogue was as busy as could be
with the cinnamon balls, up on deck--to give all his attention to _sina_
Tona.
"A full-fledged master, outfitter, owner of a boat--my own boat!" And he
kissed and hugged the old mother who was weeping streams from her puffy
eyes. Tona's thoughts indeed were running back over long, long years of
widowhood and loneliness and ostracism and over the memory of that mad
adventure with the guardsman, to a similar christening she had witnessed
in her youth. _Tio_ Pascualo rose before her memory, strong, young,
handsome, as she had known him in the days of their courtship. And his
departure from life became as bitterly sorrowful as if he had vanished
but the day before. "My boy, my boy--_fill meu, fill meu_!" she sobbed,
throwing her arms about the sturdy neck of the Rector, who at that
moment seemed to be the resurrection of his father's very self.
And Pascualo, in truth, was the honor of the family, the boy whose hard
work had redeemed her lost station, her lost importance, in that
community. Her tears now were not of sorrow only but of remorse. She had
never loved the boy enough, not half so much as he deserved. Her
affection was overflowing now--she must make up for all the past. Then,
she was afraid, yes, sir, afraid, that her Pascualet, her poor little
Rector, would go the way his father went; and as the words hung
tremulously upon her lips, she looked off toward the tavern-boat, just
visible from the _Mayflower's_ splendid hull, in which that martyr of
the sea had met his frightful end.
What a contrast between the _Mayflower_, so new, and strong, and spick,
and span, and that rotting hulk which, for lack of custom now, was daily
growing blacker and more worm-eaten! The old woman seemed to vision in
the future a day when the _Mayflower_ might drift ashore, cracked and
water-logged, just as old _Fleet-Foot_ had come home with her husband's
corpse in her hold. No, she could not be happy. All that roistering and
carousing was a sin. It was making fun of the sea, that hypocrite with
the smiling face out there, that purring cat that was meek enough for
the moment, but that would show her claws when once the _Mayflower_ was
in her power. Her boy! What a strong handsome boy--and she loved him as
much as though he had just come back from a long voyage! But old
Pascualo had been just as strong and handsome. And he made fun of the
sea too! Now, she knew it, she was sure of it! The sea had a grudge
against her family, and would swallow the new boat as it had wrecked the
old.
"Bosh, mama, bosh! _Recristo_, the old lady will never get her hands on
me! But anyhow, why go crying on a glad day like this? You're just
getting religion, like most of the old ladies--your conscience is at you
for having forgotten papa for so long, perhaps. But you can make that
right by lighting a good fat candle to the old sailor, in case his soul
is still in Purgatory. Come now, mama, brace up. No more prophesying!
The sea is a good fine lover of mine. I won't listen to any gossip about
her! She gets riled at times, but after all she gives poor folks like us
a living. Here, Tonet! Give us a drink, a good big swig! Cheer the place
up a bit. Let's give the _Mayflower_ a good old-fashioned send-off."
He took the beaker that was handed him and drank a deep draught. But his
mother went on weeping, her eyes still gazing at the tavern-boat down
the shore. The Rector showed some signs of irritation. "Still bawling,
eh! And this is the time to talk of funerals! See, ma, you ought to have
made me a bishop, then there'd be no cause for whining from the women
folks. Honest, and work hard, say I, and trust to luck! That's the
sailor's creed! The sea? The sea gives us everything. It raises us when
we are little. And it feeds us when we're grown up. We're always asking
something of the sea! Well, we have to take a storm now and then, along
with the big runs. Besides, somebody's got to risk his skin, if folks
are going to have fish to eat. That somebody is me. Out to sea I go, as
I've always gone. And that's the end of that! And now, enough of this
whimpering business, what do you say, ma? Here's to _Flor de Mayo_!
Here's to 'Mayflower.' _Cristo!_ another mug, boys, on me, on me! Drink
her down, drink her down, till every mother's son of you is drunk. And
I'll feel insulted if they don't come down and get you to-night because
you can't walk home, and find you all rooting in the sand here like so
many grunting hogs!"