Clancy and I went home by train, reaching Gloucester as the first of an easterly gale set in. There we found it was nothing but talk of the race. We had not reached Main Street at all before Clancy was held up. Clancy, of course, would know. Where was Maurice Blake? What were we doing in Gloucester and the Johnnie not in? The Duncans––especially the elder Mr. Duncan––Miss Foster, my cousin Nell, and Will Somers were boiling over. Where was Maurice Blake? Where was the Johnnie Duncan? Everybody in town seemed to know that Sam Hollis had given us a bad beating down Cape shore way, and the news had a mighty discouraging effect on all Maurice’s friends, even on those of them who knew enough of Sam Hollis not to take his talk just as he wanted them to take it. Withrow’s vessel had beaten the Johnnie Duncan with Maurice Blake sailing her––they had to believe that part of it, and that in itself was bad enough. Sam Hollis’s stock was booming, you may be sure––and the race right close to hand, too.

“That little beating the Johnnie got didn’t lose any in the telling by Sam Hollis and his gang, did it, Joe?” said Clancy to me, and then he went around borrowing all the money he could to bet the Johnnie Duncan would beat the Withrow in the race. But would Maurice now enter at all? I asked Clancy about that part––if there was not a chance that Maurice might not stay down the Cape shore way and let the race go. But he only laughed and said, “Lord––Joey-boy, you’ve a lot to learn yet about Maurice in spite of your season’s seining along with him.”

It was a Monday morning when Clancy and I reached Gloucester. The race was to be sailed on Friday of that same week. For several days before this, we were told, Wesley Marrs, Sam Hollis, Tommie Ohlsen, and the rest of them had been out in the Bay tuning up their vessels like a lot of cup defenders. Never before had fishermen given so much attention to the little details before a race. The same day that we got home they were up on the ways for a final polishing and primping up. They were smooth as porcelain when they came off. And coming off their skippers thought they had better take some of the ballast out of them. “’Tisn’t as if it was winter weather”––it was the middle of September then––“with big seas and driving gales,” was the way Wesley Marrs put 213 it, and they all agreed that the chances were ten to one that the wind would not be strong enough to call for the heavy ballast they carried. Fishermen, of course, are built to be at their best when wind and sea are doing their worst, and so the taking out of ballast for a September race looked like good judgment. So about forty tons of ballast were taken out of most of them––the Lucy Foster, the Withrow, the Nannie O, and half a dozen others.

That looked all right, but on Tuesday night an easterly gale set in, the wind blowing forty-odd miles an hour. All day Wednesday it blew, and all day Thursday even harder, with a promise of blowing harder still on Friday, which was to be the day of the race. The people of Gloucester who had been praying for wind, “Wind for a fisherman’s race––wind––wind,” seemed likely to get what they wanted.

On Thursday I saw Tommie Ohlsen and Wesley Marrs in conference on the street. Wesley had his nose up in the air, sniffing the breeze. He shook his head with, “Tommie, I ought to’ve let the ballast stay in the Lucy. It looks like it’s going to be the devil’s own breeze for vessels that ain’t prepared for it.”

“Yes,” said Ohlsen, “wind fifty-two mile an hour the weather man says, and still making. 214 That’s bad for light ballast and whole sail. If we could only put the ballast back–––”

“Yes––if we could. But we can’t put it back now––there ain’t time to do it right and everybody would laugh at us too. And besides, if we did, all the others would put it back, and where’s the difference?”

“Of course,” said Tommie, “but if all of us would put it back it would make a better race.”

In view of the reputation of Wesley Marrs and Ohlsen and O’Donnell and their vessels, we could not understand the confidence of Withrow and his people in Sam Hollis. He had a great vessel––nobody doubted it. But it was doubted by many if she was the equal of some of the others, and few believed she was better. And Sam Hollis was not the man to carry the sail, or at least the fishermen of Gloucester generally did not think so. But Withrow and Hollis’s gang kept on bragging and they backed their bragging up, too. I drew what money I had saved that summer out of my seining share––two hundred and twenty-five dollars––and bet it myself with one of the Withrow’s crew that the Johnnie Duncan would beat the Withrow, whether the Johnnie was home to race or not. It was really betting against Withrow himself, who, it was said, was taking up every bet made by any of the Withrow’s crew. That was 215 Thursday afternoon, and still no word of the Duncan.

“Good for you, Joey,” said Clancy when he heard of that. “Even if Maurice don’t come it’s better to lose your money and shut them up. But don’t worry––he’ll come. Do you think he’s been standing and looking at this easterly––it’s all along the coast to Newf’undland I see by the papers––and not swing her off? He’s on his way now, and swinging all he’s got to her, I’ll bet. Wait and see.”

“My,” said my cousin Nell, “and so you bet your pile on the Johnnie Duncan whether she’s in or not?––and if she don’t reach here in time you lose it all?” and told it all over to her Will Somers, to whom I learned she was now engaged. And from that time on I noticed that Alice Foster beamed on me like an angel.

Minnie Arkell was home for the race just as Clancy had prophesied. She had come with some of her friends down from Boston three or four days before this, in the same steam-yacht she had been aboard of at Newport in June. Meeting me she asked me about our passage home on the Colleen Bawn, and I told her of it. She listened with great interest.

“Is Tom O’Donnell as fine-looking as he used to be––with his grand figure and head and great 216 beard? I remember some years ago I used to think him the finest-looking man I ever saw.”

I told her that I guessed she’d think him fine-looking yet if she’d seen him to the wheel of the Colleen Bawn with the six-pound shot whistling by him, and he never so much as letting on he knew they were there. Her eyes shone at that. Then she offered to take any bets I made off my hands. “You can’t afford to take your little savings out of the bank and bet it on a vessel that may not be here in time. I’ll take it off your hands––come!”

That was an attractive side to her––caring but little for money––but I wasn’t letting anybody take my bets off my hands. I still believed that Maurice would be home, though that was seven o’clock Thursday evening. I knew he would be home if he only guessed that his friends were betting on his vessel––and they not even knowing whether she was to be home in time for the race. And if he weren’t home, I was ready to lose my little roll.