Previous - Next

"We're Heres" gained. Harvey could not see how one more fish could
be crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Platt stowed and stowed,
and planked the mass down with big stones from the ballast, and
there was always "jest another day's work." Disko did not tell
them when all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft
the cabin and began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten
in the morning. The riding-sail was down and the main- and topsail
were up by noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home,
envying their good fortune. At last she cleared decks, hoisted her
flag, - as is the right of the first boat off the Banks, - up-
anchored, and began to move. Disko pretended that he wished to
accommodate folk who had not sent in their mail, and so worked her
gracefully in and out among the schooners. In reality, that was
his little triumphant procession, and for the fifth year running
it showed what kind of mariner he was. Dan's accordion and Tom
Platt's fiddle supplied the music of the magic verse you must not
sing till all the salt is wet:

"Hih! Yih! Yoho!
Send your letters raound!
All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound!
Bend, oh, bend your mains'l!, we're back to Yankeeland -
With fifteen hunder' quintal,
An' fifteen hunder' quintal,
'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal,
'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand."

The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and
the Gloucester men shouted messages to their wives and womenfolk
and owners, while the "We're Here" finished the musical ride
through the Fleet, her head-sails quivering like a man's hand when
he raises it to say good-bye.

Harvey very soon discovered that the "We're Here", with her
riding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the "We're Here"
headed west by south under home canvas, were two very different
boats. There was a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's"
weather; he could feel the dead weight in the hold flung forward
mightily across the surges, and the streaming line of bubbles
overside made his eyes dizzy.

Disko kept them busy fiddling with the sails; and when those were
flattened like a racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big
topsail, which was put over by hand every time she went about. In
spare moments they pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine,
which does not improve a cargo. But since there was no fishing,
Harvey had time to look at the sea from another point of view. The
low-sided schooner was naturally on most intimate terms with her
surroundings. They saw little of the horizon save when she topped
a swell; and usually she was elbowing, fidgeting, and coaxing her
steadfast way through grey, grey-blue, or black hollows laced
across and across with streaks of shivering foam; or rubbing
herself caressingly along the flank of some bigger water-hill. It
was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? I'm only the
little 'We're Here'.

Previous - Next