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 scraps 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.
"We'll know more about it after we've tried her out with the Lucy
Foster or the Colleen Bawn or Hollis's new vessel," he said, after a
while.
One thing we soon found out, and that was that she was a stiff vessel.
That was after a squall hit us off Cape Cod. We watched the rest of
them then. Some luffed and others took in sail, and about them we
could not tell. But those that took it full gave us an idea of how we
were behaving. "Let her have it and see how she'll do," said the
skipper, and Howe, who was at the wheel--with his clothes good and dry
again--let her have it full. With everything on and tearing through
the water like a torpedo-boat, one puff rolled her down till she
filled herself chock up between the house and rail, but she kept right
on going. Some vessels can't sail at all with decks under, but the
Johnnie never stopped. "She's all right, this one," said everybody
then. A second later she took a slap of it over her bow, nearly
smothering the cook, who had just come up to dump some potato parings
over the rail. The way he came up coughing and spitting and then his
dive for the companionway--everybody had to roar.
"Did y'see the cook hop?--did y'see him hop?" called Andie, who was
afraid somebody had missed it.
We passed the Marauder, Soudan McLeod, soon after. His mainmast had
broken off eight or ten feet below the head. They were clearing away
the wreckage. "I s'pose I oughter had more sense," he called out as we
went by.
"Oh, I don't know--maybe the spar was rotten," said Maurice, and that
was a nice way to put it, too.
That night it came a flat calm, and with barely steerage way for us.
There was a big four-masted coaster bound south, too, and light, and
for the best part of the night we had a drifting match with her.
Coasters as a rule are not great all-round sailers, but some of them,
with their flat bottoms and shoal draft, in a fair wind and going
light, can run like ghosts, and this was one of that kind. We had our
work cut out to hold this one while the wind was light and astern, but
in the morning, when it hauled and came fresher, we went flying over
the shoals. So far as the looks of it went the big coaster might as
well have been anchored then.
All that day we held on. And it was a lesson in sailing to see the way
some of those seiners were handled. Our skipper spent most of that day
finding out how she sailed best and putting marks on her sheets for
quick trimming by and by.
Trying each other out, measuring one vessel against another, the fleet
went down the coast. We passed a few and were passed by none, and that
was something. Ahead of us somewhere were a half-dozen flyers. If we
could have beaten some of them we should have had something to brag
about; but no telling, we might get our chance yet.