We were high line of the seining fleet when we got home from the Southern cruise and we felt pretty proud of ourselves. It was something to stand on the corner on one of the days when the Johnnie was fitting out again, and have other fellows come up to you and say, “What’s that they say you fellows shared on the Southern trip?” And when we’d tell them, and we trying not to throw out our chests too much, it was fine to hear them say, “That so? Lord, but that’s great. Well, if Maurice only holds out he’ll make a great season of it, won’t he?” “Oh, he’ll hold out,” we’d say, and lead the way down to the Anchorage or some other place for a drink or a cigar, for of course, with the money we’d made, we naturally felt like spending some of it on those who were not doing so well. And of course, too, no seiner could ever resist anybody who talks to him in a nice friendly way like that. The skipper’s doings ashore interested all of his crew, of course, although me, perhaps, more than “I like him,” she said to me more than a dozen times. “I do like him, but I never imagined that a man who does so well at sea could shrink into himself as he does. Why, you almost have to haul him out by the ears ashore. If it weren’t for me I really believe––” and she stopped. But I thought I understood what she meant. “Meaning your chum, Alice Foster?” I said. “Yes, meaning my chum, Alice Foster. Why?” “Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think she’s a kind of a frost.” “No, she isn’t a frost, and don’t you come around here again and tell me so.” Nor did I, for I would not have an argument with Nell for all the Alice Fosters in the world, for if Nell were anybody else but my first cousin, I think I would have fallen in love with her myself. And then we put out to sea and again we were living the life of seiners, having it hard and easy in streaks. There were the times when we went along for a week and did not do a tap but eat, sleep, stand a trick at the wheel, a watch to the mast-head, and skylark around the deck, and read, or have a quiet game of draw or whist or seven-up below. But again there were times when we were We stood to it that week, you may be sure, until coming on the fifth day some of us fell asleep over the keelers as the Johnnie was coming into T Wharf. I remember that I could just barely see in a kind of a hazy way the row of people along the After ten or twelve hours of it we tried to wake him, but not a budge. We tried again, but no use. At last he came to and without any help at all. Sitting up, he asked where we were, and being told, he said nothing for a moment or so, and then suddenly––“That so? How long was I asleep?” We told him––seventeen hours. “Good Lord!” he groaned, and after a mug-up scooted for the mast-head like a factory hand with the seven o’clock whistle blowing. “He’s a fisherman, the skipper,” said the gang as they watched him climb the rigging. And he was a fisherman. All that summer he drove things with but little time for us ashore. Twice he put into Gloucester with a day to ourselves and another time we had a chance to run down after we had put into Boston for market, and that we suspected was because the skipper found he could not keep away himself any longer. “It’ll be all right,” said Clancy, “if only Minnie Arkell stands clear. I’m glad she’s away for the summer, but she’ll turn up in the fall. You’ll see her just before the race large as life, and some of her swell-dressed friends, and a yacht, I’ll bet.” Considering how deeply the skipper was interested in Miss Foster, some of us thought he ought to be putting in a little time ashore between trips. After a run into the Boston fresh fish market, say, we would have liked mighty well to take in the theatre, or a trip to the beach, or some other little entertainment of a night. But no, it was in and out––drive, drive, drive. He was all ambition, the skipper. He was going to be up front or break something. Miss Foster was one of the ambitious kind, too. If she was going to have a fisherman, he would have to be a killer or she would know why. And so I suppose that had a lot to do with the way the skipper drove things. We had our loafing spells, as I say, but mostly it was plenty of work. That time when we stayed We had good luck generally. We lost neither men nor gear to amount to anything that summer. That seine we lost trying for our first school to the s’uth’ard in the spring was the only bit of misfortune that came, and we had long ago made up for that. But others were not so lucky. There was the loss of the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley’s vessel. I think I have said that she was a fast vessel. She was fast––fast, but of the cranky type. We were jogging along a little to windward of her one fine afternoon––it had been a fine September day and now it was coming on to evening. To the westward of Cape Sable, in the Bay of Fundy, it was, and no hint of a blow up to within a few minutes of the time when the squall struck the Ruth. I suppose it would have been more prudent on Pitt’s part if he had had less sail on, but like most of the skippers in the fleet I guess he was not looking for any record for prudence. Any minute he might have to be up and driving her, and keeping sail on was the quickest way to have it when you needed it in a hurry. The squall hit her––it hit us, too, but Most of her crew were below at the time, some in their bunks. Four or five of those below never reached the deck at all––the water rushing down the companionways cut them off. Some rushed aft where the stern was high out of water and some piled into the rigging. Some were calling out and giving advice to others. We could hear them plainly. Two jumped to the wheel and threw it up, but she would not right. We had the Johnnie to keep right side up, but we saw the whole thing. It could not have been more than two or three minutes from the time the squall struck her when she was going down head-first. Those of her crew who had gone to the stern were going with her, but those who had taken to the rigging, by leaping wide came clear. Their seine-boat, which had been towing astern, might have been of use to them, but being fast to the vessel by the painter it was pretty well filled with water before anybody had a chance to cut the painter. Nine of them were lost, her skipper among them. One of the men saved––the cook––said that when the squall struck the vessel, Captain Ripley had been seen to jump for the boom tackle, which he unhitched, and then to spring for the lashings of the dory, which he cut with his knife. The cook also said that he thought the skipper lost his life because of the half-stunning blow that he must have received from the fore-boom while he was on the rail trying to free the dory. The vessel was sinking all the time and it being dark––or near it in the squall––I suppose Captain Ripley could not watch everything. No doubt, it was the fore-boom hit him and knocked him overboard. Certainly he was knocked overboard, and the last seen of him he was swimming and pushing an empty barrel before him to one of the crew. “Keep your nerve up,” he called to the cook, and after that he suddenly disappeared. He got a man’s death, anyway. We rowed back to the Duncan with the survivors. Nine men gone––it was a hard story to take home with us, but we had it to do. It was all a part of fishing life, and so we put back for Gloucester. |