Part 13 (1/2)
That was a rampuses It lasted till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice heard to chuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish into the hold
”Say, you're haulin' ahead dretful fast,” said Dan, when they ground the knives after the ht, an' I hain't heard you make no re a blade's edge ”Coh-kicker”
The little schooner was ga the silver-tipped waves Backing with a start of affected surprise at the sight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, while the spray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with the report of a gun Shaking her head, she would say: ”Well, I' North,” and would sidle off, halting suddenly with a dra to observe,” she would begin, as gravely as a drunkena lamp-post The rest of the sentence (she acted her words in duets, when she behaved like a puppy chewing a string, a clumsy woman in a side-saddle, a hen with her head cut off, or a cow stung by a hornet, exactly as the whims of the sea took her
”See her sayin' her piece She's Patrick Henry naow,” said Dan
She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her jib-booive ive me-death!”
Wop! She sat down in thewith a flourish of pride ily in its box
Harvey laughed aloud ”Why, it's just as if she was alive,” he said
”She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin',” said Dan, enthusiastically, as he was stung across the deck in a batter of spray
”Fends 'eh me,' she sez Look at her--jest look at her! Sakes! You should see one o' them toothpicks h'istin' up her anchor on her spike outer fifteen-fathom water”
”What's a toothpick, Dan?”
”Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats Fine's a yacht forward, with yacht sterns to 'em, an' spike bowsprits, an' a haouse that u'd take our hold I've heard that Burgess himself he 'in' 'em on account o' their pitchin' an'
joltin', but there's heaps o' ressive--he don't go with the march o' the tis an' sech all 'Ever seed the Elector o' Gloucester? She's a daisy, ef she is a toothpick”
”What do they cost, Dan?”
”Hills o' dollars Fifteen thousand, p'haps;you kin think of” Then to himself, half under his breath ”Guess I'd call her Hattie S, too”
CHAPTER V
That was the first of many talks with Dan, who told Harvey why he would transfer his dory's naess-ood deal about the real Hattie at Gloucester; saw a lock of her hair--which Dan, finding fair words of no avail, had ”hooked” as she sat in front of hiraph Hattie was about fourteen years old, with an awful conteh the winter All this was revealed under oath of sole fog; the whining wheel behind the, clamorous sea Once, of course, as the boys caed from bow to stern till Penn came up and separated the on watch rather worse than sleeping Harvey was no reat deal for his new training that he took his defeat and did not try to get even with his conqueror by underhandof boils between his elbows and wrists, where the wet jersey and oilskins cut into the flesh The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they were ripe Dan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that noas a ”blooded Banker”; the affliction of gurry-sores being the mark of the caste that claimed him
Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head with too ly sorry for his ed to see her and above all to tell her of his wonderful new life, and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it Otherwise he preferred not to wonder toothe shock of his supposed death But one day, as he stood on the fo'c'sle ladder, guying the cook, who had accused hi fried pies, it occurred to hiers in the snised part of the sches on the ”We're Here”; had his place at the table and a talks on stormy days, when the others were always ready to listen to what they called his ”fairy-tales” of his life ashore It did not take him more than two days and a quarter to feel that if he spoke of his own life--it seemed very far away--no one except Dan (and even Dan's belief was sorely tried) credited him So he invented a friend, a boy he had heard of, who drove ain Toledo, Ohio, and ordered five suits of clothes at a tierirl was not quite fifteen, but all the presents were solid silver Salters protested that this kind of yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphereedily as the others; and their criticisers, watches, scent, s, and hotel accoed his tone when speaking of his ”friend,”
whoed Baby,”
”the Suckin' Vanderpoop,” and other pet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would even invent histories about silk pajamas and specially imported neckwear, to the ”friend's” discredit
Harvey was a very adaptable person, with a keen eye and ear for every face and tone about hireen-crusted quadrant that they called the ”hog-yoke”--under the bed-bag in his bunk When he 'took the sun, and with the help of ”The Old Farmer's” almanac found the latitude, Harvey would ju and date with a nail on the rust of the stove-pipe Now, the chief engineer of the liner could have done no ineer of thirty years' service could have assumed one half of the ancient-mariner air hich Harvey, first careful to spit over the side, made public the schooner's position for that day, and then and not till then relieved Disko of the quadrant There is an etiquette in all these things
The said ”hog-yoke,” an Eldridge chart, the farator” were all the weapons Disko needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that was his spare eye
Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Toeon”; and, though his strength was not equal to continuous sounding in any sort of a sea, for calm weather with a seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko used him freely As Dan said: ”'Tain't soundin's dad wants It's saood, Harve”
Harvey would tallow the cup at the end, and carefully bring the sand, shell, sludge, or whatever it ht as a cod; and by so-tested mixture of instinct and experience, moved the ”We're Here” from berth to berth, alith the fish, as a blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseen board
But Disko's board was the Grand Bank--a triangle two hundred and fiftysea, cloaked with dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishi+ng-fleet