Within a day or two of his arrival in Eastville Harbor, Donald saw the beginnings of great activity among the anchored fleet of fishing schooners in the Bay. Almost simultaneous with the commencement of the West Wind’s overhauling, every vessel in the fleet was tenanted by sail-benders and riggers, painters and caulkers, and the water front rapidly took on a lively appearance with the hauling of schooners to the wharves to receive supplies, fresh water, salt and gear. Fishermen were streaming in from outlying villages and back-country farms—emerging like the bears and squirrels from a winter’s hibernation—to sign up with the skippers for the spring fishing voyage. Eastville became a hive of industry and the street corners and stores were fishermen’s parliaments where the costs of salt, trawl lines, hooks, oil-clothes and sea-boots were discussed and the price per quintal of the season’s fish was forecasted.

Donald did not see a great deal of the Nickerson family except at meal times, kitchen snacks and lunches, mostly at which Mrs. Nickerson and Ruth merely waited on the men. They rose early in the morning and got aboard the vessel by 6.30 a.m., and with an hour for dinner at noon, they worked until darkness called a halt. Joak was busy overhauling his galley gear and painting fo’c’sle and cabin, while Donald and Captain Nickerson worked on the rigging and sails.

When the heavy work of bending sails was finished the skipper said, “Naow, Donny, boy, I’ll leave you to reeve off halliards and sheets and hitch and seize noo rattlins, ’cause I’ve got to skin araound among the boys and git an eight dory gang—that means sixteen men—two to a dory. I’m agoin’ to hev a job gittin’ them ’cause they’ll prefer to ship with old skippers who know the game, but I’ll scrape up a crowd somehow.”

And Donald was left alone for almost a week, during which time Captain Nickerson drove around the country trying to pick up men. He would return after dark from these excursions tired with driving and talking. “Th’ fellers araound here have become most cussedly conservative sence I left home,” he gloomily remarked one night. “They’re all glad to see me, but when it comes to shippin’ with me, they’re either signed up with someone else or they’re afraid they’ll lose a chance o’ making money by sailing with a green skipper. I haven’t got a one yet and I’ve tried hard for a’most a week. There’s men to be had, but haow to git them beats me.”

Donald had met quite a number of the Eastville fishermen and had yarned with them enough to form a general opinion of their characteristics. They treated him very cordially and had freely discussed Captain Nickerson’s chances of picking up a crew. “He’s a good sailorman an’ navigator,” they admitted, “and he’s fished some, but we doubt ef he knows the grounds an’ where to pick up th’ fish. He ain’t never bin skipper afishin’ an’ fellers ain’t agoin to take chances with a green skipper when there’s so many high-liners alookin’ for crews.” Donald readily saw the point and he gave some thought to the matter, and from his observations of fishermen character he made a novel suggestion to Judson.

“It seems to me, captain,” he said, “that you’ve got to spring something unusual on these chaps—something that will appeal to their sporting instincts, and from what I know of them and you I think it can be worked. You may be an Eastville man, but you’re different from these chaps in a good many ways.” And he explained his idea.

The skipper listened intently with a broadening smile on his face, and when Donald had finished he thrust forth his hand. “Good! Lay it there, boy. I’ll do it, by Godfrey! Let’s write it out and we’ll git it printed and mailed at once!” And he rose to his feet, stamping and chuckling.

Two or three days later every fisherman in Eastville and vicinity received the following printed notice in his mail box:

Dear Sir,—

The undersigned has taken over the command of the schooner “West Wind,” and will fit out for salt fishing this spring.

Several fishermen have expressed their doubts as to my ability to catch fish and make a good stock. I wish to state that I will lay five hundred dollars with any man, even money, that I will, this season, be the high-line eight dory vessel of the Eastville Harbor fleet.

I am now picking up an eight dory gang, and want only young, hardy men and good fishermen. No married, tired, or nervous men need apply.

Yours for fish,

JUDSON K. NICKERSON.

The effect was wonderful! All the young, reckless spirits in the district camped on Nickerson’s doorstep and he had his pick of the best in making up his eight dory gang—sixteen young bloods, strong, single, and tough, and endowed with a dash of the sporting spirit which would ensure their being of the breed to “stand the gaff” in winning their skipper’s bet.

Nickerson was delighted. “That sure was a great stunt, Donny, boy,” he cried. “I’ve got a gang of young toughs—a bunch that’ll work ’til they drop an’ who’ll swing dories over when the gulls can’t fly to wind’ard! They’re the kind for makin’ a big trip ’cause they’ll work like the devil to beat the old timers, and they’ll fish when the married men an’ the’ narvous men’ll be for stayin’ aboard. I’d ha’ never thought o’ that stunt if it wasn’t for you, by Jupiter!”

“Do you suppose anyone will take up your bet?” enquired Donald somewhat anxiously. The other thought for a moment before answering.

“Yes!” he replied. “Some skipper will call me—some high-liner. Lemme see—who is there runnin’ eight dories? Wilson?—No, he’s too tight! Wallace?—A big family an’ no money to blow! It’ll be either Smith or Ira Burton. Burton will call me sure! He don’t like me sence I gave him a trimming for insulting little Vera Knickle. ... Yes, it’ll likely be Burton. He’ll itch to take my money an’ show me up as a windy bluff. Mark me, Donald, we’ll have Burton to fight against, and he’ll take some trimming, too!”

Jud Nickerson’s wager was the talk of the fleet and the news spread up and down the shore. Young fishermen came in from other ports to ask for a “sight” with Nickerson, and he regretfully turned them away. He had his gang now—a cracking good crowd—Jud Nickerson’s “hellions” they were called, and down on the wharves and in the outfitters and barber shops, the old skippers smiled sourly and “cal’lated that Jud Nickerson was agoin’ to fish lime juice fashion,” and they reckoned some day he would spring a surprise in the way of a vessel with “injy-rubber” dories that would stretch with a big load of fish, and leather sails for running a vessel to port in a breeze.

The West Wind was duly hauled alongside the wharf and her gang were aboard getting salt into the hold bins and rigging up their trawling gear. This was a job which Captain Nickerson advised Donald to “get hep to,” and he sat with the fishermen on the West Wind’s sunny decks practising the knotting of “gangens,”[1] the “sticking” of same into the “ground line” of the “trawl” or long-line, and the bending on to the gangens of the seven or eight hundred hooks which go to make up a seven-“shot” tub of trawl gear. The Eastville harbor fleet of twenty-five or thirty schooners were nearly all “salt Bankers”—that is, they engaged in a deep sea fishery on the off-shore “Banks” or shoal water areas of the Western North Atlantic, and their catch of cod, hake, pollock, haddock and cusk were split and put down in salt aboard the vessels. Cod, however, was the commonest fish caught, and when the salted catch was landed, it was prepared for export to West Indies and South America by being dried on racks or “flakes” exposed to open air and sun. Flakes, hundreds of feet long, were built on the sunny slopes of the hillsides around the harbor, and during the summer months these would be covered with hundreds of thousands of split salted codfish caught on the Banks from Le Have to Grand. When thoroughly dried these fish were graded, packed in casks and drums, and shipped to the West Indies and South America, where, as “bacalhao” it is much esteemed by the Latins and colored populations.

Donald knew a good deal about sailing a schooner, but he knew absolutely nothing about fishing in any form. His notion of “trawling” was steam trawling wherein a huge bag net was towed over the bottom by a steamer specially built and equipped for the purpose. In Scotland this method of deep-sea fishing was universal. Trawling, so-called, in Canada, was a different operation altogether, and consisted in catching fish by means of lines about 2,100 feet long, into which, at 28 or 40 inch intervals, a “snood” or “gangen” about 36 inches long was stuck and hitched through the strands of the main or “ground” line. To this snood or gangen was hitched a black japanned hook and from seven to eight hundred hooks depended to a “string” or “tub” of trawl gear. The whole of this long line was coiled down in tubs usually made from cutting down a flour barrel, and six to eight tubs of trawl went to each dory.

The dory is a flat-bottomed, high-sided boat peculiar to the North Atlantic coasts of the American continent. It is thus constructed for wonderful seaworthiness when properly handled, and by having removable thwarts and other fixtures, it can be “nested” within other dories on the schooner’s decks. From six to twelve such boats can be carried “nested” one within the other on the port and starboard sides of a vessel’s waist. From these dories, when launched on the fishing grounds, two fishermen set the long trawls with every hook baited and the line anchored along the bottom.

Young McKenzie found himself in an enchantingly novel world of seafaring and learning something new every day. He had recovered from his surprise at the beautiful class of vessel employed in the Canadian deep-sea fisheries, and the comfort of their forecastles and cabins, but what delighted him still more was the class of men who went to sea in these fishing craft. They were fishermen and farmers and lumbermen and seamen all rolled into one, and as they sat in the sun rigging up interminable fathoms of tarred cotton lines into fishing gear, their conversation would range from the planting of potatoes to the care of a “galled” ox; from the cutting of spruce “piling” and the clearing of an alder swamp to the forty fathom talk of searoads and sailormen. Most of them had been to the West Indies in schooners, brigs and barquentines. They talked glibly of Demerara, Trinidad and its “Pitch Lake”; the Sugar Loaf at Rio; the Prado and Malecon of Havana, and the salt pans of Turk’s Islands. They chewed tobacco, joked and yarned in a strangely fascinating drawl, and Donald’s seafaring blood would be thrilled by their unaffected relations of wild battles with sea and wind, and times when the sudden hurricane blows of spring and fall “blew th’ gaul-derned fores’l, jumbo’n jib clean aout of her ’n left us stripped to bare poles ’n th’ gaul-derned ledges to loo’ard!”

They all addressed each other by baptismal names and Donald was struck by the number of Biblical appellations, and also the odd Freemans, Wallaces, Bruces, Wolfes, Lincolns and other Christian names which sounded strange to his ears and betokened the liberty-loving spirit of ancestors. They were a fine type—lean, strong-muscled, sun-tanned, good humored and coolly daring, and Donald looked forward to life among them with anticipatory pleasure. In these craft and with these men for shipmates, he felt the fascination of the searoads coming over him stronger than ever, and the hateful memory of the days on the Kelvinhaugh were passing into oblivion.

They were almost ready for sea, and Captain Nickerson and Donald were standing on the wharf superintending the loading of some supplies, when the skipper gave a grunt. “Here’s Burton acomin’!” They turned around to see a tall, raw-boned, sandy-haired man about forty stepping towards them. He had a clean-shaven face, a hard mouth, and cold grey eyes. “Hello, Jud,” he said in a high-pitched drawl. “See ye’re back with us again. Lime-juicin’ too much for ye these days?”

Nickerson grunted. “Cal’late lime-juicin’ didn’t hurt me any,” he said coldly. “But a man likes to be home an’ among his folks once in a while.”

The other picked up a pine splinter from the wharf, and producing a knife, began to whittle it. After a pause, he spoke again. “See ye’re agoin’ in fer fishin’. Ye’ve a smart vessel there.”

“Yep! She’s able!” answered Judson shortly.

Another pause. “Reckon ye can catch a trip o’ fish?” Still whittling, he asked the question without taking his eyes from the pine sliver.

“Reckon I kin!” replied Nickerson, and fixing the other with his steely glance, added, “I plan to be high-line eight-doryman this season.”

Whittling away, Captain Burton nodded slowly. “Umph!” he piped after a thoughtful pause. “Cal’late, Jud, I hev five hundred toad-skins loose what says you ain’t agoin’ to be ahead o’ th’ Annie L. Brown’s gang spring trip to fall.”

Judson laughed sarcastically. “The Annie Brown? Why ef I couldn’t trim that crowd of old women I wouldn’t ’temp to go afishin’. I am out to trim an abler gang than the Annie’s.” There was a grin on the faces of the loafing West Winders who sensed what was in the air and who hung around within earshot. Burton noted the grins and reddened. “I said, Jud, that the Annie L. Brown hez five hundred dollars to put up agin yore hooker. Do you take it, or do you not?”

“Of course I’ll take it, Captain Burton,” answered the other with a careless laugh. “If you have the money with you I’ll take it naow ’stead of later.”

Burton threw the stick away and snapped his knife. “I’ll leave th’ money with Bill Smith, th’ harbor-master, an’ you kin leave yores there too. I’m sailin’ day after t’morrow.” Without another word, he turned and stalked up the wharf. Nickerson turned to his grinning gang. “That’s the joker we’re up against,” he said, “and, take it from me, he’ll be a tough one to beat. He has a good gang and an able vessel and he’s a good fish-killer. We’ll have to hustle some to get that money, bullies.”

A fisherman laughed. “You find th’ fish, Cap,” he said, “an’ you’ll find that ’hustle’ is aour middle name. Ira Burton’s ‘toadskins’ look mighty good t’ me!”

Joak had removed his dunnage down aboard the schooner and lived on her with some of the men. Donald wanted to do the same, but the Skipper told him to remain at the Nickerson home until he, himself, went aboard. Though he appreciated and enjoyed Judson’s kindness, yet he felt the lack of presentable clothes—especially when Ruth was about, for, by her actions and manner towards him, he felt instinctively that she looked upon him as a common Scotch sailor-boy of a social status far beneath her. She was neither unkind nor discourteous, but she treated him exactly as one would treat a hired man. This jarred McKenzie’s pride considerably, and when Ruth was around he refrained from conversation and confined himself to mere affirmative or negative answers when she addressed him.

The evening before sailing came, and Donald trudged up from the vessel clad in overalls and rubber boots, and grimy with loading stove coal. When he stepped up on the verandah of the Nickerson home, he spied Ruth seated before an artist’s easel and intent on painting a view of the harbor. Anything savoring of art appealed to Donald and he could not resist walking up and looking at the young lady’s effort. He felt instinctively that he would be snubbed. At the sound of his footsteps she turned around and gave him a careless glance such as one would give the milk-man or a pet cat.

“Good evening, Miss,” ventured Donald politely. “I see you are an artist.” “I do a little painting,” she replied curtly, continuing her work. For a space he watched her brushing in the colors, and his artistic eye detected many mistakes which were spoiling an otherwise creditable canvas. The girl evidently lacked training though she possessed ability. When she paused to squeeze some color on to a palette, Donald noticed that her fingers were long and well shaped—tokens of artistic temperament. “Well, what do you think of it?” she said without looking up and with a touch of patronizing tolerance in her words.

“I think it is very good in parts,” replied Donald quietly, “but—” “Yes, but—?” She was looking at him with arched eye-brows, and there was a trace of resentment in her voice seeming to infer “What do you know about art?”

McKenzie smiled. “I was going to say, if you’ll permit me, that your perspective is a little bit out,” he answered calmly. “Your schooner is too large for the shed in the fore-ground, and the detail on the further side of the harbor is too harsh. It should be toned down a bit—” He paused, noting the angry flush which was rising to her face. “Go on!” she snapped—almost rudely. “What else is wrong with it?” Her tone was irritable, and Donald, thinking of her conversation with her sister-in-law the day he and Joak arrived, proceeded without mercy, “Your sky is too much of a greeny-blue—you need more cobalt in it. Your water should reflect the sky more, and your clouds are somewhat heavy. A little dash of white and Naples yellow mixed in the centres would lift them out more. And, pardon me, for a sunny day, you should have worked more of a yellow tinge into all your colors—” He said no more, for with an indignant toss of her head and a sparkle of temper in her blue eyes that made her look very fascinating, she jumped up from the stool and throwing down her brush, stalked into the house, saying tartly, “If you’re so smart—finish it yourself and let us see if you are as good an artist as you are a critic!” Donald stared after her—somewhat pleased that he had stirred this self-possessed young beauty, and yet somewhat regretful at having offended her. Any unpleasant rifts in his relationships with any person always annoyed McKenzie. He would rather endure than inflict. He turned and scanned the painting, and the artist in him came to the fore. Throwing off his overall jacket, he sat down, picked up the palette and brushes, and started to work. Under his trained eyes and hands the crudities were painted out or toned down, and when Captain Jud came up from the wharf he had transformed the picture into something, which, while yet amateurish, betokened the handiwork of a true artist. “Aye, aye, painting something, are ye?” was the Skipper’s greeting.

“No,” answered the other. “I took the liberty of retouching your sister’s picture. It is her painting, and it is very good.” He rose and followed Judson into the house.

He had been gone but a minute before Ruth slipped silently around a corner of the verandah. “He says ‘it’s very good’ does he?” she murmured. “Let’s see what our Scotch sailor-artist-critic has done.” But when she looked at the canvas, her pique gave way to genuine admiration. “Oh!” she ejaculated softly. “He is an artist after all!” Then perplexedly. “I wonder where he learned?” Still wondering, she lifted the canvas from the easel and took it up to her room.

They had supper in the big dining-room that evening—it was a special meal for the departing sailors—and Donald wore a white duck shirt with a turn-down collar—a dollar purchase which catered in a measure to his desire for clean white linen. With his face and hands well scrubbed, and his hair brushed, he looked eminently respectable and felt more at ease. Clothes and personal appearance are two extremely important factors in the self-respect of youth—especially so when the admiration of a girl is to be gained. McKenzie’s dollar shirt added enough to his personal appearance to command Ruth’s attention, and during the supper she shot shy glances at him and wondered why she hadn’t noticed what fine eyes and teeth and hands this tanned young seaman possessed. His artistic criticism set her to thinking. She pondered over his manner of conversation and his actions when she and her mother were around. He spoke with a Scottish accent, but then, unlike McGlashan, his language was faultlessly correct. His table manners, she noticed now, were according to all the canons of etiquette. He did not tuck his serviette into his shirt-neck; he wielded his spoon in the prescribed way when taking soup, and he held and used his knife and fork properly and not in the “scrammy-handed” manner she expected from a common sea-boy. The Nickersons were superior people, and noted these things and lived correctly themselves. They were seamen and ship-builders, fish merchants and timber merchants, but others of the family had taken up the higher professional arts and doctors, clergymen and lawyers were numbered among them. The Skipper’s maternal uncle was a lawyer and a member of the Dominion House of Commons—not that this political honor may be cited as a criterion of breed—but it was evidence of the fact that the family were “particular and knowing folk.”

They were to sail for the fishing banks on the morrow, and Judson suggested they have a little family party. Brother Asa and his wife were invited over, and they were bringing with them a cousin who was visiting them; a young woman a year or two older than Ruth. “Now, Sis,” said Jud to his sister, “you can get busy an’ make up a whack of that choc-late fudge for me to take to sea with me. I c’d eat a bar’l of it right now!”

Asa Nickerson, older than Judson, but almost identical in looks, speech and manner, came in with his wife and her cousin Helena Stuart. Helena was petite with soft brown eyes and pretty fair hair—a rather striking girl and with a face and form which matched her hair and eyes, she would attract admiring attention anywhere. When she greeted Ruth and the two were together, Donald thought he had never seen finer-looking girls. Judson was evidently struck with Miss Stuart, and it wasn’t long before he managed to escort her off to the kitchen to superintend his sister’s fudge making. Donald, in the odd habit he had of conjuring up contrasting memories, smiled to himself when the Skipper, in his most polite and persuasive manner, offered Miss Stuart his arm in mock courtesy and led her laughingly away to a candy-boiling. He thought of a rain-lashed, heaving deck and the drumming of a big wind aloft and an oil-skinned, sea-booted Judson leaning over the bridge rail of the Kelvinhaugh and rasping out, “Put yer ruddy guts into it, you lousy hounds, or I’ll bash the ugly mug of th’ swine that hangs back!” with a liberal sprinkling of biting oaths for better measure. Truly, seafarers live lives of contrasts not alone in the element they live part of their lives, but in the nature of their work and the herding of men with men far from refining influences.

Donald was left with the older people, and he sat quietly listening to their small talk. Asa spoke to him once or twice, but eventually got embroiled in a discussion with his parents as to the correct manner in which to feed a nine-months-old child—which discussion, while of interest to married people, bored McKenzie dreadfully, and several times he felt like making a bold move by leaving and repairing to the kitchen, where, from the shrieks and laughter, the girls and the Skipper were having a jolly time over the manufacture of the chocolate confection.

He was about to slip out, when Mrs. Asa went to the piano and commenced running her fingers over the keys. “Play us a tune, Gertrude,” boomed the old ship-builder. “My ol’ favorite, y’know—‘Sweet Dreamland Faces’—an’ ye might sing it too, Gerty-girl.”

The daughter-in-law picked out the music but demurred at the singing. “You know, father, I can’t play and sing at the same time. If I had someone to play, I’d sing. Helena would play for me, but I hate to disturb her. She’s having a good time in the kitchen by the sounds.” Donald, tired of sitting and doing nothing and itching to get his fingers on piano keys once more, rose to his feet. “Possibly I can help you,” he said quietly. “I haven’t played the piano since we left the West Coast, but I’ll try.”

Young Mrs. Nickerson looked somewhat surprised, but smiled and vacated the stool. Donald sat down and fingered the keys. His fingers were stiff with the hard usage of sea-faring, but he swung readily into the easy score, and soon Mrs. Asa was singing the sweet old song in a pleasing voice to his accompaniment. When it was finished amid the plaudits of the listeners, the singer complimented the young fellow on his playing. “You play well,” she said. “Do you sing? I’m sure you do! Won’t you play and sing for us?”

Rather than hazard a resumption of the baby-food conversation, Donald murmured with a self-conscious blush that he would try, and without any preliminaries he touched the keys and in a clear baritone rendered “Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon.” As he sang the famous old Scottish song, memories of his mother and home in far-away Scotland surged to mind. He forgot the company and sang with closed eyes. He was lonely and more than a little home-sick, and the yearning suggested by the words and its plaintive air rang in his voice, and his quiet touch on the piano mingled with his singing and combined to make it a song from the heart and soul of a wanderer far from his native land.

When he finished there was an awed silence, and he swung on the stool to see Judson and the two girls standing in the doorway. Helena Stuart, her eyes glowing, walked over to the piano. “That was lovely, Mr. McKenzie,” she murmured admiringly. “Won’t you sing something else?”

Donald was embarrassed. “I—I’d like to hear you play or sing something, Miss,” he stammered. “Will you, please?”

“By Jingo, Donny-boy,” cried the Skipper, “I’ve been with you nigh a year naow and I never knew you could play or sing like that! I’ve h’ard you chanteying, but, if I could play and sing like you can I’d be hanged if I’d go to sea.”

Miss Stuart had been rummaging through a music cabinet. “Here we are, Mr. McKenzie,” she cried. “Here’s a pretty thing—‘In Old Madrid!’ Do you know it? Fine! If you’ll sing it with me, I’ll play.” She commenced the prelude and they sang the quaint old song. It was a favorite of Donald’s and savored of the romance which forever appealed to his nature. Songs of feeling awakened responsive chords within him and his voice contained the subtle intonations of correct interpretation of the words.

He could conjure a picture of gallant conquistadores—caballeros and hidalgos of chivalrous Castile ... the lover—an armored knight lying stark on a stricken field with a Moorish arrow or javelin in his heart ... and her dainty glove would be fixed in his helm. He visioned her anguish when the dreadful news was brought to her—

In such a song he could feed his soul on the sentiment which he hungered for. Miss Stuart’s soprano blended well with his expressive baritone and delighted the listeners who felt they were being truly regaled with singing of a high order. Ruth, too, was delighted, but deep down in her heart was a twinge of bitterness, of jealousy, of recrimination. This young stranger had lived under her father’s roof for almost a month and it was only on the eve of his departure for the fishery that she discovered his worth and talents. She had ignored him for a common sailor lad—a ship laborer—and here he was displaying culture superior to her own. Later, she catechised her brother. “Who is this McKenzie boy? He’s no common fellow like that cook of yours—that impossible McGlashan. Where is his family? Where does he come from?”

Judson laughed. “What did you think he was, Sis? Some hoodlum I picked off the dock? Why, honey, his father was a well-known sea-captain in the New York trade ... drowned at sea. The boy is very clever and very well educated. His uncle owns a fleet of ships and Donald was an apprentice or cadet on the barque I was mate of. They knocked him about so much on her that I got him to skin aout in Vancouver and come with me. He’s a thorough gentleman in every way and one of the pluckiest and nerviest youngsters I ever was shipmates with. He’s gone through something, that lad!”

When her brother had finished, Ruth looked at him accusingly. “Judson Nickerson,” she said. “I’m vexed with you! You tell me all this when he is going away, and here for almost a month I’ve kept him at a distance thinking he was only a sailor you had hired. We might have had a lot of pleasant evenings here if you hadn’t been so thoughtless. You come home to eat and sleep, and when we are around you kept Mr. McKenzie from getting better acquainted with your eternal ship-and-fish-talk monopolizing his evenings. I—I could beat you, Judson—yes! thrash you well!” And she stamped her foot angrily, while the Skipper stammered excuses and finally laughed at her chagrin. “It took Helena to find aout my friend’s qualities,” he teased. “You judged him by his clothes. He wanted to dress himself up, but I told him to save his money as he didn’t have much. This’ll teach you, Sis, that all my guests are not rough-necks and shellbacks!”

In the parlor, Helena and Donald were entertaining the company by singing and playing, and in the congenial atmosphere the young fellow cast off his reserve. He felt that he was once more picking up the threads of the things he delighted in, but had lost for a space. With generous praise from his audience, admiring glances and expressions from pretty Miss Stuart, and a desire to revenge himself upon Ruth for her neglect and tolerant behavior towards him, he expanded and did his best.

When Ruth came from the kitchen with her brother and noticed the friendly intimacy of the two young people at the piano, she suggested a dance as a diversion. “Gerty will play a waltz for us and we can go into the dining-room. Juddy—push the table back, and—” in a whisper—“take Helena for your partner. I’ll find out if your friend has other accomplishments.”

When Mrs. Asa trilled out the “Blue Danube,” Ruth approached Donald. “Will you waltz with me?” she asked with a winning smile. The youth looked up at her with surprise in his eyes, colored slightly, and glanced at his heavy boots. “I—I’m afraid I can’t do much with these on,” he answered hesitatingly, “and I expect I’m sadly out of practice—”

“Let’s try anyway,” she suggested, and Donald slipped his arm around her waist and stepped off in time to the music. He held her very gingerly at first, but in the swing of the dance he tightened his embrace of her lithe figure. Though nervous and afraid of stepping on her dainty feet with his heavy brogans, and somewhat abashed in holding a pretty girl to him in such close proximity, he, nevertheless, piloted her through the rhythmic whirl in a creditable manner which bespoke a graceful dancer. Panting, and with eyes glowing and cheeks blooming, she called a halt. “Oh, I’m out of breath,” she gasped. “Let’s sit down. Juddy and Helena will dance all night.”

He escorted her to a corner of the dining-room and sat beside her. All his resentment against her previous treatment of him had vanished and he felt strangely buoyant and happy. For a moment neither spoke. “I’m so sorry I was rude to you about my painting this afternoon,” ventured Ruth at last with a shy glance towards his face. “You were quite right in your criticisms and you altered it wonderfully. I had no idea you were so clever. You must have studied painting...”

Donald nodded. “I always loved drawing and painting,” he replied. “My art lessons were the only ones I really enjoyed.”

“And music and dancing and singing?”

“I took lessons in all because Mother made me do so,” he answered smiling. “I did not like them at the time, though I appreciate such education now.”

She looked at him to see if he was passing a compliment, but in his expression there was no evidence of such. “Your Mother must miss you very much,” she observed. “Whatever sent a clever boy like you to sea? Art, music and drawing-room accomplishments have a mighty little place on a fishing boat. It’s a miserable life, though Juddy thinks it is the only occupation.”

“Men must work,” replied the youth.

“Granted! But seafaring! Fishing! Why not some occupation where you can make use of your artistic gifts—?”

“There are better artists than I am walking the streets of Glasgow and London who will draw excellent crayon pictures for a sixpence.” He smiled and added. “I loved the sea!”

She sensed the past tense and repeated wonderingly. “Loved?”

Helena walked into the room in time to hear Ruth’s query. “What’s this? What’s this? Who talks of love?” Donald blushed furiously. Helena laughed. “All right, Mr. McKenzie, don’t feel so embarrassed. I’ll respect your confidence. I suppose Ruth was flirting as usual. I’ve just come to call you in for a cup of coffee and some cakes.”

They returned to the room again and had refreshments. Then Mr. and Mrs. Asa Nickerson and Helena took their departure—the latter very cordially shaking Donald’s hand and wishing him a pleasant voyage and trusting to meet and enjoy some singing again. “And don’t let Ruthie trifle with your affections,” she added with a roguish glance at her friend. “She’s an awful flirt.” Miss Nickerson smiled demurely. “Go ’way home,” she cried, “or I’ll have a reputation I don’t really deserve.”

When they departed the Skipper clapped Donald on the back. “We’d better turn in naow, Don,” he said. “We’ll roll aout at four an’ get aboard and aout down the shore for aour bait. We’ve got to get busy if we’re agoin’ to get Ira Burton’s money away from him.”

Donald turned shyly to Ruth. “I suppose I’d better wish you ‘Good-bye’ now—”

The girl shook her head. “No! I’ll be up and give you and Juddy your breakfast. Good-night!”