The Mascot finally left the Plummer family, and slowly moved north.
They kept track of her until she got north of Rockport, and there they
lost her. As matters turn out, she hadn’t gone much farther, just
barely by New Hampshire’s 15 mile coastline to Kittery, Maine where she
became a well known resident of the Piscataqua River.
The author of the following account, David C. McIntosh, settled down to
the business of building boats at Dover Point, New Hampshire, on the
upper reaches of the Piscataqua in 1932. He trained for his profession
by studying literature, first at Dartmouth, and then at Harvard.
Despite these advantages he has been building very good boats ever
since. He still cherishes his last remaining relic of the Mascot, a
feather duster.
* * * * *
Wyn Mayo and his old boat were a living legend in Kittery before we
knew either of them. Tales came up the river with the fishermen: of
cruises to the east’ard ending in shipwreck; of the two of them riding
out the ’38 hurricane up in the Creek, with two anchors out ahead, the
engine wide open, and the bridge so close astern that Wyn’s friends,
gathered there to drag him up out of the wreckage, were passing him
cups of hot coffee, hand to hand, ’long about the end of it. Opinion
was that when Wyn and the Mascot did something, it was done with
spirit. When they had a fire going under the cockpit, it was no
piddling little smudge. When they came in through the rip off Whaleback
with the wind strong southeast they came (to hear Wyn tell it) with
the power of a tiger bounding through tall grass. And when the Mascot
sprang a leak, another leak, a new leak, it was a _real_ leak. That’s
why Wyn came to the boat shop in the autumn of ’45.
Those who knew and loved him (as we all did) will agree with me
that Wyn had a feeling for the dramatic. When he asked the simple
question, “Can you save her for me?” there were tears in his eyes,
his step faltered, and he knew very well that we had fallen under his
spell. “She’s old,” said Wyn, and his face sagged thirty years: “But
she’ll sail again!” said Wyn, resuming the expression appropriate
to his emotional age, which would be about eighteen. As a matter of
fact, she’d been sailing that morning.--So it was arranged that Monty
would tow her up on next day’s flood, and we’d haul her out right
away and try to figure out where all that water was coming in. And
the centerboard was jammed--must be warped. And the steering gear
was a little loose. And while we were at it, wouldn’t this be a good
chance to install a new engine? (The old one had given up some time
before--after the mighty effort in the ’38 hurricane--and been put
ashore).... And, said Wyn, he’d always wondered how she’d do with a
sloop rig.... “Yes!” we said, full of enthusiasm. Somehow, in October,
in a boatyard, with winter coming, spring seems very far behind; but
it’s never far enough.
By this time, we’d learned that Mascot was 66 years old, or
thereabouts; had figured in high adventures when a mere thirty; that
Wyn had bought her from a man named Plummer twenty-odd years back; and
that she’d been a way of life for him, a sanctuary with wings, ever
since.
Next day they came up river behind Monty’s power boat. Wyn was
steering, Georgie was pumping for dear life. We held her off long
enough to unhook the centerboard (she had one of those Buzzards Bay
Patent Hangers) and drive it out, to be recovered at low water; then we
put her on the carriage and hauled her slow and easy, trying to spot
the leaks. There wasn’t much use trying to particularize. She dripped
at every butt, and at the foot of the stem; she poured water the length
of both garboards; and the rudder port was a melancholy sight indeed.
And the pattern of her bottom planking chronicled half a century of
strandings and repairs. Hardly a plank was left that had not a patch of
some kind, and some of the patches had been patched in their turn....
Lester thought she’d usually got bilged to starb’d, for some reason,
but the rest of us couldn’t detect any real evidence of consistency.
She’d been caulked, and nailed, and re-nailed, and caulked some more,
lovingly and earnestly, but not tenderly. They hadn’t managed to move
the garboards, but they’d pushed the keel inward, in the way of the
slot, so that no clearance was left for the board. But she was still
some chunk of boat, without a distorted curve in her anywhere.
We rolled her off the railway and jacked her up. We tore off the
garboards (they came hard, and lost all identity in the process) and
the transom (which was held in place by the deck canvas and some
particularly sticky seam filler they’d tried at the end); and we left
her to dry out over the winter, while we went back indoors to work on
the new sloop.
Spring came in a few days, and Wyn with it, bearing a matched set of
lovely little lignum vitae deadeyes and a new sail plan. We needled
him about it. “Marconi? Faugh!” said Wyn, and dust stirred in the far
corners of the shop. We’d take two cloths off the leach, and shorten
the gaff, and move the mast right back against the house, and give her
two heads’ls. (And these things we did; and after Wyn tried her out,
rather late that summer, he reported that she sailed and handled better
than she’d ever done before.)
But before that, at odd moments through a short and bitter spring that
was full of harsh words from other owners, we fitted new garboards to
a reinforced keel, put on a new stern, lined the rudder port with a
four-inch lead sleeve, bridged innumerable shattered butts-on-timbers.
Finally we hoisted aboard a new and beautiful little four-cylinder
engine, lined it up, coupled it to the old shaft, and told Wyn he’d
have to find someone else to finish the installation.
We launched her on the fly, and hauled her half out again to save
her, because she needed two days’ soaking for the old planks to
take up. _Starcrest_ towed her to Witham’s Wharf, in Kittery. Wyn’s
friends hooked up the engine while he bent on sails and got the gear
straightened out--and she was off, tight and fairly sound again in her
67th year; getting used to the new rig, and re-establishing sovereignty
over her section of Pepperell Cove.
Wyn came up and told us about some of the trial cruises. Big kedge got
away from him when he was catting it just inside the Annisquam Bar--but
what mattered another stove plank to Mascot? Hell, this one was clear
above the waterline! And how she came home that day, with the wind
s’utheast and the Bay feather-white!
Mascot wintered well, so did Wyn. They started off to do some serious
voyaging that summer of ’47, when their combined ages amounted to about
a hundred and forty years.
Then one day came a rumor of disaster somewhere away to the eastward.
Mascot had blown up, burned, and sunk. Wyn came by and told us about
it. They’d gone in to Brown’s Wharf at Port Clyde for gas, and had
spilled a quart or two on the cockpit floor. Waited a few minutes for
it to evaporate, and then pushed that newfangled starter button. That
did it. Wyn said he’d never realized how old and weak she was until he
saw the water gushing in and the flames creeping up ahead of it.
Wyn got himself another boat after a year or two, but it wasn’t the
same. He’s gone now, and a great many people mourn his loss, and feel
that there’ll never be another like him.
As for Mascot: all these years we’ve been thinking of her lying full
fathom five, and suffering a sea change. Brooksy, who fastened off
her new garboards in the spring of ’46, volunteered to do some field
research a couple of weeks ago. He found her. She’s hauled up at the
head of a cove at Pleasant Point, ... “and those new garboards and new
stern and rudder we put on look _darned_ good!” says Brooksy. Charlie
Stone hauled her there, after the mess at the wharf was cleaned up, and
he boarded her over for a platform to store his lobster traps on. I’ll
bet they’re the best-held-up damned lobster traps on the Maine coast!
_David C. McIntosh_
... THE BOY ...
Our delight in the discovery that the Mascot, again given up for lost,
was, like Daddy Warbucks, still leading a useful life, was exceeded
only by our pleasure in the discovery of the whereabouts of “the Boy.”
We tracked him down to a hospital bed where he was recovering from a
coronary. He was able to clear up one point, which completely mystified
us on our initial reading.
It seems that some of the fowl which provided the succulent meals which
are described in the log were not always in season. For this reason
their demise was coded into a reference to some domestic animal on
which there was no season.
With this mystery cleared up, we are now happy to bring you direct from
the pen of Henry M. Plummer, Jr. his recollections and impression of
the trip.
* * * * *
For several years the idea of publishing _The Boy, Me and the Cat_ has
been in my mind, but until the present publishers undertook the project
the idea was more or less nebulous. Now with the project under way I
feel that many people who are interested in cruising will not only find
in this book a new impetus to their hobby, but will also find many new
ideas to increase their pleasure.
Let me begin by saying that I was not a sailor. Most of my youth had
been spent in the mountains away from the seashore, to which I had made
only short visits, because of asthma which was aggravated by the salt
air. Thus, although I had learned to sail, my knowledge of cruising was
practically nil.
The art of cruising is quite different from just plain sailing as I was
soon to find out. Three months of steady and hard preparation went into
the start. My father and I built into the old Mascot all the things
that we thought might make the trip more pleasure than work. A small
bookcase for fifteen or twenty books, a kitchen cabinet for all dishes
and pots and pans, a galley with a coal stove, and a primus for warm
weather. Ice, coal and wood were kept in the cockpit in special boxes
lashed to each side and used as seats. As we intended to live off the
land, or perhaps I should say the sea, we carried fish poles, harpoon
and other long items of this nature in specially built “cow horns”
located on the forward deck and the end of the short bowsprit. These,
by the way, were never used owing to the actual work of getting South.
A rather large poop deck, which carried all extra impedimenta, was
constructed hanging over the stern.
We started off in a blaze of glory, and all went well until we shot a
coot. For those of you who are not acquainted with coot, let me say
they were never made to be eaten. But notwithstanding this, father
would and did make a coot stew. How I kept it down I don’t know, but I
did, though I do not remember asking for seconds.
From here on, both down and back, it was push, push, push, to get where
we wanted to go. There were many beautiful days to be sure, but as I
recall, it was mostly just plain hard work.
In those days the channel of the inland waterway was marked by boards
nailed to posts. If the top corner of the board was cut off it meant
the deep water was close to the post. If the bottom corner was cut
off, deep water was farther off. All of this was fine in theory, but
in practice you just couldn’t depend on them. Continually we ran hard
aground. With only three or four inches of tide, getting off meant an
endless shifting of ballast and heeling of the boat over to raise her
keel. After doing this four or five times a day, it became more than
just monotonous.
Of course there was a great difference between the way we went South
and the way the average motor cruiser goes South. We did most of it
under sail, or at least as much as we could. It was slow, tedious work
and I do not recommend it to anyone. But if you want excitement, you
can certainly get it on such a cruise. Try riding a 15-foot dory with a
three horsepower engine towing a 24-foot catboat through Hell Gate and
the East River of New York. Try shipwreck on the great outer beaches of
the Carolinas 30 miles from the nearest settlement. Try riding out a
hurricane in a 15-foot dory, or sinking to your waist in the mud of a
salt marsh, miles from help or chance of rescue. Such were the chances
we took, and with each new experience we learned more about ourselves
and each other. In the end we worked as a team and not as individuals,
which was as it had to be for the successful completion of the trip.
In looking back over the years, I sometimes wonder how my father put
up with me. I must have been a terrible strain on him at times, but I
cannot remember him ever losing his temper or being anything but the
gentleman he was. He was patient, considerate and helpful at all times,
and yet always master of the situation.
The “Cat” we both came to love and, in the end, to grieve for her
death. It is strange how one becomes so attached to a little ball of
fur.
My father had sailed boats from early childhood and had learned
cruising firsthand with his own boats. He had owned several, none of
them large, all under 20 feet. With the Mascot he was able to do what
he had dreamed about--plan a small boat cruise such as had never been
undertaken before. As he had just retired from the insurance business,
time was not too important. He had always been very good with his
hands so that the work we did was far from new to him, even if brand
new to me. Under father’s direction we created a boat which was most
comfortable for cruising.
The old Mascot wasn’t a very long boat, and she was wide of beam, but
she held on no matter how bad the going. For eight months she was home
to me. For eight months I learned from both the boat and father. I like
to think that some of this education is passed along through the brief
entries of her log.
With these few words I pass along _The Boy, Me and the Cat_ to the
present publishers with my best wishes for their success in this
venture.
_Henry M. Plummer, Jr._
THE BOY
... AND ME.
When the curtain goes down it is customary to call for the author.
This we cannot do, but without apology we reprint an editorial written
about Mr. Plummer by Zeph Pease, editor of the old _Mercury_, who in
the words of William Taylor, “... was a great editor of a great paper.”
We feel that this glowing tribute by a close friend is a fitting
conclusion to a great story.
* * * * *
“The chain rattled, the blocks sung their song and with a shake of the
hand, the cruise was done.” This was the ending to the story of the
adventurous expedition recorded by Henry M. Plummer in a delightful
book that described the voyage of the author from Potomska to Florida
made in 1912-13. A longer voyage is ended. The cruise is done. And it
is our wish to give tribute to a gallant gentleman by the sea, whose
business interests were on the sea, with a race of men that held a
bit of hazard, and who accepted the slings and arrows of fortune in a
sportsman’s way.
He had just written for the _Mercury_ a series of articles on the life
of a boy in New Bedford in the 70’s and 80’s, autobiographical, which
was of historic value, touching lovingly upon the small town life of
a village by the sea, whose business interests were on the sea with a
race of men that had accepted chances, often disastrous, in conflict
with the elements, as a part of the day’s work. There was an atmosphere
of bravery about the town and it infected the youth of that day who
found pleasure in sports in the open air, in gunning in the woods,
and above all in boating. The aspiration of every boy was to “go to
sea.” That was the vernacular of the town for engaging in the industry
that had been so long the head and front of business undertaking. The
boys of that period, notwithstanding whaling had waned, looked up to
the masters of ships who had taken their vessels into uncharted seas,
the Arctic, the south seas where they discovered new islands and new
people, as heroes. The legends of long voyages and strange experiences,
permeated the town and the boys that were worth while, scorned the soft
side of life and sought out hazards.
The boyhood experiences of Mr. Plummer are so fresh to the readers
of the _Mercury_, that we need not dwell upon them to impress how
different were the boys of Mr. Plummer’s day from those of the present.
It is not strange that he looked back upon the older day so pleasantly
and that finding himself with a winter of leisure which he proposed
to spend in a warmer climate to rehabilitate his broken health, he
suggested writing the series of articles, which we accepted with
enthusiasm. The reception was extraordinary. Readers wrote to the
_Mercury_ of the pleasure the articles gave and Mr. Plummer himself
received a multitude of letters including many from strangers, who
were moved to tell him of the joy he had given them. The fact was, Mr.
Plummer had literary style, which he persisted in disavowing, declaring
anybody could do the thing as well. Those who read the articles knew
this was not true, and we have always felt Mr. Plummer missed an
opportunity in not devoting himself to literature.
We have referred to the volume by Mr. Plummer, which was an original
venture in publishing. Mr. Plummer sailed from this port on September
15, 1912, for a voyage to Florida, in a 23-foot Cape Cod catboat, 30
years old, accompanied by his son, Henry M. Plummer, Jr., and a cat.
“The Boy, Me and The Cat,” was the title. The expedition was cast
on the shore, with the catboat bilged and the tender smashed, near
Cape Fear, and for ten days father and son, marooned on the lonely,
lugubrious beach, stretching a thousand miles on either side, repairing
their craft. Mr. Plummer on his return, prepared a typewritten story of
a hundred or more large pages, illustrated with crude processes, which
he mimeographed personally, turning out as unique a volume as was ever
circulated.
There is such lure to the story that as we reread it we can hardly
refrain from quoting: One vagrant sentence hit the eye. It was the
following definition: “Sport. The pursuit of pleasurable occupation
which requires exposure to weather, exercise of all bodily muscles,
judgment, skill of hand, foot and eye, never to be followed without a
degree of personal risk. Under such classification I put Sailing of
boats, Handling of horses, Hunting and canoeing, Mountain climbing. I
know of no other purely sporting propositions.”
But we think of another sporting proposition that involved Mr. Plummer.
In 1924 a Cape Verdean boy came here on a schooner to join his parents
and the immigration authorities refused him leave to land because of an
eye infection, although the parents were able to keep him from being
a burden upon the community. The little fellow was but ten years old.
He was kept aboard the schooner all summer. Then the majesty of the
law ordered his deportation, and the child was to be separated from
his parents forever. This was not good sportsmanship to Mr. Plummer’s
mind. Some people, we include ourselves in this instance were content
to protest by writing about it. Mr. Plummer discerned that somebody
must do something. He started for Washington and for days he went
from pillar to post in behalf of that boy, protesting the injustice
and humanity of the thing. As a sportsman Mr. Plummer fought for the
underdog, the child from the Cape Verdes, and officialdom and the
statutes of the United States dooming him to exile. Mr. Plummer won and
the boy was allowed to join his family.
Mr. Plummer’s son, an aviator, was killed in the World war. The fates
were not always kind to him. But he was a cheerful spirit and caroled
as he went. The prayer of Robert Louis Stevenson comes to our mind.
“Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to
our resting beds weary and content and undishonored.” And now, he is
granted in the end, the gift of sleep.
This Editorial reprinted from _The Morning Mercury_,
New Bedford, Massachusetts, May 9, 1928
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