Generally a day in harbor is a day of loafing for the crew of a
seiner; but it was not so altogether with us that day. Within two
hours of the time that Wesley Marrs came in to the Breakwater in such
slashing style the skipper had us into the seine-boat and on the way
to the Lucy Foster. By his orders we took along ten empty mackerel
barrels. "We'll go over to the beach first and fill these barrels up
with sand." We all knew what the sand was for--the Johnnie Duncan was
going to be put in trim to do her best sailing. Coming down the coast
the skipper and Clancy decided that she was down by the stern a
trifle.
So we attended to the sand, and on the way back hauled our second
seine out of the hold of the Lucy Foster, and piled it into the
seine-boat. With the last of the twine into the seine-boat and just as
we were about to push off from the Lucy, Wesley Marrs put a foot on
the rail of his vessel and spoke to Maurice.
"And when I was taking the last of that aboard in the dock in
Gloucester, you wouldn't believe who it was stepped onto the cap-log
and looking down on the deck of the Lucy says, 'And you'll take good
care of that seine for Captain Blake, won't you, Captain Marrs?' Could
you guess now, Maurice?"
"No," said Maurice.
"No, I'll bet you can't. It isn't often she comes down the dock. Miss
Foster no less. 'And what makes you think I won't?' I asks her. 'Oh,
of course I know you will,' she says, 'and deliver it to him in good
order, too.' 'I'll try,' I says, as though it was a desp'rate job I
had on hand--to put a seine in the hold and turn it over to another
vessel when I met her. 'But what makes you worry about this partic'lar
seine, Miss Foster?' I asks."
"Which Miss Foster was it, Wesley--the one your vessel is named
after?" broke in our skipper.
"No--no--but the younger one--Alice. 'But what makes you worry?' I
asks her, and she didn't say anything, but that one that's with her
all the time--the one that goes with the lad that designed the Johnnie
Duncan----"
"Joe's cousin here----"
"That's it--the fat little Buckley girl--a fine girl too. And if I was
a younger man and looking for a wife, there's the kind for me--but
anyway she up and says, 'Alice is worried, Captain Marrs, because she
owns a third of Captain Blake's vessel--a good part of her little
fortune's in the Duncan--and if anything happens to the seine
one-third of it, of course, comes out of her. And it cost a good many
hundred dollars. So you must be careful.' 'Oh, that's it?' says I.
'Then it'll be shortened sail and extra careful watches on the Lucy
till I meet Maurice, for I mustn't lose any property of Miss
Foster's.'"
We rowed away from the Lucy Foster, and I supposed that was the end of
it. But that night going on deck to take a last look at the stars
before turning in, there was the skipper and Clancy walking the break
and talking.
"And did you know, Tommie, that Miss Foster owned any of this one?"
the skipper was saying.
"No," said Tommie, "I didn't know, but----"
"But you suspected. Well, I didn't even suspect. And there's that
seine we lost last night--cost all of eight hundred dollars."
"That's what it did--a fine seine."
A few minutes later the skipper went below, and Clancy, seeing me,
said, "Hold on, Joey. Did you hear what the skipper said?"
"About Miss Foster owning a share of the vessel?"
"Well, not that so much, but about the loss of the seine?"
"Yes--why?"
"Why? Joe, but sometimes a man would think you were about ten year
old. I tell you, Joe, I'm not too sure it's going to be Withrow. And
if you don't see some driving on this one when next we get among the
fish, then--" But he didn't finish it, only clucked his tongue and
went below.
Clancy was right again. During the night the weather moderated, and in
the morning the first of the fleet to go out past the Breakwater was
the Johnnie Duncan. It looked to us as if the skipper thought the
mackerel would be all gone out of the sea before we got back to the
spot where we had struck them two days before.