From Minnie Arkell, whom I met at the door of her own house, I went to
Clancy's boarding house. I did not find Clancy then and I went off,
but coming back again I found him, and a very busy man he was, with an
immense crock of punch between his knees. He was explaining down in
the kitchen to the other boarders--fifteen or twenty of the
thirstiest-looking fishermen I ever laid eyes on--just how it was he
made the punch. The bowl was about the size of a little beer keg.
"On the night of last Fourth of July," he was saying--"and I mind we
came in that morning with a hundred and seventy-five barrels we got
off Mount Desert--that night I warn't very busy. I gets this
crock--four gallons--let you all have a look--a nice cold stony crock
you see it is, and that they'd been using then in the house here for
piccalilli--and a fine flavor still hanging to it. Wait a minute now
till I tell you. It'll taste better, too, after you hear. And into the
crock I puts two gallons of rum--fine rum it was--for a bottom. Every
good punch has to have a bottom. It's like the big blocks they put
under a house by way of a foundation, or the ballast down near the
keel of a vessel--there'd be no stiffening without it, and the first
good breeze she'd capsize, and then where'd you be? Now, on top of
those two gallons--it was two o'clock in the morning, I mind, when I
started to mix it--whiskey, brandy, and sherry--no, I can't tell what
parts of each--for that's the secret of it. A fellow was dory-mate
with me once--a Frenchman from Bordeaux--told me and said never to
tell, and I gave my oath--down in St. Peer harbor in Miquelon it
was--and afterwards he was lost on the Heptagon--and of course, never
being released from the oath, I can't tell. Well, there was the rum,
the whiskey, the brandy, and the sherry--and on top o' that went one
can of canned pine-apple--canned pine is better than the pine-apple
right out of its jacket. Why? Well, that's part of the secret. Then a
dozen squeezed lemons and oranges. Then some maraschino. I'd got it
off an Italian salt bark skipper in the harbor once. On top o' that I
put one quart of green tea--boiled it myself--it was three in the
morning then, I mind--and I sampled a cup of it. Wait now--wait. Just
ease your sheets and let me tell it. Here's the best part of it. I
takes that crock with the fourteen quarts of good stuff in it and
lowers it to the bottom of the old well out in the yard with a lot of
cold round little stones above and below and more little stones packed
all around and then I lowers down two good-sized rocks on top o'
that--and nails boards over the well--that's why nobody could get into
that well all this summer. Well, that was the morning after the last
Fourth of July--I mind the sun was coming up over the rocks of Cape
Ann when I was done. And that was July, and now the last of
September--three months ago. A while ago in the dark and a howling
gale--you all see me come in with it, didn't you? Yes, if you go out
quick, you c'n see the well just where I left it--I goes out and digs
it up--and here it is--and now it's here, we'll all have a little
touch in honor of to-morrow, for it's a great day when the wind blows
fifty or sixty miles an hour so that fishermen can have good weather
for a race."
And they all had a little touch. Clancy sat on the table with the
crock between his feet and bailed it out while they all agreed it was
the smoothest stuff that ever slid down their throats. There was not a
man in the gang who was not sure he could put away a barrel of it.
"Put away a barrel of it?" whispered Clancy--"yes. Let's get out
of here, Joe. In an hour they'll be going into the air like
firecrackers."