JIM AND BOB

Bob McCartney was spreading cod on the flakes and I was watching him and estimating the chances of better weather. The sun had not succeeded in rolling back the fog and St. John's was still half asleep in blankets of mist. Signal Hill was altogether hidden and the harbor entrance could not be seen. In the water-soaked atmosphere the flakes were merged together and the tiny houses of the fishers were almost joined into one long rambling house. The air was heavy with the smell of fish and the morning was not conducive to enthusiastic conversation.

Bob McCartney was a Newfoundlander born and bred and had left with his ancestors in Ireland the gift of blarney. This morning in particular he contented himself with monosyllabic answers, that occasionally did not come even to the estate words, but ended only in an effective grunt. Finally he condescended to speak a whole sentence with some little life in his voice.

"Yes, I guess she's agoin' to lift, fer there goes Harbor Jim."

I strained my eyes to see thru the fog and could just discern a sail boat headed toward what I supposed was the harbor entrance.

"And who is Harbor Jim?" I asked.

"Why, he's my friend and he can knock spalls off'n any Lander in the Dominion," replied Bob and then lapsed into silence as he went on slowly laying out his cod on the flakes.

Just then the sun made a gain and succeeded in piercing thru the fog and I saw, suddenly, a little boat some seventy-five yards out from the shore, and standing out near the bow stood a man as erect as the mast behind him, and looking straight out to sea.

"There's Harbor Jim!" and Bob pointed over his shoulder in the direction of the boat as he spoke the words.

It gave me a thrill, as the light brought him sharply to my attention, to see him standing there, intently looking toward the harbor entrance. I looked from the shore even as he looked from his boat and the sun at that moment uncovered the rocks on both sides. He lifted his hand and the helper behind him brought the sail to the faint breeze that was springing up, and the boat headed for the harbor entrance and the open sea.

The sun seemed to lift Bob's spirit and the sight of Harbor Jim to warm the cockles of his heart, for he began in a good-natured drawl to tell me of the finding of his friend.

"It was the third week in March, eleven years ago, come next spring, that we were sealing down North. Harbor Jim and I were then on Cap'en Boynton's ship. I didn't know Jim then more'n any other fellow. It was an odd kind of a trip. For days it hung nasty and we couldn't have seen a seal if he had been within shot of us.

"Then, one day, I think it was a Friday, but that doesn't matter, it come bright and sparkling and grew cold. By noon our ship was frozen in the ice, and we were waiting and hoping the look-out would see seals. The ice had been piled up in some places and just south it looked like a town, a little village with houses and meeting house and school, all a sparklin' pretty. I never seed bluer sky, deep as chicory flowers and you could see fer miles, seems though you was a-goin' to see thru it almost to 'tother side o' the world.

"Long about two o'clock the look-out yelled: 'Seals to the nor-east!'

"No sooner did he yell than the Cap'en shouted: 'Look alive men! Over and after!'

"Then with gaffs and guns and ropes we went over the ship's side and after the seals. The ice was uncertain and some of the men went thru the crust into the sea, but we quickly pulled them out and were off agin.

"Now in the days before we had decided to make a contest of it, as we often did. It made good sport and we would get more seals. Harbor Jim and I had chosen up, like they do in a spellin' bee, and all the men had been divided into two sides to see which one on'em would bring the biggest load o' seals back to the ship.

"Unfortunately the seals were some distance from the ship and it was after two when we started. We were so intent on getting the catch that we failed to note it was not only beginning to snow, but also getting on toward the end o' the day.

"At the moment when we should have turned back, I saw an old hood, that's an old seal that pulls a visor over his eyes and fights to a finish. I'd been tender-hearted and passed by just then a young seal that looked kinder pitiful at me and begged for life and I resolved that I'd get the old hood, come what would. He lured me away from the crowd, and when I finally succeeded in silencing him, the men were gone, and thru the snow I could not see the ship.

"Worse luck still the ice-pan on which I stood was beginning to shake and break up. I thought of the woman at home and the boy, and I thought of freezing to death out to sea and I guess, too, I thought o' my sins. The other fellows had gone back to the ship and I was alone, facing the cold, the storm and the night. Then I began to shout in the hope that they were not too far away to hear me. After some waiting, that seemed longer than probably 'twas, I heared two words and I don't honest think, if I gets to Paradise and the good Lord says, 'Come, Bob, there's room,' it'll sound half so good as it did to me then when I heared ringing out:

"'Comin', Bob!' It was the shout of Harbor Jim. I kept hollering and he found me and together we made our way back. I don't know jes' how and I don't believe he does, but when we reached the rest, we joined hands and felt our way back to the ship.

"I have asked him about it, many a time, but he always says, 'He showed me the way, Bob, and He'll show you the way. Ask Him, Bob.'

"He went after me when all the rest said he was a fool and a riskin' of his life. That's how I found my friend and I don't believe Jonathan ever loved David more'n I love Jim. He never goes scow-ways; he always sails straight. But you mustn't think I am the only one that loves him. Jerusalem spriggins, I do believe the whole world would love Jim, if they only could know him."

The lethargy that had been born out of the morning had completely disappeared. Bob had become all animation as he told of the finding of his friend. If I had not known that Bob was a man who never showed his feelings, except in most orderly and measured fashion, I should have thought, once or twice, that the tears were starting, but it must have been the dampness of the morning, that the sun was now fast drying up.

The city of St. John's now stood out clear in the sunshine. Harbor Jim's boat had gone thru the narrow entrance and disappeared out to sea. Both sides of the bay stood out sharp, revealing a harbor that from many viewpoints is as beautiful as that of Naples.

Bob carefully laid out his last fish and left it to dry on the flakes. Rubbing his sleeve across his face, he abruptly turned and said:

"I needs a plug of terbaccy. Walk down town and I'll tell you how Jim got his name."

I did not need a second invitation and we started toward town.

"You see it was this-away. His mother gave him the Jim, but his friends and neighbors give him the Harbor.

"Jim was always one to take chances, 'specially if some one needed him. Didn't he take a chance—a big one—when he saved me on the ice-pan? But somehow he always pulled thru. Other boats would lie outside and wait but Jim would pull thru the Narrows and tie up and be home afore the others. The others dasn't come into the Harbor, a fear o' the rocks.

"Folks come to say, 'Jim always makes the Harbor.' Then jes' naturally they come to call him Harbor Jim. It's so now that the women folks are always glad if their men can go with Jim, for they feel that then they'll sure come back. Everybody who lives yere loves Harbor Jim."

"I would like to meet Harbor Jim and have a talk with him," I said, when Bob ceased talking and trudged on in silence. "I am sure he has a philosophy worth hearing about and adopting."

"You can meet him all right," replied Bob, "but as for talkin' much with him, I don't know. He isn't very strong on talkin'. He says some folks talk so much, they set their tongue to goin' and go off and leave it runnin' and it does a heap a mischief. Another time he sed to me that he thought most folks would do more if they talked less.

"I remember a year ago a white-washed Yankee was here travelling for some soap concern. He heared about Harbor Jim and wanted me to take him over to his house and introduce him and I did. That Yankee started right in doing all the talkin'. He had a tongue that was balanced and would wag easy. He told Jim he was making a mistake in not having a bigger garden, that he ought to farm more and fish less. He told him what the Dominion needed and when at last he began to get out of breath he turned to Jim and said:

"'What do you think?'

"And Harbor Jim just said kind of slow like and deliberate:

"'Guess you have said it all, sir, but mebbe when everybody goes to farming they will need a little fish to change off from potatoes and cabbage, and I guess I better bid you good day and go fishing.' That was every word Jim said and that Yankee watched him go out of sight and what that Yankee said then want a credit to him nor favorable to the Dominion."

I smiled at the thought of the discomforted travelling man and wondered if my own luck or my own tact would succeed any better, for I was already convinced that Harbor Jim was a man worth knowing.

"Suppose we go and meet Mrs. Harbor Jim," I said to Bob when the tobacco had been purchased and his pipe was doing right.

"If you say so, but meetin' her ain't the same as meetin' him. She's all right, but she's jes' learning from Jim, she says so herself," answered Bob.

Their home was in a little town a few miles out from St. John's and it was kind of Bob to go out with me. After a walk of about an hour we stood looking down upon a little fishing village with great, brown-stained rocks protecting it a little from the sea.

"This is his town," said Bob, "can you find his house?"

But they looked alike to me; for all were small rectangular affairs, flat-roofed, shingled and painted white. Jim's house was evidently no different from his neighbor's.

"I guess I'll have to tell you," Bob chuckled, as we went down a lane and saw two rather dirty children at play in front of a house where a woman was bending over a tub of clothes.

"Hello, Bob, did Jim go out?" the woman called, as soon as she recognized Bob.

"Yes, he went out a couple of hours ago. Here's a man who wants to meet Mrs. Harbor Jim."

She wiped her hands on her wet apron, pushed the hair back from the baby's face as she passed her and beckoned us to follow her into the house. Extending her hand she said:

"I think, sir, you want to see my husband, but he's a fishin' and may not be back afore tomorrow. Can I do anything for you, sir? There's some brewse,[1] on the back of the stove, if you care to eat. I am wondering what you can be awantin' this time of a working morning? Is it that some one has fell sick and wants Jim to watch or pray?"

"We were a bit tired with walking and thought we would like to rest and see you and the children in passing," I said none to easily, for the little woman was searching us hard to find the reason of our visit.

Bob came to our rescue by starting a conversation about the promise of prices for fish and what Bill Coaker was doing for the Fishermen's Protective Union. Relieved by the shift in the conversation I looked about the room. It was positively no different from other fishermen's homes that I had visited; no better furniture, no more of it; the house was no cleaner; and the woman, who was Jim's wife, was on a par with other women of the neighborhood; only she seemed a little brighter and a certain light was in her eyes when she spoke of Jim. There was just one object that attracted my attention, a spruce tree in one corner, and I asked the purpose of it.

She replied: "Jim keeps a tree in that corner. He says it keeps him remembering how beautiful the world is. He says it connects us with out o' doors and Jim loves the open country just as he does the sea."

Then after a pause she added: "But you must come again when Jim is home. I want you to know him. I wish every one could know Jim; he is so good, so true, so kind!"

That was all I could find out about Harbor Jim that day, but I did not forget that tribute to her husband, spoken simply, out of her heart, and it made me feel as I went back to the city with Bob, that perhaps I had under-estimated her ability and worth. It was more than a week afterward that in unexpected fashion and without introduction, I met Jim, But there was not a day of that week that I did not think of the little woman in faded blue, her flaxen hair falling over her face in confusion, because of wind and work, as I had seen her that morning over the white-picketed fence of Jim's house. I knew that I should not leave St. John's until I had seen Harbor Jim and his wife again.