Part 14 (1/2)
”July 18 This day coht a few fish
”July 19 This day coht breeze froht plenty fish
”July 20 This, the Sabbath, coht winds So ends this day Total fish caught this week, 3,478”
They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed the hyested that, if it was not an iht he could preach a little Uncle Salters nearly ju his We'd hev him rememberin' Johnstown next,” Salters explained, ”an' ould happen then?” So they co aloud from a book called ”Josephus” It was an old leather-bound volues, very solid and very like the Bible, but enlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it nearly from cover to cover Otherwise Penn was a silent little body He would not utter a word for three days on end sos, and laughed at the stories When they tried to stir hihbourly, but it is because I have nothing to say My head feels quite eotten my name” He would turn to Uncle Salters with an expectant smile
”Why, Pennsylvania Pratt,” Salters would shout ”You'll fergithis lips firmly ”Pennsylvania Pratt, of course,” he would repeat over and over Soot, and told him he was Haskins or Rich or McVitty; but Penn was equally content--till next time
He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as a lost child and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn liked the boy, he relaxed, too Salters was not an amiable person (he esteemed it his business to keep the boys in order); and the first tied to shi+n up to the main-truck (Dan was behind hi Salters's big sea-boots up there--a sight of shame and derision to the nearest schooner With Disko, Harvey took no liberties; not even when the old man dropped direct orders, and treated him, like the rest of the crew, to ”Don't you want to do so and so?” and ”Guess you'd better,” and so forth There was so about the clean-shaven lips and the puckered corners of the eyes that wasblood
Disko showed hi of the thuovernment publication whatsoever; led hi of banks--Le Have, Western, Banquereau, St Pierre, Green, and Grand--talking ”cod”
-yoke” orked
In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head for figures, and the notion of stealing inforlimpse of the sullen Bank sun appealed to all his keen wits For other sea-e handicapped hiun when he was ten
Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; and at a pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry-sore on his palm, could dress down by sense of touch He could steer in anything short of half a gale fro the ”We're Here” just when she needed it These things he did as auto, or made his dory a part of his oill and body
But he could not coood deal of general infor about the schooner on stormy days, when they lay up in the fo'c'sle or sat on the cabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, leads, and rings rolled and rattled in the pauses of the talk Disko spoke of whaling voyages in the Fifties; of great she-whales slain beside their young; of death agonies on the black, tossing seas, and blood that spurted forty feet in the air; of boats s-end-first and bo-down, and that terrible ”nip” of '71, when twelve hundred men were made homeless on the ice in three days--wonderful tales, all true But more wonderful still were his stories of the cod, and how they argued and reasoned on their private businesses deep down below the keel
Long Jack's tastes ran hastly stories of the ”Yo-hoes” on Monoers; of sand-walkers and dune-haunters ere never properly buried; of hidden treasure on Fire Island guarded by the spirits of Kidd's ht over Truro townshi+p; of that harbour in Maine where no one but a stranger will lie at anchor twice in a certain place because of a dead creho row alongside at ht with the anchor in the bow of their old-fashi+oned boat, whistling--not calling, but whistling--for the soul of the man who broke their rest
Harvey had a notion that the east coast of his native land, from Mount Desert south, was populated chiefly by people who took their horses there in the summer and entertained in country-houses with hardwood floors and Vantine portieres He laughed at the ghost-tales,--not as much as he would have done a
Tom Platt dealt with his inter days, with a navy more extinct than the dodo--the navy that passed away in the great war He told them how red-hot shot are dropped into a cannon, a wad of wet clay between thee; how they sizzle and reek when they strike wood, and how the little shi+p-boys of the Miss Jiain And he told tales of blockade--long weeks of swaying at anchor, varied only by the departure and return of steae for the sailing-shi+ps); of gales and cold--cold that kept two hundredat the ice on cable, blocks, and rigging, when the galley was as red-hot as the fort's shot, and men drank cocoa by the bucket Tom Platt had no use for stea was comparatively new He admitted that it was a specious invention in time of peace, but looked hopefully for the day when sails should coates with hundred-and-ninety-foot booentle--all about pretty girls in Madeira washi+ng clothes in the dry beds of streaends of saints, and tales of queer dances or fights away in the cold Newfoundland baiting-ports Salters was h he read ”Josephus” and expounded it, his reen ainst every forrew libellous about phosphates; he dragged greasy ”Orange Judd” books froer at Harvey, to whoenuinely pained when Harvey ave it up, and suffered in polite silence That was very good for Harvey
The cook naturally did not join in these conversations As a rule, he spoke only when it was absolutely necessary; but at tiift of speech descended on hilish, an hour at a time He was specially communicative with the boys, and he never withdrew his prophecy that one day Harvey would be Dan's master, and that he would see it He told the in the winter up Cape Breton way, of the dog-train that goes to Coudray, and of the ram-steamer Arctic, that breaks the ice between the mainland and Prince Edward Island Then he told them stories that his mother had told him, of life far to the southward, where water never froze; and he said that when he died his soul would go to lie down on a hite beach of sand with pal above That seemed to the boys a very odd idea for a ularly at each meal, he would ask Harvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cooking was to his taste; and this always reat respect for the cook's judg of ain knowledge of new things at each pore and hard health with every gulp of the good air, the ”We're Here” went her ways and did her business on the Bank, and the silvery-grey kenches of well-pressed fish her in the hold No one day's as out of the coether
Naturally, a ed upon,” Dan called it--by his neighbours, but he had a very pretty knack of giving the-banks Disko avoided company for two reasons He wished to make his own experiments, in the first place; and in the second, he objected to the s of a fleet of all nations The bulk of the from Provincetown, Harwich, Chathaoodness knohere Risk breeds recklessness, and when greed is added there are fine chances for every kind of accident in the crowded fleet, which, like a nised leader
”Let the two Jeraulds lead 'e 'eh ef luck holds, on't hev to lay long Where we are naow, Harve, ain't considered noways good graound”
”Ain't it?” said Harvey, as draater (he had learned just hoiggle the bucket), after an unusually long dressing-down
”Shouldn't e, then”
”All the graound I want to see--don't want to strike her--is Eastern Point,” said Dan ”Say, dad, it looks 's if ouldn't hev to lay more'n teeks on the Shoals You'll meet all the coin to work No reg'lar ry, an' sleep when ye can't keep awake Good job you wasn't picked up a month later than you was, or we'd never ha' had you dressed in shape fer the Old Virgin”
Harvey understood froin and a nest of curiously na-point of the cruise, and that with good luck they would wet the balance of their salt there
But seeing the size of the Virgin (it was one tiny dot), he wondered how even Disko with the hog-yoke and the lead could find her He learned later that Disko was entirely equal to that and any other business, and could even help others A big four-by-five blackboard hung in the cabin, and Harvey never understood the need of it till, after so of a foot-power fog-horn--a machine whose note is as that of a consu the anchor under their foot to save trouble ”Squarerigger bellowin' fer his latitude,” said Long Jack The dripping red headsails of a bark glided out of the fog, and the ”We're Here” rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand
The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings
”Frenchman,” said Uncle Salters, scornfully ”Miquelon boat from St