Chapter VII: Part 7

Ahead was that mass of darkness which I once thought had been a beach. Now I still thought that it was a beach, covered with seaweeds. But when I saw what it really was, I was so surprised that I forgot where I was going. It was nothing but a huge, long shelf of dark rock, sloping down gradually from the woods to the sea, almost at the grade of a beach, and almost as smooth as a paved street. It was covered thickly with massive seaweeds, some of them, I could see in the half-light, as much as six feet long; a dense, dark shroud of them, spread like a mermaid carpet over that great rock, with the waves gently lifting and stirring those which overhung into the sea.

♦ _The Place of Treasure_ ♦

This was the final impression of the island. And it served to implant that little place very firmly in my memory. I made a deep resolve that, if I should ever chance to go up Lahave way again, I would at any cost visit that island. We ought to go together there, Alan, with our shovels and picks over our shoulders, in the search for treasure. Can’t you see us doing it? Fifty-fifty! Only we _must_ pick out a sailing vessel to go in. Don’t you think so? Can you conceive of any earthly pleasure in going on a pirate expedition in a steamer? I can’t. In such a case you always want to go in the way you suppose the pirates themselves went. The nearer you can do it to the way they did it, the nearer success you will be. That is a secret which few treasure-hunters know, and you had better keep it fairly close. Such secrets must not be revealed to the world.

Mate Bill and I talked little during this cruise. What we did say was mostly about Bridgewater, and schooners, and the sea, and the old man, and the steward; and I said some things about Lake Sunapee, canoes, rowboats, sailboats, swimming, fishing, and so on. It was very quiet, almost whispered talk, for we were somehow under the influence of the night, and of the beauty of the little landlocked harbor. Also, we were awed by the queenliness of the _Norman D._, towering there so white that you fancied she was in full moonlight while the rest of the world wasn’t. The water beneath her heel and forefoot was black, very black; yet we could somehow detect brighter shadows moving about and blending into it.

“Isn’t she a very good-looking schooner, mate, for one of her size?”

“Yes, I think she is. She’s one o’ the best-looking three-masters I’ve ever seen. But she’s too high forrard. Now, ’f she was just a little lower forrard, or a bit higher aft, she’d be just right. The stern of any ship ought to be higher than the forrard part, to look right.”

Bill was, in all probability, right about that. But she was so beautiful and quiet there that it seemed almost profane to disturb her by such minute criticism. No more was said until we had got very near her. Because she was at anchor, the side lights (which, by the way, I had so faithfully watched being lit every night while we were under way) were not lit, but three or four very small, bright riding lights were gleaming, up fairly high in the rigging, at bow and stern, mysterious in the darkness, hovering like fireflies with perpetual lights above the vast white hulk.

Again the mate broke the silence: “When you go back to the schooner, Barbara, go close under her stern, will you? There’s a spot there I want to look at.”

“All right, mate.”

♦ _A Spectral Moment_ ♦

“But you’ll have to be careful to allow fer the current.”

“I guess I can manage it.”

Quickly and, I think, rather skillfully, I guided the little skiff under the counter of the _Norman D._ Not until then could we really see how fast the current was running. It was sweeping past the schooner at a tremendous rate. The shadow of the overhanging stern made the water uncanny and green there. And the gigantic rudder hung there, motionless, dark and awful in its immense curves. I liked to think how often that same rudder had guided the _Norman D._ through tempestuous waters.

The mate looked at a place on the bottom where the wood seemed to be worn and frayed. Then we pushed on and drew up at the foot of the ladder. There was another boat dancing there, tied by its painter. What could it mean? We made our own skiff fast and climbed up. I felt more than ever like a pirate boarding a ship, as I climbed up that crude vertical ladder with the mate following me. I could almost feel a cutlass between my teeth. But when I remembered the loveliness of the lonely white schooner as she had looked from a little way off in the bay, this feeling vanished entirely.

* * * * *

The next thing was to see who were our guests. The bo’s’n greeted us, and said in a playful whisper: “The old man’s got callers.” Next we heard harsh, racking, scraping sounds from below. “What on earth--?” said I. “The old man’s playing his gramophone.” Well, thought I, there goes one of the cook’s statements! He evidently _isn’t_ too stingy to use the needles, after all. He was playing some horrible talking record, and he seemed quite to be enjoying himself, for I heard loud bursts of whooping laughter every now and then, followed by the happy giggles of some female voice. I could resist no longer, and I stomped heavily down the after doorway of the cabin, striding briskly through, glancing curiously to right and left as I passed, and then stomping out the forward door. I beheld very strange things. The captain was sitting beside the gramophone, laughing and beaming all over, and in the two rooms of the cabin was quite an audience of old and young, with two or three giggling girls and children. I must confess that I resented such an intrusion into the _Norman D._ I felt that these people could not belong to the adventures that had surrounded me for the past several days. No; they were landsmen--they had no business here.

♦ _Confabulation_ ♦

I fled forrard, in company with Mate Bill and my shipmate. The cook was in the galley, and we gathered there, a jolly company, and had a regular “go” of it. The boys--Richardson, Irish Bill, Roy, and Bob--had taken possession of the skiff and started briskly ashore. Trust them to take the first opportunity! The cook was disgusted with them, as he always was. He said it was ridiculous that four full-grown men should try to jam themselves into that skiff, built for not more than two. In _his_ day such foolishness wouldn’t have been allowed. This deserting all duty and running ashore at the first chance made him sick, he said. Then he fell to arguing with the mate as to which could do the worse things to the old man, and which could strike the harder blow. The mate insisted that the steward couldn’t make him feel anything, and the cook said he had made many a better man feel a great deal. This talk continued for a long time. Among other things, we heard once more the tale of how the Chinese cook had chased Captain Avery ashore with a drawn cutlass, and the tale of how the cook was seasick in his bunk for ten days, and how the quart of cold tea cured him. Those two were his favorites. After that discussion was ended, and the landlubbers had gone back to land, the three of us went aft, leaving the cook to shut up the galley for the night. There was a little more friendly but insignificant talk with the mate, out in the frosty starlight; then we turned in.

For about the first time during that whole trip, we slept steady--that is, with no rolling. Although at first I missed that cradling motion, I slept as soundly as ever.

* * * * *

In the morning I got out on deck early. The harbor and the hills around it looked, by broad day-light, twice as lovely as before. How blue that water, and how like ancient towns the two little villages, lying there amid those green, green hills!

A little way up the stream was a sort of thing which looked like a large, fat bell buoy. I was sure I hadn’t seen it in the evening. I asked the mate about it, and “Blamed if I know” was all I got. Captain Avery didn’t understand it, either. All of a sudden the top of it threw forth a glorious shower of red sparks, accompanied by a long _fiz-z-z-z-z-z-z!_ and the thing, whatever it was, started slowly churning down the river, lifting its head high like some monstrous ancient dragon or a crocodile of some extinct and forgotten species. As it came closer and closer, with a curious gliding motion, we saw that it was a sort of raft with an engine, laden with mud and clay. A mud-scow!

♦ _Painting under Difficulties_ ♦

Two small tugs came churning downstream. The old man hailed them both through his long speaking-trumpet, and asked each if it were the tug that was to tow him up. Both replied that others were coming down shortly. Meanwhile the mate had started mixing up a dark green paint for the waterways, and the captain was standing over his shoulder, pestering the life out of him, and telling him that the color wasn’t dark enough, or that it wasn’t bright enough, and that it needed a touch of this, and that, and the other. The mate was mighty glad when he got the bucket prepared to the satisfaction of the old man. (Incidentally, he insisted that there was altogether too much of the color mixed for the waterways, and the mate obstinately persisted that there wasn’t too much. When the old man got out of the way for a moment, he repeated slyly to me his former statement that if the old fellow could have his way “he’d make one can o’ paint go for the hull ship.”) He took the can down by the port waterways and started painting, but the old man came up and said something critical about it. This was the last straw. The mate deliberately laid down his brush, left the paint-can, and strode over to where I was sitting, without so much as another look at the captain. Then said he: “P’isonous old wretch! Always interferin’, as usual! Well, all I can say is, if he wants me to take it easy, I sure will.” And he did.

But now the crew were gathering up forward to tell their adventures to the mate and the cook. I wanted to be in on that, and I went skipping up forward, too. Bob was the chosen orator of the party, and he began, with strange chuckles and squeaks and scrapes and rasps, to tell the tale.

“How many new wimmenfolks did you pick up?” asked the cook.

“I dunno why,” replied the bo’s’n, “but all the wimmenfolk seemed t’ be mighty feared of us. We was goin’ along, when we come up behind a woman with a big basket, ’n’ she took one good look behind her, ’n’ then ducked into the first doorway. When we passed, we looked back, ’n’ there she was agin, walkin’ behind us. Well, a little further on we come up to two girls walkin’ along. ’N’ they did jist the same thing. They ducked right into the first doorway, ’n’ waited awhile, till we went by. ’N’ then, when we looked back agin, there they was, comin’ along behind.”

“Pshaw!” said the mate, “you’ll get all the gals in Bridgewater so skeered of us that when I go ashore they won’t come anywhere near me. I don’t go ashore like that, skeering all the wimmenfolk out o’ their wits. I go ashore like a gen’leman, I do. W’at do you ’xpect, goin’ ashore lookin’ like bums, you?”

“Say, Bill,” interposed Bob, again, “you’re no more a gen’leman when y’ go ashore ’n I am. I got a new suit, I have, ’n’ new shoes, too.”

♦ _Resurrection of the Mudhook_ ♦

“So have I,” said Roy, “and a brand-new four-in-hand tie.”

“Me, too,” said Richardson, “’n’ a tie-pin, too.”

“Who give it to you?” said Roy.

“M’ best girl.”

“Humph!” said Bill, emphatically. “I can take the shine out o’ you all, when I make up m’ mind to ’t.”

* * * * *

But now events were occurring aft, and I scampered back again. A third tug was chugging its way slowly down the river, and the old man had his speaking-trumpet all ready and was mustering up his whoops to hail it. It proved to be the right tug; and the skipper shouted to the mate, up forrard, to get the mudhook up.

“Get up the mudhook, boys!” trilled out the bo’s’n, in such a voice that I wonder the skipper didn’t hear him. I ran forward again, at this, to see the anchor come up--something I always loved. Somehow it wasn’t, this time, so ghostlike and awesome as on the day when, out of sight of land, we had hauled it up through the fog. But there is always one moment, just before the arms reach out of the water, when it reminds one of a skeleton.

The tug was now rapidly making fast on our port side. (Richardson, I noticed, stuck most carefully to his painting of the bulwarks.) When the skipper of this tug jumped aboard, I fairly caught my breath with amazement. He was exactly the same sort of man as the other tug master--wild, kindly, huge, Dutch, and another “champeen” spitter; and with the same swaggering, swanky, bossy, familiar way. He also recognized Captain Avery, and greeted him in almost the same way as the other, calling him, also, “Cap.” Captain Avery recognized him, too, and again we watched the two sitting there in a most friendly way, asking each other how this person was, and that was, and whether they remembered how they once changed watchchains, and saying how glad they were to see each other again, and one asking how the voyage down was, and the other replying that “we got caught i’ the fog fer a few days--wet, nasty fog, ye knaow, with a sloppy, nasty roll going.”

♦ _Up the Lahave_ ♦

The new arrival was even more of a champeen spitter than the other. While he was steering the schooner (for Captain Avery was so obliging as to let him steer, which the other appreciated), he would simply turn his head and spit clean and clear over the bulwarks. It was Homeric. Again the mate filled my ears with his non-approval, and he talked considerably about what a mess the fellow was making all over the deck. “He seems t’ be pretty good at it, though,” said Bill. “Poor old Cap’n Avery has t’ go clean t’ the side o’ the schooner when he wants t’ spit.”

I was glad to be starting on this little run up the river, though I had secretly hoped to explore that mysterious island early in the morning. We went around bend after bend of the stream, always seeing new bends ahead. Sometimes we passed pine and spruce woods; sometimes there was nothing but hills; sometimes there were fields and orchards of apple trees, or country villages, or yellow and gray beaches. Once we passed a place where a small schooner was under construction. I longed to stay and examine her closely. She was a very deep-bottomed boat, not more than a hundred feet long, yet apparently destined to be a three-master. I should have loved to see her finished. A three-master of that size must look quite like a fairy ship.

It seemed no time at all before we rounded the last great curve of the river, and saw, ahead of us, Bridgewater spread out, one dense mass of houses and higher buildings, crowded together like an army. I hated to see the proud and strong _Norman D._, her sails down and furled, being towed, pushed, dragged, hauled, up the river by such s puny, dirty tug, like a prisoner or a wrecked ship, as if she were incapable of taking care of herself; she who took care of herself so nobly when there was wind, and she had sea room!

Well, here we were at the end of the interesting part of our journey. Our piratical adventure had ended. A month before, I had had not the slightest idea that it could even begin. Three weeks before, I had only the faintest hopes; it was then like a dream somewhere in the future. Two weeks before, I had longed for it and clamored for it. And then it had suddenly become real and tangible, almost clutchable. Eleven days before, I was wild because I couldn’t believe it. Ten days ago, I had started; it _was_ real, after all! All this went through my mind quickly and silently. How mysterious is Time, and how strange in its doings--the same thing ahead of you one day, behind you the next! Here we were in Bridgewater.

The tug took us in to the wharf on the eastern side of the town, just ahead of a schooner very much like the _Norman D._ She was another three-master, with a black painted hull and ornaments, and her name in yellow letters, very fancily decorated with yellow curves and scrolls. Her name was _Hazel L. Myra_.

♦ _The Lure of the Crosstrees_ ♦

By the wharf were sky-high piles of lath, bound up in great bundles like shocks of corn. It was the next cargo of the _Norman D._, all ready for New York. The wharf was dirty and disused, as was this part of the town. Three boys, street urchins in rags, came strolling by to look at the new schooner. A couple of laughing, robust farmers passed and spoke to the Captain. The day was unmercifully hot, and I felt rather weary and depressed, and longed to be out at sea again, in a good brisk sailing breeze, with the whitecaps roaring and looking like wild white warhorses.

* * * * *

Suddenly there came a faint, warm breath of wind upon my port cheek. The tug left us and chugged away, muddying the water with her propeller. Then an impulse came over me--an irresistible impulse to climb, and climb, and climb; up on to the crosstrees, up to the sky. I could no more tell you why than I could say why I knew I wanted to climb the mainmast rigging rather than any other. And this was not, strangely enough, for the sake of “showing off” to the boys and farmers. Many times I have climbed for that reason--to show that I was not a landlubber--but this was for no earthly reason at all; I simply wanted to climb. And climb I did! I went up like a cat, a squirrel. I never stopped until I reached my well-beloved crosstrees. Then I sat down, and thought and thought, looking down all the time upon the people so far below me. And I thought of them, and of how small and insignificant they were, like grains of pepper in the pepper-caster. I laughed at them proudly. And yet I was no less insignificant myself, from down there! I was only a chipmunk frisking up into the branches.

When one is sitting on the crosstrees, one is in an entirely separate world. Perhaps you feel that you’re in Heaven--that is, as to position; perhaps you are a god on Olympus, looking down upon the world. However you feel, I think there is always an idea that someone ought to be on the crosstrees of the mast next to you. I don’t know quite why, but I always had that sense. Then it would be entirely like a separate world: two would make a vast population. You would look across to each other, and nod, and smile, as if to say some secret that no one else knew anything about; and it would be so strange to be friendly over such a chasm! That was how the ancient Greek gods and goddesses must have felt, alone with each other on Olympus, looking down on a world so far below, and yet having a world of their own right with them. You begin to get a sense--a vague idea--of the immensity of space. It is strange what a difference sixty feet can make. It is the same on a mountain-top.

* * * * *

♦ _Shore Leave_ ♦

I came down from the mainmast crosstrees, feeling sorry to be at Bridgewater. My shipmate was in the act of scrambling over the side of the schooner. Shortly afterward he disappeared upon the country road, evidently going to find out about trains. Then the steward suggested that the mate should go ashore to get the mail, if there were any. The captain had gone ashore immediately upon touching the wharf, and the mate was free to do whatever he liked. It was agreed that he should go up to the post office, and I with him.

The mate started to change his clothes, but the steward stopped him, saying: “Oh, shucks, Bill! go as you are.”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Sure! go ahead.”

“I niver yet went ashore lookin’ this way. I’d be ashamed to.”

“Oh, never mind, mate,” said I. “You go as you are, and I’ll go as I am, and we’ll have a bully time of it.”

Agreed. We scrambled over the side, and felt the ground beneath our feet again. It was very strange. Even when the schooner was in port and safe out of the wind, there was a feeling about her that the ground doesn’t have; an air of unsteadiness. She feels like a ship always. Which the ground doesn’t. At first I was puzzled. I walked slowly, because it was so strange. Presently I picked up my pace and strode on at a great rate--_but_ rolling from side to side with a real sailor swagger as I walked. It wasn’t put on at all; it was real. I can’t describe to you how queer that was. I had always, always dreamed in a vague way about going to sea, and returning brawny, sunburned, and with a sailor walk. And at last it was true, though like a dream.

So we strode merrily along, Bill in his ragged sailor clothes, with the same hat on his head that he had worn all through the trip (except in the fog, when he had worn his sou’wester). His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, as they always were, and his shirt was unbuttoned three buttons at the neck, as it always was (except on extra hot days, when it was open clear down to his belt). I was in my gay old sailor rags, and I had on a sunburn that would have made a beach bonfire look pale. And both of us were striding along the road, side by side, with such a sailor roll, and such an I’ve-just-come-home-from-sea,-sir look, that no one could have mistaken us for anything but sailors. I only wished I had a bit of tattooing to display, as Mate Bill had. He had a very elegant full-rigged ship on the inside of his left forearm, almost buried in brawn and brownness. He told me, with an air of pride, that it had cost him two dollars to have it put on.

♦ _Shipmates Ashore_ ♦

If I had been walking, in silks and satins, beside the King of England, I could not have felt prouder than I did then. It was the supreme moment of my life. We pushed on, and everyone looked at us, as I knew they would. And somehow I could forget most successfully who I really was, and be neither more nor less than Mate Bill’s shipmate. Lustily and rollingly we walked, and there were strange moments when, as I looked ahead at the dusty road, curving into the woods, it seemed to be waving gently up and down, just as the deck or the end of the flying jibboom had waved in our rolling days. There were times when the whole world waved up and down, making me feel quite dizzy--much more so than at any time on the schooner herself. The strangeness of solid ground! We walked, Mate Bill and I.

We crossed a bridge into the main part of the town. Here were fashionable folk everywhere. We walked steadily, looking neither to left nor right, but rolling like two ships in a high cross swell. Everyone stared. But I was not myself then at all. I didn’t come of even a decent family. I was a common sailor, and Mate Bill’s shipmate. I let them stare. I didn’t have the smallest apology to offer, to myself or anyone else, for my appearance. I held my head high and felt proud--oh, so proud!--of walking beside Mate Bill. A common sailor was higher in rank than the King of England. I was higher in rank than the Queen of it. So there we walked, the King and the Queen--Bill brown and hearty and tattooed, I scarlet, ragged, and proud.

* * * * *

For a moment or two we paused on the bridge and leaned over the railing, looking down into the water. Then we turned to look back at the _Norman D._ where she lay on the other side of the river. That was another of those supreme moments. Now we had changed from two merry, laughing comrades, walking lustily along, looking neither to right nor left, to two shipmates, two common sailors, stopping together on the streets to spin a yarn and gossip a bit. A couple of girls passed by. They nudged each other, and giggled.

♦ _The Staring Lady_ ♦

We went on, with people staring and nudging each other on all sides upon our approach. We neared the post office. It was jammed full of school children, girls, jesting boys, older women. Here was the supreme chance! We went up those small, long steps two by two, instead of one at a time, and rolled our way into the place, still looking neither to left nor right, but pushing on right lustily through the crowd. We entered, the King, the Queen--he lusty and brown, and with the heartiest, merriest, most piratical sailor face you ever saw; she scarlet as fire, ragged, and very cheerful. It was “shipmate” this, “shipmate” that, all the time; I took great pains that more than one person should hear us call each other so. We elbowed, yarning merrily, through the crowd, and it certainly did make them stare to see us striding in that way, as free and easy as if we had been sailors and shipmates all our born days. In a loud voice Bill asked if the mail had come in. It hadn’t, and it wasn’t due for a quarter of an hour.

While Bill was asking this, I was standing just behind him, my hands on my hips, looking as full of the sea as I could. Suddenly I became aware of a lady, tall, slender, and dressed in black from head to foot, standing near me in a corner of the room. She had a curious, small, kind face, and she smiled at me so hard that I had to give her a smile in return. No doubt she, like all the rest, thought it strange to see me with Mate Bill, who, from the exposed inside of his left forearm, was certainly a sailor. People, looking at us, would feel us entirely different from what we were. They would see a very sunburned, ragged little girl in company with a hearty sailor. That was delightful, too--especially as that same sunburned little girl was so free and gay with the sailor, so shipmate-ish; but it was not nearly so delightful as my own idea that I actually was Bill’s shipmate. Anyway, I didn’t care; I just didn’t care.

Somehow, after I had turned my head away from the woman, something within me said that she was staring hard. I felt rather as if she shouldn’t stare quite so hard. It was all right to have her look at me in surprise and smile in a friendly way--that was just what I wanted; but should she keep her eyes fixed and fixed and fixed on me like that? I couldn’t resist looking again, out of the corner of my eye. She _was_ staring. I dropped her another smile. Then I forced myself to forget her, and looked away.

Now Bill spoke up: “What’s the use of waitin’ in here fer fifteen minutes? I know I’m eager enough to get out in the air. What do you say we stroll by the river a bit, ’n’ then come back later?”

“All right with me, shipmate,” said I. “A little fresh air wouldn’t come amiss, now you speak of it. Let’s go.”

♦ _The Point of View_ ♦

I spoke this quietly enough so that no one could hear--all except the “shipmate.” Then, after one parting look at the woman, who was still staring, I followed Mate Bill out through the crowd, and down the little steps two by two, and down the street, and out by the river. There we stopped and strolled back and forth, as he had suggested, and talked, and went out on the bridge to look down into the water again. Soon we went back. The woman was not there, and I felt considerably relieved about that, because something in her small, quiet, kind eyes made me feel uncomfortable. They were like winking glass beads.

* * * * *

Mate Bill asked, in a hearty voice: “Any mail fer th’ schooner _Norman D._, the schooner that just come in here today?”

The girl sorted out the various mail for different schooners. There seemed to be a great deal for another one, but none for us.

“That’s funny,” said Bill. “Huh! All that trouble fer nothin’! Well, it’s been a nice walk.”

It had. I didn’t feel in the least disappointed about the absence of mail, but I wouldn’t have missed the walk for the world.

Adventures were still to befall us. We walked along, and--

“Did you see that woman in the post office, Barbara?” said Bill.

“You mean the one who was standing over in the corner and staring?”

“Yes. That’s her. Wasn’t she staring, though!”

“I reckon she thought we were a couple of rowdies.”

“Well, we look it.”

“We certainly do, shipmate! But we look like what we are--sailors.”

“I never went to town lookin’ so in all m’ born days.”

“No, but we were just like a couple of sailors, weren’t we, you and I?”

“Yes--but I don’t like t’ go ashore with you, lookin’ so awful.”

“But I like you to, shipmate. It wouldn’t have been fun if you and I had dressed up. We wouldn’t have been sailors then at all.”

“Ssh, Barbara! That’s her ahead!”

It was--it was, unmistakably, the tall black woman. We strode along until we caught up with her, which, at such a gait, we did very shortly. I gave her a brief nod and a smile of recognition as we passed; otherwise I looked neither to left nor right. The funny part of all this was that, though I was amazingly conspicuous in my rags and tatters, with my face a bonfire of sun and sea, and such a crazy sailor roll, I still wasn’t in the least embarrassed.

♦ _Rencontre_ ♦

So we rolled past until we had gone the whole length of the long bridge and come back to the _Norman D.’s_ side of the river. We were stopped by the railroad track, for a long, long freight train had started across it, going very slowly. There was nothing to do but stop and wait, and talk as best we could in the terrific din. It was a long time that we stood there; and, just as we were beginning to think that the train would never come to an end, we felt someone approaching slowly and calmly behind us, and I felt a pair of beady eyes fixed on me--someone staring. I looked around quickly, and there was “her.” Now the meeting was inevitable. Someone had to say something.

“How do you do?” said she, in a calm voice.

“Hello!” said I, heartily, and “Hello!” said Bill.

Then there was a rather awkward pause.

“I thought you were a little boy,” said she, finally, “until I saw your pigtails.” She had a curious accent which seemed to be universal among the Nova Scotians.

“Well, perhaps I do look it,” said I. “We came up on the schooner--just got in this morning.”

“Are ye from Yankeeland?” said she, looking at me curiously.

“I am,” said I. “From Connecticut.”

“And you say you came up on a schooner?”

“Yes, the _Norman D._”

“Hm! That must have been fun. Did you enjoy it?”

“I’ll say!”

“And you?” she said, turning to Bill. “Are you the captain?”

“No, first mate,” said Bill, heartily enough.

“Mate,” I echoed.

Another pause. Then: “Were you the only girl aboard?”

“Yes, I was, thank Heaven!” said I.

“You were glad not to have anyone else with you?”

“Indeed yes. But, say: don’t you want to walk down with us and see the _Norman D_? She’s mighty pretty!”

“No, I can’t now.”

“Well, you’ll find her there for quite a long time, if you ever want to see her.”

“About three weeks,” said Bill.

“Thank you,” said she.

The train had now gone past, and we three stepped along in company. Before many steps Bill and I passed her. She minced sedately along a short way, and then, with a final glassy look and a friendly wave of her hand, she disappeared into a little old house. Bill and I quietly returned to the schooner and climbed aboard.

* * * * *

♦ _A Resignation_ ♦

There we found quite a state of excitement. The steward was hopping up and down the deck on one leg and saying: “The old man wants t’ see you, Barbara. You better go aft ’n’ see w’at he wants. I think the custom-house man is here.” Aft I went, and I had to open up my hand-baggage, and to show my birth-certificate. The old man, by the way, had gone for the mail, and had evidently got it during the time when Bill and I were waiting outside. My certificate was among it.

Out on deck, everyone had letters, and they were reading them to each other. The mate took his away in a corner and spent a very long time over them. Then he told me that they were from his wife. “I got seven letters from her when we was in New Haven,” said he.

And now a sad event was happening in the crew: for Richardson was resigning. He scrubbed up, put on shore clothes, and finally went aft to the captain--probably to get his wages. He returned forrard with beaming contentment.

“I guess we weren’t good enough to you, Dick,” said Roy, mournfully.

“Oh, you fellows were all mighty good to me,” said Richardson, almost in tears. Then he hopped off and went ashore to catch a train.

How many times I scrambled up and down the rigging, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know exactly why I did it, but something was telling me that it was mighty near my parting with the _Norman D._, and, though I was likely to climb to other crosstrees in my life, I shouldn’t have much more chance to swing my legs on those of the schooner which had brought me to Nova Scotia.

It was Saturday. At last my shipmate returned aboard, and said that we shouldn’t be able to get a train down until Monday. So we had the prospect of another day in Bridgewater. We decided to stay at a hotel, for we were tired of hearing the captain’s complaints about sleeping on the couch; also, the charm of the schooner was lost when we were not under way. For the first time during the whole trip, I put on ladylike clothes, and appeared in the midst of the crew again. They stared like so many fish. The mate said, in a voice which sounded a little wistful: “But you didn’t dress up that way when you went ashore this mornin’!”

I hoped his feelings weren’t hurt. I said: “No, I didn’t, because I thought it would be more fun walking through the streets looking like born sailors and shipmates.”

“Well, I think I like you better in your good clothes,” said he.

“Oh, NO!” I protested, in frank disappointment.

“Well, perhaps not,” he yielded. “You were all right as a little sailor boy, anyhow.”

♦ _A Gift without Thanks_ ♦

So we went off ashore. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was my last glimpse of Mate Bill as he is and ought to be. The truly last time I saw him, it was not Mate Bill at all.

We found a good hotel and deposited our luggage. Then we went out for a walk. We picked the back roads of Bridgewater and headed as much for open country as we could. The Nova Scotian people are more friendly than any I have ever seen. Everyone nodded and smiled and said “Good day!” to us, as though we had lived there all our lives. As we came out upon a long country road that led out toward a rather high hill, we passed a house where an old, sweet-looking man was mowing the lawn. We had been picking and examining the Nova Scotian wildflowers, and as soon as the old man saw that, he left his lawn-mower where it was and ran off into the back yard for a moment. When he came back he had a great bunch of pansies of gorgeous velvety colors, brighter and glossier than any I have ever seen. He gave them at once to me, saying: “I see you were lookin’ fer flowers, so I brought you some. You don’t need to thank me, ’cause I’m so deef I couldn’t hear, anyhow.” We were touched.

The flowers have an extraordinary brilliance there. Such pansies! And the columbine! that is the most splendid of all. Almost everyone has it--great double blossoms, almost as large as tiger lilies, of all the colors of earth, ranging from dark blue to bright yellow, lavender, pink. We stopped beside someone’s garden, where a man was down on his hands and knees weeding a flower-bed. We spoke to him in a friendly way about his garden. Immediately he got up and picked us a great bunch of the exquisite columbine, with some pansies. It seems as if the Nova Scotians make the very best of their short summers, cramming into their gardens every flower that can possibly find an inch of soil to fasten its roots in.

* * * * *

The next day, Sunday, we went down to say good-bye to those of the _Norman D._ In our forgetfulness, we never thought about its being Sunday until, as we drew very near the schooner and were walking along on the railroad tracks, we met the crew face to face. We stepped back amazed. Bill, Bob, Roy, and Irish Bill, all marching along in a body, all with new dark blue suits, all with newly shined shoes, all in clean white shirts and ties! Every atom of their charm, their character, had vanished out of them. Before, they were sailors. Now they were nothing--nothing at all. Even the mate was considerably less piratical and delightful.

♦ _Shore-going Togs_ ♦

It threatened rain, and the mate said he had decided not to go ashore at all, but to return to the schooner with us. “I don’t want to get my clothes wet,” said he. Care-free Mate Bill worrying about getting his clothes wet! But the other three were determined to go on to town to “show off.” We left them, and went to the schooner with the mate. Even the steward was slightly dressed up. He had on a clean apron, or a clean blue cotton shirt, or another pair of trousers; he looked different, somehow. The captain was dressed up like a young boy; and he looked like a monkey, a positive monkey, in _his_ shore clothes.

It began to rain hard and furiously. We had just time to duck into the cabin. The three of the crew who had persisted in heading towards town came running back at full speed and leaped over the side of the schooner. We had quite a party down there. The mate took our blankets and rolled them into a beautiful roll, marline-hitching them with stout cord, and tying them as only a sailor could. Even a professional mountain-climber could do no better. Then I went with him in to his bunk, and we had a farewell talk. There was a snapshot on the wall of his little room--a snapshot of a girl. The mate indicated it, saying to me:

“You know, my wife, she’s awful funny, and she sends me all sorts o’ things, just to tease me. She sent me that picture while we was down there in New Haven.”

“Who is she?”

“Oh, she’s a girl I used to go with. I went with her three years. Yes, I had pretty strong intentions of hookin’ up with that girl!”

“What happened that you didn’t?”

“Well, I met t’ other one. Her father had died, ’n’ she was livin’ there all alone, ’n’ so I went to her instead.”

“Have you seen the other girl since?”

“Yes, a few times. She give me the dickens fer goin’ to the other, ’n’ that was all there was to it.”

Then he talked about his career. He gave a sigh and said: “If I had my hull life t’ live over, I’d do it powerful diff’rent--that is, if I knowed as much as I know now.”

“Would you go to sea, mate?”

“Not if I knowed as much as I know now.”

“What do you think you would do?”

“Well, I reckon I’d ’a’ been a barber. That’s a very pleasant little job. But bein’ a sailor is good in some ways. I keep thinkin’ I’m goin’ t’ resign at th’ next port, but somethin’ about it--I dunno, but I seem t’ stick. It’s a good, healthy life, out in the open, ’n’ that’s somethin’.”

* * * * *

♦ _Self-conscious_ ♦

We went back to our hotel for supper, with an agreement that the mate was to run up that way later, when he went ashore, and that we should be on the lookout for him about six o’clock. The captain was to come up, too, to write that note which he had promised so long ago--a note for identification, stating that we were his passengers on the schooner, to be handed to any officials who might challenge us in Boston. We were sitting in the hotel, talking, about six o’clock, and watching for Bill. Sure enough, we saw him striding along, in company with Irish Bill. As for the skipper, we didn’t see him. But the two Bills went straight on, appearing not even to see the place. I darted out the door like a flash and called out “Hi! Mate!” in a loud and hearty voice. Several persons turned at the sound of that “Mate!”

I asked him why he hadn’t stopped. He said he thought it was much too grand a place for the likes of him (he was in his half-sailor, half-shore clothes, which were at least better than his real shore clothes). I said that was nonsense, and asked him if he didn’t want to come in. He agreed briefly, though still feeling a little shy, and Irish Bill went on walking up the street, alone.

“Where’s Bill going?” I asked.

“I dunno. Bill’s a queer lad, he is.”

Then my shipmate appeared, and the three of us set out for a walk together. We were discussing the old man and wondering where he was, when suddenly we met him face to face. “I’ve just been up-town for a little walk,” said he. We turned and went back toward the hotel. My shipmate was extremely eager not to let the old man slip between his fingers and once more dodge writing that note. We went in, and I sat with Mate Bill while the old man wrote it. I saw him throw it away at least twice as if dissatisfied.

As for Mate Bill and me, our talk ran on to the jackknife which I had promised him.

“I’ll send it up to Bridgewater as soon as I get home, mate,” said I.

“That will be fine, Barbara,” said he. “I’ll be awful glad to have it. But listen, don’t send it to my home _ad_dress, will you?” (He had given me his home address before.) “Be sure not to send it there, Barbara,” he went on, very earnestly, “Because, you see, my wife ’d get the package, ’n’ she’d open it, ’n’ w’at would she find but a jackknife? ’n’ from ‘Barbara’! She wouldn’t rillize that you was jist a little shipmate o’ mine. She’d think you was a girl that I’d been goin’ with, ’n’ she’d be jealous, she would. I know how it is, ’cause I got in trouble with her that way once before. I’d get in wrong with her, you see, ’n’ I wouldn’t like to have that. So don’t, will you, Barbara?”

♦ _Last Words with Bill_ ♦

“No, I promise you I won’t, mate,” said I, in the same earnest tone. “I’ll send it right up to Bridgewater, and as soon as I get home, too, so that it’ll get up here to you before the schooner sails.”

The rest of our conversation was on the same theme--warning me against sending the knife to his home address--until the end, when a strange thing happened.

“Was your mother worried ’bout havin’ you come on the schooner?” said Bill.

“No! Why should she be?”

“Well, I thought, perhaps, you bein’ the on’y woman aboard, she might git worried. But she didn’t need to, anyhow. I know one that wouldn’t let you be imposed upon--and that one is--_me_!”

By this time the captain had finished, and it was just when they were going out the door that Bill said: “Good-bye, shipmate!” and I replied: “Good-bye, shipmate!”

And that was the last I saw of Bill.

* * * * *

As for the captain’s note, it ran like this:

June 25th/27

This is to certify that
Miss Barbara Follett and
Mr. Bryn were my guests
on board the sch Norman
D from New Haven conn
to Bridgewater N S and are
returning home via the
Yarmouth boat to Boston

C. Avery Master
Schn. Norman D

But it wasn’t the Yarmouth boat that we took: it was the train. The next morning early, we started off by train and rode until we came to Digby. From Digby we took a little steamer across the Bay of Fundy to St. John, New Brunswick. For about three hours of the afternoon we steamed across the great bay. But there was no crew to talk to, no rigging. I couldn’t have steered had I asked. Nothing was familiar. The wind blew my skirts so that I could hardly take a step--for there was a violent sailing breeze, though nothing like our gale. I wish we could have gone across in the schooner, before a whitecapped sea like this. It was glorious, except for the steadiness of the little ship, and the stiffness and unfamiliarity of it. The exit to Digby Harbor was heavenly--even lovelier than Lahave, if that were possible. It was very much bigger, and just as you thought you had the open sea ahead of you, you saw two great green arms of land--something like those at Lahave, but longer and slenderer and even more like arms--reaching out from the mainland and all but meeting.

♦ _Neque Vela, neque Armamenta_ ♦

We steamed out between those two long arms, through the narrow opening. For a long time afterward we could look back and back at the green against the vivid sky; then we were out of sight of land, and alone in the sea. We passed one little fisherman very much like the one which we had seen on the fifth day of the voyage in the schooner--the day the sailing breeze had just begun to come. I was delighted to see a sailing vessel again. Almost as soon as we were out of sight of Digby we came in sight of the hills and mountains in back of St. John--billowing dark blue hills, reaching up and up above the horizon; and at last we saw the city itself. A few minutes later the steamer chugged into St. John, and we disembarked.

There isn’t anything to say about the place. My mind was dwelling wholly on the voyage just past; everything else was unimportant. We took the train from there, staying on it all night, and in the morning arrived in Boston. From Boston we took the train to New Haven, and arrived there four hours later. The only interesting thing that happened in the whole train ride was that, passing over the border between New Brunswick and Maine, the custom-house official strode through the train asking for identifications. He was very pleasant about it. I showed Captain Avery’s amusing little note, and Mr. Holbrook’s affidavit, useful at last.

Mother was to meet us at New Haven. We came walking up through the station with our luggage--including the roll of blankets tied by Bill, which had stayed faithfully tied through thick and thin on the train. Mother said afterward that she could see nothing but my glowing scarlet face and two rows of great white teeth as I grinned. Sun, wind, and salt sea had left their mark upon me!

Everything I had once anticipated and dreamed of took place. I found myself twice as strong and hearty as before. I swanked, and I still rolled just a little, though that had pretty well worn off by this time. I told my stories, in a gay manner and in a hearty sailor voice, all the way home and for days afterward--all as I had often planned.

When I ran up the steps at home, the first person I saw was my friend Mr. Rasmussen. I ran to him at once with huge sailor leaps, and said, shaking him warmly by the hand: “Thanks, Mr. Rasmussen, for sending me to Nova Scotia! Weather? We had thick fog and calm most of the time--but one good, ripping northeast gale.”

“Well, you sure look husky enough to have been a sailor. Thick fog ’n’ calm, did you have? And nor’east wind? Hm! I kinda reckoned that was what you was getting.”

♦ _Fidem non Fefelli_ ♦

* * * * *

The next afternoon I kept my promise to Mate Bill by going in town to buy him a bully stout jackknife. I wrote him a shipmate-ish letter at the same time, asking him, among other things, to keep a lookout for a poncho and some other things which I had managed to leave on the schooner. I received a letter from him shortly in answer. I wrote to him again, and received another letter. But when I wrote a third time, asking him to keep on writing to me, because I didn’t want to lose track of him, and because I _did_ want to sail with him again sometime, I got no answer; nor have I heard from him since. But here, hoping you will not ridicule them in spite of their imperfections, are his letters. It is delightful to me to have them--the evidence that I have at last made acquaintance with a true sailor. The first is as follows:

Bridgewater
July 4 1929

Well shipmate

I reicived your
letter was glad to hear that
you rive home saft again
well Barbara your things you
was speaking about they are
here the old man sed he
would send them to you
From new york
we leave here July 5 for
new york. I will soon Be
hearing the sail flap again
the old man is no better
the steward and him still
talk fit some times But I
gest it will be talk
I would like to see you here to
go Back with us
I no you like to go to sea
what king of a trip did you
have gone home

So long from your shipmate

Bill

And here is the second:

New york
July
th 30 1927

well Barbara

I reicived the jack-knife
sent I came in hear I had left Bridgewater
befor the knife reach there so they sent it
to me here

so now I am trying to think how I am
gone to return the gif