Chapter I: Part 1

_The_ VOYAGE
_of the_ NORMAN D.

BY

_Barbara Newhall Follett_

THE HOUSE
WITHOUT WINDOWS

AND EEPERSIP’S LIFE THERE

1927

_The_ VOYAGE
_of the_ NORMAN D.
_as told
by the cabin-boy_

BARBARA
NEWHALL FOLLETT

MCMXXVIII

NEW YORK · ALFRED·A·KNOPF · LONDON

_Copyright 1928 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc._

_Manufactured in the United States
of America_

_Note by the Publisher_

_The manuscript from which this book is set is the carbon copy of a letter which the author wrote, during the weeks just following her return from the voyage recorded, to a distant friend with whom (as appears in the context) she had long had some piratical understandings. She mailed it in eight-page typewritten installments as they were produced. The book is identical with the letter except in the following particulars: (1) Many purely personal passages are omitted. (2) Much repetition due to the haste of first composition has been weeded out. (3) The name of the actual schooner and the names of some of the crew have been disguised. (4) The division into sections is an afterthought. (5) The end-papers consist of a document in code with which the author amused herself during one interval in the composition of the letter._

_The narrative represents chiefly two obvious traits of its author. The first is a circumstantial memory. (Her jottings made day by day throughout the voyage, four pages all told, served but to recall changes of weather and stages of progress.) The second is that same intense natural love of natural beauty which found its first public expression in_ The House Without Windows and Eepersip’s Life There (_1927_). _In_ The House Without Windows _this passion clothed itself in fantasy which incorporated here and there some details of actual experience. In this record of an actual experience, it clothes itself in a shimmering veil of fantasy, so transparent that the actuality of the basic experience is rather heightened than obscured._

_The voyage was taken three months after the author’s thirteenth birthday. The book comes to publication a little before her fourteenth. It is, then, the spontaneous output of a very young writer who, as it happens, has never as yet had a day of formal schooling, and who learns her craft by that simplest of all processes, enjoying with abandon whatever comes into her life, reading with absorption whatever comes into her hands, and writing with demoniacal energy whatever comes into her head. To the publisher, it seems that this one exhibit justifies her obvious contentment with the schooling which, for part of an ecstatic month, was got out of the_ Norman D., _her rigging and sails and crosstrees, the men of her cabin and her forecastle; and out of the various magic of the waters beneath her keel_.

_The_ VOYAGE _of the_ NORMAN D.

_The Cottage in the Woods
Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire
July 23, 1927_

Dear Alan:

Thank you a lot for your very mysterious letter from Honolulu. I wish I could have been with you. But the Congressmen and their families must have been a bore. I could have helped you concoct a regular mutiny, and, with me aboard, you may be sure it would have been done in a piratical way. I should have accosted the desperate-looking sailor and become acquainted with him. That would have been the first step.

Well, I feel tempted to sail full force into my own adventures, even if they are not so exciting and mysterious as your own. For the adventures that have befallen me since you set sail for Sulu are wilder and rasher than anything you ever heard me tell you before.

You know very well (better than anyone, I think) my profound devotion to pirates and things piratical. And you know, too, about the pirate tales which I started a little while before you went away--very bloody, exciting, villainous, profane stories, were they not? I had such a great many ideas for pirate stories (and more and more ideas kept showing their faces), I finally decided that my pirates would make a much greater showing if I blended all the short tales I had written, and a great many more that I had in my mind, into one moderately long story. No sooner said than I started to work.

I found, in the course of the very first few pages, that I was getting involved in considerable difficulties. There had to be ships, that was certain; but I found that I knew almost nothing about ships. So I laid the story aside a little while, turned to Webster, and buried my face in the dictionary. I looked up every nautical term that I could think of, whether I knew it or not. I looked up nautical words found in books I had read. I studied the list of nautical words and their meanings at the end of _The Dauber_. Then the sails bothered me. I needed to know something about sails, and about different kinds of rigs, and about the fastenings of the sails and the names of them all. So I turned to the word _sail_, and--lo and behold! exactly what I wanted. Accompanying the word _sail_ were two pictures, one of the schooner or fore-and-aft rig, and the other of the beautiful square-rig, each sail numbered and named below. I fell to work with great zeal, and learned topsails, topgallants, royals, skysails, jibs, staysails, and all the rest of them; I can reel them off now like second nature.

♦ _Rudimentary Nautics_ ♦

Then I realized that I didn’t know much about rigging and ropes--the uses, the names of them. I found just what I wanted under the word _ship_. It was a picture of a ship in diagram, showing all the principal ropes, spars, and yards. There were close to two hundred figures in all, but I settled right down to business and learned just about everything: lifts, braces, clews, stays, backstays, sheets, ratlines, tops, caps--the whole works. I don’t know how many exciting hours I spent at my dictionary, digging into a perfect treasure-trove of nautical words. I never in my life before realized how many nautical terms there are. And I was getting very gay indeed. I was really learning something, and I was not slow to make use of my knowledge. I danced around the house, shouting out ship words and phrases which I had found in _Treasure Island_ and other books, but which now had a new meaning for me. The first result was that my pirate story gradually began to improve a great deal. The second result was far more important.

I found myself going about to various people to find out still more about ships. But I based most upon the dictionary; I was sure that was correct, at any rate. I found myself getting crazy and crazier about ships (whether pirate ships or not--though of course they were preferable) and about the sea. I found that _my own writing_ was getting me into a wild state. My own writing was making me want to sail. Now, if somebody else’s writing (the writing of somebody who had really sailed) had been making me crazy about it, I should not have been so surprised. But when I had never sailed, and knew nothing about ships except what I had learned from Webster’s Dictionary--that seemed strange indeed. Whether from one source or another, _something_ made me want to sail, and so badly that my blood fairly itched within me, and I went after the dictionary harder than ever, in case an opportunity should suddenly come up; for I wanted to be well prepared.

♦ _A Real Authority_ ♦

This was the second result (or, at least, the beginning of it), and I presume it was making me a bit hard to live with. One day Mother took me over to see old Mr. Rasmussen. Mr. Rasmussen is the chief carpenter of the house they are putting up behind ours, and, so Mother had discovered some time before, he had been a sailor all his life. I had told her very savagely that I had determined to sail. Even a schooner “would do,” thought I, though of course a square-rigged ship would do better. Mother tried at first to dissuade me. She told me that the only schooners in existence now, as far as she knew, were the fishing schooners that came into Boston, and they were so soaked with fish and fish oil that they were really quite unbearable. But I was not to be dissuaded so easily, though I did begin to wish that I had been alive in the days of the great old clipper ships, dashing across the Atlantic from England to America. I was furious with myself for living at a time when the beauty and stateliness and romance of sailing ships had dwindled down to a few stenching schooners in Boston Harbor.

* * * * *

Well, then, I went over to see Mr. Rasmussen. You would love talking with him, Alan. He is full of tales of his old sailing days, and rattles them off even while he is sawing lumber or driving nails. And as for knowledge, why, ships are second nature to him. The sea is in every line of his face, too. He has a mass of wrinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, from squinting in the sun and looking off into the dazzling sea. He is brawny, firmly muscled, and tattooed on the inside of his left forearm. He is delightfully disgusted with things on land. I remarked to him, as he was up on the scaffolding: “Well, that kind of rigging isn’t so much fun, is it?” He replied instantly: “No, too steady. Hasn’t got give enough.” (He said “gib.”) He has a quaint power of description, too. He tells about typhoons off the China coast--says “you would think a pack of demons was loose on the sea.” Mr. Rasmussen, by the way, has a forty-foot sloop of his own, and about every two weeks he goes off in it for the week-end, going over to Block Island to fish. He has promised me that I shall go with him on one of those trips sometime.

But, to go on with the story, Mother said to him: “I’ve got a daughter here who’s gone crazy about boats. We thought you ought to know about all the sailing ships there are, and we wondered if you knew where there is a schooner or square-rigger that is working now.”

Says he: “Why, yes, indeed. There’s a nice little schooner come in New Haven now; she come in right ahead of me last Monday. She come down with lumber from Nova Scotia. Pretty boat, too--all white. I think her name is _Norman D._”

“Do you think there’s any chance we could go aboard of her, mate?” I asked. (I liked to pretend that he had been a shipmate of mine.)

“Go aboard of her? Oh my, yes--they’d be tickled to death to have a chance to show somebody the boat. The crew are all home boys, and I guess they’re mighty lonely down here where they don’t know anyone.”

♦ _Topmasts against the Sky_ ♦

He gave us full instructions as to how to get to the schooner, and we resolved to go the next day. I stayed and had a little talk with the old sailor. He says: “I usually go out o’ port on Friday. Now, ’tain’t commonly supposed to be lucky to leave port on a Friday, but I don’t take no stock in superstition. I once sailed along of a captain that wouldn’t leave port on a Friday, even when there was good wind, good tide, good weather--everything just right.”

* * * * *

Mate, you can believe that I hardly slept a wink all that night. I was going down to see a real schooner. I was going aboard of her. I should see the crew, and be friendly with them. I should climb up in the rigging, if allowed. (That was a secret hope of mine, and I was almost more excited about that than anything.) I would show the family, and the crew, too, that if I got a chance to go up in those ratlines, I would go!

We must have made quite a sight, the whole Follett family going down the street under royals and skysails, headed straight for the schooner _Norman D._ It seemed an infinitely long way, but we saw the masts of her as soon as we got out of the trolley car, and I know I was like a bucking wild horse all the way down Brewery Street. When I saw those noble topmasts against the blue sky ahead of me, I wanted to run and get there; but Sabra was with us, and we couldn’t hurry. I ran a few steps, excitedly snapping my fingers; then I would buck and wait. So we proceeded down towards the old broken-down wharf. As we came nearer and nearer, though not yet near enough to see the white hull of her, the beautiful, stately topmasts and lower masts became clearer and clearer, and at last I could see the rope ladder--the shrouds and ratlines that I might be going up in. And, at the idea of climbing into those spider webs, I was so thrilled that I was almost dizzy, and knew hardly anything.

We came up and up alongside her, till we were right beneath her bulwarks, and saw over us her stately bowsprit, with the jibboom and flying jibboom. I was thrilled to realize that I had already begun to recognize things. I recognized that small vertical spar projecting downward from the jibboom which is called the “dolphin striker.” This was one of the many things I had learned from that diagram under the word _ship_.

They were busy discharging her cargo of lumber; the deck load was making good progress. There were three carts on the wharf alongside her, on to which they were loading it. The captain was sitting on the edge of the deckhouse superintending the work, which was going on very briskly. We hailed him: “May we come aboard?”

♦ _Initiation_ ♦

“Why, I gesso,” he replied. “What you want?”

“Oh, we’re just landlubbers who want to see your ship.”

“Well, come ahead,” he said.

So we scrambled over the lumber carts, the whole Follett family, still under full sail and laughing heartily. I was the first upon the bulwarks amidships, and I jumped down and landed with a thump upon the deck load. (Quite a long jump it seemed to me then, but before long I jumped from the bulwarks on to the empty deck without thinking anything of it.)

I spoke to the captain first of all, but very vaguely and dreamily, gazing about me--fascinated, enraptured, all the time. I looked at the long, huge booms, with the sails frapped closely round them; at the great, splendid masts; at the many ropes descending over blocks and made fast on belaying pins along the side of the boat; at the double and triple sheet-blocks; and, above all, at the ratlines and shrouds, into which I longed to go up. The next minute I had jumped upon the spanker boom and crawled along to the very end, hanging slightly over the water, where I supported myself by one of the wire lifts.

“Oh,” said the captain, “I see you’re a girl as likes to climb around.”

And that was true: for really I liked to climb around even better than I dared admit at first. I climbed many times upon the top of the deckhouse and on to the spanker boom, I walked stealthily and cautiously along the bulwarks, I talked a bit with two of the sailors who were waiting for one of the carts before they began loading again; I laid my hand longingly upon the shrouds. But, though I had plenty of courage, and a lot left over, to climb, I had not quite the courage to ask permission, since I felt sure that I should not be allowed. At last, after I had explored around a bit, after I had taken hold of the vast, hand-worn spokes of the wheel, after I had examined the compass in the binnacle--I went up to the captain and said: “I don’t suppose you would let me go up into the rigging, would you?”

“Sure!” he replied, “only stick to the ladder, see? Don’t go off the rope ladder--and hold on tight.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I answered. “I most likely shan’t get up very far.” And I ran to the starboard mizzen rigging.

♦ _From the Crosstrees_ ♦

There Mother accosted me: “Oh, don’t go up there! You scare me to death.” I overlooked her entirely, and laid my hand upon the shrouds. Upon the shrouds! I felt a little thrill go through my hand. Next minute I was over the taffrail. “You don’t dare, do you?” she continued. “Watch me and see,” I replied. Then I pulled up on to the ratlines. The emotions and sensations of that moment are indescribable. I was starting my career as a sailor. I was already in the rigging, and I hadn’t been on the ship for more than twenty minutes! And only yesterday, before that talk with my old sailor friend, it was a far-away dream, pretty nearly impossible to accomplish. Things had shaken about strangely. I was in the rigging! Up and up I went, hand over hand. I could have gone much faster without a quiver, but I was so taken by it that I went slowly. I felt the rigging sway beneath my weight. Fascinating! The shrouds were getting closer and closer together, and the ratlines, therefore, shorter and shorter. I was a few steps below the crosstrees, I never believed, never in this world, that I should be able to go more than halfway up. Yet up I went, and the ratlines were so very short that I could just wedge my feet between them. Next moment I had reached out an arm, put it over the crosstrees, braced my foot on the iron futtock shrouds, and pulled myself up. There I was, _sitting on the crosstrees_, one foot braced upon the futtock shrouds, the other foot dangling in mid-air, sixty-five feet above the deck.

The deck down there looked about six inches long, and the busy crew about the size of ants, yet very clear and sharp. I had never dreamed of being so close to the truck. There was the slender tip of the mizzen-mast hardly twenty feet above me. There I was, sitting on the crosstrees. I thought of many and curious things. It was here that Jim Hawkins had sat, in his terrified flight from Israel Hands. Here I was, and I could imagine an Israel, wounded, dirk in teeth, climbing after me. I stood up on the crosstrees, and, looking out to sea, I found that I could see very far and clearly. A few little harbor boats were cruising about. Yes, the deck was certainly not more than six inches long. But I found, to my intense delight, that I could look down upon it without a tremor. My head is built for height. I have a sailor heart, and a sailor head, thought I. Now, if only I were sure that I had a sailor stomach, everything would be perfect.

It is very alarming to get from the crosstrees on to the ratlines again. It is necessary to hang over space for a moment, until you can get your feet on the rigging. But it did not bother me. I lowered myself by the strength of my forearms, took the futtocks with my hands, and dropped my feet on to the ratlines. Then I came down, feeling, Alan, a good deal more like a real pirate than I had ever felt before.

The captain complimented me gravely, saying: “I couldn’t go up as far as that,” and telling me that I had a good head.

* * * * *

♦ _The Ancient Mariner_ ♦

That was about the end of the first day’s climbing. Right now I forget whether I went up again or not, but the first time was the most thrilling, anyway. I talked for a while with two of the sailors; then the captain took us about the ship, showing us the galley, the fo’c’sle, the engine-room, the after cabin. The latter is a very ample, seemingly luxurious place: two moderately large rooms, one used for dining room, which has a massive table hooked up to the wall to prevent its rolling about; the rest of it divided into five small compartments, each containing a bunk. Of these the captain, mate, bo’s’n, and cook had four, and the other was a spare bunk. In the fo’c’sle there are bunks for four, but there were only three men there, then. On asking one of the men if that wasn’t quite a small crew to handle the schooner, they answered very definitely in the negative.

The captain is a most delightful old fellow, a true sea captain. He will talk for hours at a time. I think he can say as many words in an hour as another man in a day. He told us about various experiences of his in his many schooners--storms, losing deck loads, and so on. He says:

“I’m not boasting, but, folks, I’ve never lost a ship in my life, and only one deck load. Now, that’s a good record for a man that’s been at sea forty year. An’ I’ll tell you, folks, how I lost that deck load. It was in that gale we had last October--on a Friday, I think ’twas--an’ part of the port taffrail got carried away--see there, folks, where you can see that new paint? Well, that’s the piece as got carried away, and I see we had to lose that load. So we give it a little start, and, I tell you, folks, it wasn’t very hard. All we had to do was give it a little start, and off it went. I had it all insured, folks, and I guess the boys would have been glad enough to have the whole lot go, hold and all! Ha! Ha! Ha!” (It was the same gale that carried down one of the oak trees in the woods near us.)

He evidently liked to boast about his early days at sea. One tale he told which particularly took my fancy: “When I was a greenhorn, I got the hang of a sailor’s job pretty quick. I was a smart lad at the helm. The cap’n was particklarly pleased with me. I was proud, I tell you, folks, one time when we was havin’ some rough weather. Another greenhorn that put out to sea with me went up aft to take his trick, but he couldn’t manage it at all--the waves come breaking over the ship, and the cap’n saw he didn’t know the ropes at all. Well, I’d jist had my two hours; I was all through and gone up forrard, but when the cap’n see this lad didn’t know nothing, he called me aft agin, and gave me the helm fer another trick. Well, I was proud, I tell you!”

♦ _Heard and Seen on Deck_ ♦

So he rattled on, tale after tale. He was telling us about the schooner he was in command of before the _Norman D._ “She was a sweet schooner, folks,” he said; “she would do anything but talk, and she tried hard enough to do that.”

For the matter of that, I have said little enough about the _Norman D._ herself. She is a 390-ton schooner. The captain said she used to be 425, but she was cut down, because on a schooner of more than 400 tons, there has to be a certified mate--a mate who has passed examinations and has a license or something of the kind to indicate that he is a competent officer. Nowadays there is so little sailing, and the terms of enlistment are so short, and the men are so unsteady, sailing a few months and then going off ashore somewhere, that they don’t get enough training to become certified mates. Therefore mates are very hard to get. So the schooner was cut down. (An ordinary man would have told all that in about three minutes and three quarters, but not so the captain. He told it inside and out, backwards and forwards, two or three times, and we never heard the last of that certified mate.) She has masts of about ninety feet; very fine trees they were once. Her booms are huge, especially the spanker, which is almost as large around as the part of the mast just below the crosstrees. Her jibboom is very long and straight, for she carries an outer jib--jib, flying jib, and outer jib. She is all painted white, with a narrow stripe of red about three feet below the bulwarks, and a little red painted ornament on the top of the cutwater. Her hull seemed to me to be of a beautiful shape--but it was beautiful enough to see a wooden hull at all, these days.

The captain explained to me a great many things about a sailing vessel, and I went home with a much clearer idea of things. He told me all the names of the sails, showed me the gaffs, which I had never quite understood, and told me which sails were usually taken in first in a wind, and which were first hoisted. Like Jim Hawkins when he found Long John Silver, I began to realize that _here_ was a _shipmate_! If I could live with Captain Avery for a while, I did not doubt but that I should really know something.

* * * * *

♦ _Sunday Obstacles_ ♦

There could be only three or four different results to all this. So far, the result was that we invited the captain out to dinner the next Sunday, and arranged to have the Bryans come over “to meet a real old sea captain.” Accordingly, Sunday morning about half-past ten (five bells), I set out alone for the schooner. Again I had the pleasure of seeing her proud and noble topmasts against the sky, but this time I could go tearing at full speed down Brewery Street. Yet I was not so hasty but that I stopped to think a minute. It was Sunday. Very likely the crew would be ashore: suppose there were no one aboard the schooner--no one to let me aboard? Then I should have to go prowling about alone, without permission, sneaking down into the cabin to search out the captain, and I might be suddenly challenged and questioned by one of the sailors. Also it would look rather curious, to anyone ashore, to see me going over the ship’s side without permission. I might be in some embarrassing situations before the end of the morning! I confess that I was a little worried, and I stopped tearing along, and walked quietly and decently down the street.

The gate to the wharf was closed, and at that time I didn’t know about a certain little side gate, always possible to open by hand. Here was my first barrier. I determined, however, to get to the ship anyway; and I pulled lightly over the fence and dropped down upon a heap of coal. Then I started around it. But I was looking down, walking rather fast, and before I saw what I was doing I had brought up short against the bow hawser of the schooner. I was a bit stunned, for the rope was heavy and very taut. I ducked under it and found my way to the side of the schooner.

At first it looked as though the worst of my suspicions were too true. There was not a sign of a soul upon the decks. The whole ship was as still as night. I didn’t even hear any voices from the cabin or fo’c’sle. But I determined to stick it out until I knew. The silence was positively terrifying. I could only judge that the captain had gone off to Boston (as he had warned us he might), and that all the rest of the crew were ashore. Yet, I thought, someone ought to be aboard; the ship wouldn’t be likely to be left all alone. With this in my mind, I raised a small hail--“Yoo-hoo!”--and, to my delight, someone appeared in the door of the fo’c’sle. Two or three others were behind him, looking curious and rather startled.

I put a very bold and saucy face upon the matter. “Look here,” said I, “I’m the kid who was here a couple o’ days ago, and the captain was coming out to lunch with us today, so I came down to get him. Is he aboard?”

There were many answers to this question. “The captain’s ashore.” “I think he’s gone to Boston.” “No, no,” from the cook, “the captain’s aft. He ain’t gone to Boston.”

I thought I had better cover up the toploftiness with which I had started, and I was very pleasant and friendly for a bit. Then I said: “May I go aft and find the captain?” “Yes, indeed,” they returned. Meanwhile I had slipped rather sure-footedly from the edge of the wharf to the top of the bulwarks, and leaped down upon the deck. (By this time the deck load of lumber was gone.) I found my way down into the cabin.

♦ _Forty Winks_ ♦

Then came the most exciting thing of all, my hunt for Captain Avery. He was not in the dining room or in the other part of the after cabin, where there were a desk and a barometer, a couch and a few chairs. Then I began ransacking the various sleeping compartments--for I did not remember which the captain had said was his. I found him in the second, lying down, fast asleep, his white hair falling over his face, his cheeks rosy, and part of his Sunday clothes on. I waited ten full minutes, I am sure, to see if he wouldn’t wake up of his own accord; for if there is anything I detest, it is waking up sleeping persons. At last I said very softly: “Captain Avery!” No answer. Then I tapped gently on the open door, and said again: “Captain Avery!” He woke as though eight bells had struck, or as though the bo’s’n had suddenly called “All hands on deck!” And, believe me, there was no yawning or coughing or blinking or rubbing. He was wide awake in a flash--which shows what a sailor he is. He recognized me immediately with a smile. “Well, I guess I dozed off all right. I took it into my head to read, ’n’ so I got out my Bible and read a chapter or two. ’N’ then I began to feel sleepy, ’n’ I jist dozed off.” Then he was up and putting the finishing touches to his Sunday dress. I was rather sorry, though, to see the old fellow dressed up. It didn’t look right to see him in a stiff collar and a clean white shirt.

He fell to talking immediately, about this and that and the other and why he didn’t go to Boston and what the crew was doing and what they wanted to do and what they usually did on Sunday and how they went cruising around and how soon he thought the cargo would be discharged and how long he thought the schooner would be in port--everything all in a jumble, with no commas, just as I have written it. Then he told about his home town, Moncton, Nova Scotia, and the various railway routes and harbors. Also he began to tell what he had done in New Haven, and what a pretty town it was, and how glad he was to have a chance to see more of it, and was I sure about the trolley car routes? and did I have plenty of car-fare? and how far out did we live? and what building was this, and that, and the other? and so on, and so forth, and so following. Then he fell to about ships and schooners; and that I was really glad of, and began to pay more attention. And he began yarning about storms and gales, and furling the sails hastily, and coming through dangerous shoals and shallows under bare poles, until I thought that I had never met such an interesting old codger.

♦ _Monological_ ♦

By this time we were in the Whitney Avenue trolley car. The captain was much impressed by the stately elms. They led to a general discussion of all the various trees in all the various parts of the world, especially Nova Scotia. But really the business part of the town was the most interesting to him, and, as I said, he kept asking me about this building and that one till I thought I had never had such a drill on my own home town. All the way up Armory Street he ran on, in a monotone which it often became difficult for me to understand. When we got home I dumped him into a rocking-chair, feeling quite stunned with all the talk I had heard. I was willing to have the air more silent around me, and so I was rather glad when he picked up a newspaper and began to scan it. I never heard anyone so entertaining when reading to himself. He would read the headlines aloud, then the articles to himself, making audible or inaudible comments now and then. And after he had finished he would say: “Hm! And a hard enough time they’ll have of it, too!” or the like incomprehensible ejaculation.

All day Sunday he talked in the same way, pouring forth streams of conversation concerning everything under the sun. Of course I liked his ship talk the best, but, since that was second nature to him, he seemed to prefer talking of other things. Late in the afternoon we all went down to take him back to the schooner, and to show her to the Bryans.

* * * * *

I have never managed to go down there without having thrills run through and through me at the sight of the _Norman D._--her long and graceful jibboom, the sharpness of her white cutwater, her mazes of rigging, ratlines, blocks; even the very idea of her--of a schooner, a real schooner, a large vessel under sails--thrilled me. The bo’s’n brought a ladder when he saw the captain coming, and aboard we all went. By this time I had got to feel very much at home on the ship. I wanted to feel at home on her; I loved to, because I felt more than ever like a sailor. I grew, of course, steadily more daring, and now I walked right along the bulwarks without a quiver. The first thing I did when I got aboard was to scramble up the rigging again. Oh, how I loved that rigging! How I loved to grip the shrouds tight, to feel myself going up hand over hand over hand! How I loved the quivering, the shaking, which my weight gave to it! And how I was thrilled, how I was always thrilled, to find myself sitting on the crosstrees!

♦ _A New Acquaintance_ ♦

One thing, however, I had not hitherto dared to venture upon--the topsail ratlines. Just above the crosstrees are five or six more frail rope steps, not nearly so steady and strong as the main part of the rigging. These steps are used when the sailors are aloft working at the topsails. Somehow they looked too frail and shaky for me. I didn’t quite dare begin climbing _them_, especially when I was starting more than sixty feet above the deck. But I stood out on the crosstrees, and I put my hand to my forehead, and I looked out to sea--feeling a good deal like the lookout man on the fo’c’sle deck.

By this time they had entirely moved the deck load and were working on the hold (though, of course, not on that day), and so the boom of the mainsail had been belayed to the port side of the schooner, to make room for hoisting out the cargo. Now it was loose, and I had a lot of fun pushing it back and forth. Then I scrambled up on to it--and quite a job that was, too--and Daddy pushed it back and forth, until it swung almost out over the water, bringing up hard on the sheet. Afterwards I learned to get up on the boom in one pull of my arms, by means of the downhaul, but of course the sails weren’t hoisted then.

That evening we became acquainted with the mate. He is a very nice fellow. Evidently he had been ashore, for he had on his shore togs. We went up forward on the fo’c’sle deck and had a long talk with him. I happened to hint something about the jibboom. I longed to go out on it, but I didn’t quite dare to. I hadn’t quite got my sailor-familiarity-with-the-ropes on yet. But the mate immediately started to go out on the bowsprit. “See,” said he, “this is a nice, easy little walk out here”--as he went along a shelf of the bowsprit no more than three inches wide, holding on by a wire rope. “See, you just be careful to hold on to this rope--you must be careful to not grab anything that’ll let you down.” Then he reached the jibboom, and stepped down on to the footropes. “But these footropes are a good long stretch for a youngster,” said he. “I tell you, this is a nasty place in bad weather; it certainly is. Imagine how it would be with waves running high, and washing up over you when you are out on there!” Then he told us how once he had managed to fall off the jibboom when a high sea was running, but, happily, had caught by his armpits among the bowsprit rigging and climbed up on again. I surely believed him: I had never known anything, even the topsail ratlines, look more insecure than those footropes. They jerked back and forth, and at every step they sagged ’way down. But I determined to be sailorly, and, though I didn’t go out that evening, I secretly resolved that some day I should surprise everyone by going out on those frail, jogging footropes, where, if I should fall off, I should probably stick fast in nice, oozy harbor mud.

* * * * *

♦ _Wanting the Moon_ ♦

How that schooner haunted me! I was like a caged lion all day, and at night I dreamed that I was sailing off, back to Nova Scotia, with her. The days were drawing on. She would be going in about two weeks. I should see her no more. Perhaps I should _never_ see her again, for Captain Avery has no regular schedule, and he goes into New Haven very rarely. Yes, perhaps I should never see her again. And there would end my brilliantly begun sailor career. Again I should have to resort to the stenching fishing schooners around Boston. The best I could possibly hope for, thought I, would be to go out on the tug which would tow her out of the harbor. Then I could at least see her hoist her sails and sail and roll away. How lonely I should be! I was afraid of the thought. In my imagination I could see her casting her towrope, her sails filling with a fresh breeze, already her cutwater making wings of foam reach out along her sides. I should see her dwindle to a snow-sailed fairy ship in the distance; then she would be a microscopic speck on the horizon. Oh, but that was to die by inches, thought I. I think I could never have borne it.

“Oh! don’t you wish we could go with her when she sails?” said I to Daddy, who was fascinated by her, as I was.

“Why yes, of course I do,” said he. “But we can’t--so there’s no use in talking about it.”

No, there was certainly no use in talking about it. The impossible cannot be accomplished. But the schooner continued to haunt me.

And so Mother and I escaped from the house and went down to see the schooner again. This proved to be one of the most thrilling visits of all. When we got aboard, the mate was sitting on top of the deckhouse piecing the great outer jib. That sail had been ripped in a gale, and they had taken it off the jibboom to mend it. The mate had a huge rope-needle, and he wore a regular sailmaker’s thimble, which is a small metal disk set in a leather strap worn around the wrist. He was putting in a strip of new canvas, which looked very clean and white in contrast to the other. We had a little talk; then I played about the ship as usual, climbing along her bulwarks--in fact, literally skipping and running along her bulwarks, to Mother’s terror. Then, after I had climbed up to the crosstrees two or three times, always looking rather longingly at the topsail ratlines, Captain Avery asked us if we would like to eat supper with him, aft, at four bells (six o’clock). Mother called me down from some high perch and asked me. Would I eat a meal on a real ship? Would I indeed!

♦ _Nautical Fare_ ♦

So down we went, into the room where the massive table was hooked up to the wall. Before that I had become well acquainted with the cook, a delightful old man who told us he was up in the seventies somewhere. (You may believe it or not, but his name was Oscar Follett.) He was, or at least had been, the best sailor aboard; he had served in real square-riggers, and knew a great deal about them. I called him “matey,” and we had a grand time together. Once I had asked him if he wouldn’t like me to go with him back to Nova Scotia. I told him I would wash dishes for him. He replied: “Yes, you could help me a lot.” For the matter of that, I had even asked the captain--in joke, of course--if _he_ wouldn’t like me to sail back with him, and I had told him too that I was willing to wash dishes to earn my passage. Said he: “You wouldn’t have to wash dishes to go with me!” The cook is very amusing. Right off, then, I had a feeling--a doubtful, vague feeling--that all was not quite right between the cook and the skipper. For the cook, seeing company arrive, was in the process of changing the tablecloth, which was rather begrimed. The captain said: “Oh, don’t bother about that, steward--that’s all right.” Then said the cook very violently: “’Tain’t neither! ’s dirty!” And he yanked it off with one good snatch.

Down we sat, the three of us, to a delightful meal of cold fat ham, boiled potatoes mixed up with corned beef and a kind of greasy gravy, very tough ship’s bread, canned pears, and very strong black tea. It was coarse grub--there is no denying it--yet, in the excitement of the moment, it seemed to make everything more romantic and adventurous. I tackled the bread with the determination of one possessed; I hardly heard the cook spinning us a yarn. This is something to the effect of the way he talked:

“The only disadvantage of your comin’ along of us when we sail is ’at ye’re powerful likely to be seasick. ‘Most everyone is seasick for a few days. Me, when I first went to sea, I was seasick ten days, and I lay there in me bunk, and ate nuthin’ at all--nuthin’ ’cepting a little cold water, an’ I’d chuck that right up again. Now, the cap’n I was sailin’ with, he was always nice to me, ’n’ he didn’t see me for ten days, so after a while he come forrard and asked me what was the matter. ‘What’s the matter with you, Si?’ says he. ‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘I’m seasick. I’ve been here ten days.’ ‘Have you eaten anything, Si?’ says he. ‘No, sir,’ says I. ‘Well, but, Si, you must eat something, or you’ll die. You must eat something, Si. Now come, get out of your bunk, and walk around a bit.’ So I got out of my bunk, and I was so weak that he had to put his arm around me, or I should have fallen over. ‘Now, Si, ain’t there anything you’d like to eat?’ ‘No, sir, nothing,’ says I. ‘But, Si, you must eat something, or you’ll die.’ ‘No, sir, I can’t eat anything.’ ‘Now, Si, you jist take it easy, and think if there ain’t something I can get you to eat.’ ‘No, sir, there ain’t nuthing.’ ‘Now, Si, you jist think a minute, and see if there ain’t anything.’ ‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘I believe I’d like a little strong cold tea, without any sweetening in it.’ So he got up and went and fetched me my quart mug full of tea, and I drank the last drop of it, and it stayed down, too. ’N’ I was niver seasick again after that.”

♦ _Strained Relations_ ♦

(I managed to hear that three times before seeing the last of the steward, and each time it was longer and more complicated, with more details.) All the time, the little old man was leaning up against a projecting panel of the wall, with his arms crossed, glaring and glowering and staring and scowling at the captain. He would arch up his bald forehead, making the high wrinkles show, and his eyes would look most keen and piercing--his old blue eyes--beneath his high forehead. I never saw such expressions of hatred in my life; and I confess that I was amused very much indeed. And when Captain Avery looked at the steward to ask him for something, he, too, looked frowningly and hatefully. But the cook was fond of me, partly because I listened to his talk with a long ear, and partly because I had helped him, to my own delight, setting the table and getting the supper ready.

* * * * *

We were through before very long, and the mate and bo’s’n came down to take our places at the table. The most exciting part of the evening was still to come; it was indeed. No sooner was I out on deck than I scurried again up into the rigging. I never got so used to climbing the rigging that I could treat it as a commonplace matter. It was always thrilling to me, and I felt myself growing more and more a sailor. By this time the whole crew knew that I liked to climb around and that I was daring about it, and usually I could see one or two, especially the old cook, looking out of the galley or the fo’c’sle, grinning up at me. I was no longer in their world: I was at the level of the sea gulls.

But on this trip up to the crosstrees I had a new idea in my head--those quivery, frail topsail ratlines. They tempted me hugely. I felt that my climbing in the rigging was very imperfect until I could say that I had been on the topmost of those additional rope steps. This time, when I reached the crosstrees, I didn’t pause at all. I was afraid my idea might not work. I gripped for those shrouds right off, and I went right up those shaky ropes. They were hard to climb, too, because I didn’t quite dare do them from the outside, where, of course, they would have been a great deal easier. Instead, I went up from the inside of the rigging, so that I was climbing at a very awkward angle. But I went on up, until I stood, quivering and shaking, on the topmost rope. I felt as if I were adding more and more steps to my brilliant sailor record. So I was quite proud and delighted when I came down from the ratlines. I went and talked a moment to the cook, who had been sitting on the starboard bulwarks amidships, watching. He immediately said to me: “Why didn’t you go right on up to the truck?” “I see no footropes,” said I. “Well,” said he, “you might have shinned right up.” “Oh, I imagine I’ll come to that in time,” I answered.

♦ _Invasion of a New Province_ ♦

But now I had an even more exciting idea in my mind. I went back to the mate and told him I was going out on the bowsprit. “I’m going out as far as I can,” I said. “I don’t know whether I’ll get any farther than the jibboom, but I’ll get out to those footropes anyway.”

“Well,” said he, “just be careful to hold on to that wire rope, and you’ll be all right.”

So I started. I crawled, step by step, out along that three-inch shelf on the side of the bowsprit, holding fast to the indicated rope. Once the furled jib, which was loosely a-swing amid its tackle, lumbered outwards toward me and nearly pushed me off the bowsprit; but, happily, I ducked under it and went on. As I walked along that shelf, I felt that I could not possibly keep on climbing out so successfully; it was incredible that I should be able to walk so far without any mishap. Yet I reached the frail footropes of the jibboom in safety. Cautiously I stepped down upon them, and they sagged deeply beneath me. From knot to knot I edged, bracing my feet upon the cross-ropes. Without them I could never have made my way out, because the jibboom was tipped uphill so steeply. And at each step I felt new surprises. Why didn’t something happen to stop me? Why didn’t I go suddenly hurtling down into the sea so far below? Was I actually going to be allowed to reach the very end? After a little breathless manœuvring, I did reach it--the very white painted tip of the jibboom, which is one of the most romantic inches of wood in the world. Holding on to the forestay, I stood up and smiled a smile of triumph.

Then I had one of the strangest surprises of my life. It was time for the factory workers to be getting out, and, when I stood up and looked over to the road, there was an audience of at least fifty people, of all ages and sexes, leaning over the bridge and looking at me. Some of them waved and grinned. How like a sailor I felt! Then, cautiously, but not quite so slowly, I edged down the jibboom again, always being careful to brace my feet on the footrope knots so that I shouldn’t slip. When I got back I will not deny that I skipped, danced, ran, flew, all the way down the bulwarks until I reached the taffrail, where I leaped down.

♦ _Breaking in a Green Hand_ ♦

Gradually my reputation was increasing. I was climbing rung after rung of the ladder of sailor fame. I was so gay that I skipped about among mate, cook, and captain, asking the names of ropes and things. I learned quite a lot that evening. But I had more delights coming to me: I still had great duties to perform about the deck. The mate was running about, getting everything ready for the night. The main gaff was hoisted, having been used to swing the main cargo up from the hold and over the side of the ship, where the men working in the lumber trucks had unfastened it. So the gaff had to be lowered. That was where the main part of my work came in. I held the peak halyards; the mate, on the other side of the ship, held something else--I could not see what, but in all probability the throat halyards. The mate came over and said to me: “You want to be a sailor man? See, now, hold this rope, and let it out very slowly.” So I took the rope, and I let it out slowly, hand over hand. Slowly the gaff came down, and I felt an enormous weight pulling at the rope, so that sometimes it pulled itself more quickly than I wished through my hands, burning them. Once it almost got free from me, and I saw it whizzing along. I heard a cry from the mate, and with a little strength I managed to stop it. There was a small bang and the gaff came to rest.

Then a rope had to be uncoiled from the mainsail boom, which the mate wanted to use to make the gaff fast. We uncoiled it together, one on each side of the boom, and pulling the rope across hand over hand--I pulling, the mate loosening the coils. Several times I got the rope’s end in my face with a smart little _smack!_ but that was sailorly, and I minded it no more than the dirt.