We saw it first and got to going first, but the Aurora's boat and the steamer's boat were nearer, and so when we were all under good headway there were two lengths or so that we had to make up on each. Well, that was all right. Two lengths weren't so many, and we drove her. It was something to see the fellows lay out to it then—doubled-banked, two men to each wide seat and each man with a long oar, which he had picked out and trimmed to suit himself, and every man in his own particular place as if in a racing crew.

And now every man was bending to it. A big fellow, named Rory McKinnon, was setting the stroke. There was a kick and a heave to every stroke, and the men encouraging each other. "Now—now—give it to her," was all that I could hear coming out of him. All this time we in the dory were coming on behind, Clancy and I having to beat their dory just as our boat had to beat their boat. And we were driving, too, you may be sure. Clancy was making his oars bend like whips. "Blast 'em! There's no stiffness to 'em," he was complaining. And then, "Sock it to her," he would call out to our fellows in the seine-boat. "We've got the porgy crew licked—that's the stuff," came from the skipper. From on top of the seine he was watching the fish, watching the gang, watching the other boats, watching us in the dory—watching everything. Whoever made a slip then would hear from it afterwards, we knew. And clip, clip, clip it was, with the swash just curling nicely under the bow of the other boat, and I suppose our own, too, if we could have seen.

Our boat was gaining on the Aurora's and the skipper was warming up. The fish was going the same way we were, still a quarter of a mile ahead.

"Drive her," said the skipper. "Drive her—drive her—another length and you got 'em. And, Kenney, it's the best of ash you've got. Don't be afraid of breaking it. And, Dan Burns, didn't y'ever learn to keep stroke in the Bay of Islands with nine more men beside you rowing? And drive her—hit her up now—here's where we got 'em—they can't hold it on their lives. Now then, another dozen strokes and it's over. One, two, three—quicker, Lord, quicker—six, seven—oh, now she's fair flying—look at her leap. You blessed lobster, keep rowing and not looking over your shoulder. We got to get the fish first."

A quarter mile of that with the foam ripping by us, and every man with his blood like fire jumping to his oar, when the skipper leaped back to the steering oar. "Stand by," he called, and then, "Now—over with the buoy," and over it went, with the dory at hand and Tommie Clancy right there to pick it up and hold it to windward. And then went the seine over in huge armfuls. Just to see Long Steve throw that seine was worth a trip South. And he was vain as a child of his strength and endurance. "My, but look at him!" Clancy called out—"look at the back of him!" "He's a horse," somebody else would have to say, and "H-g-gh," Steve would grunt, and "H-g-gh" he would fill the air full of tarred netting, "H-g-gh—pass them corks," and over it would go, "H-g-gh," and the skipper would say, "That's the boy, Steve," and Steve would heave to break his back right then and there. All the time they were driving the seine-boat to its limit, and the skipper was laying to the big steering oar, the longest of them all and taking a strong man to handle it properly—laying to it, swinging from the waist like a hammer-thrower, and the boat jumping to it. She came jumping right for us in the dory in a little while. It doesn't take a good gang long to put a quarter mile of netting around a school of mackerel.

It was a pretty set he made. "Pretty, pretty," you could almost hear the old seiners saying between their teeth, even as they were all rowing with jaws set and never a let-up until the circle was completed, when it was oars into the air and Clancy leaping from the dory into the seine-boat to help purse up. "It's a raft if ever we get 'em," were his first words, and everybody that wasn't too breathless said yes, it was a jeesly raft of fish.

"Purse in," it was then, and lively. And so we pursed in, hauling on the running line in the lower edge of the seine, something as the string around the neck of a tobacco bag is drawn tight. It was heavy work of course, but everybody made light of it. We could not tell if the fish were in it or not. The leaders might have dove when they felt the twine against their noses and so escaped with the whole school following after, or they might have taken no alarm and stayed in.

So we pursed in, not knowing whether we were to have a good haul with a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars apiece at the end of it, or whether we would have our work for nothing. All hands kept up the pretence of joking, of course, but everybody was anxious enough. It was more than the money—it was fisherman's pride. Were we to get into New York and have it telegraphed on to Gloucester for everybody that knew us to read and talk about—landing the first mackerel of the year? We watched while the circle narrowed and the pool inside grew shallower. Somebody said, "There's one," and we could see the shine of it, and another—and another—and then the whole mass of them rose flipping. They lashed the water into foam, rushed around the edges, nosed the corks of the seine. I don't think myself that mackerel are particularly intelligent, take them generally; but at times they seem to know—these fellows, at least, seemed to know they were gone and they thrashed about in fury. A mackerel is a handsome fish any time, but to see him right you want to see him fresh-seined. They whipped the water white now—tens of thousands of them. I don't believe that the oldest seiner there didn't feel his heart beat faster—the first mackerel of the year. "And Lord knows, maybe a couple of hundred barrels," and the skipper's eyes shone—it meant a lot to him. And some of the men began to talk like children, they were so pleased.



X

WE LOSE OUR SEINE

Two hundred barrels the skipper had said, but long before we were all pursed up we knew that five hundred barrels would never hold the fish in that seine. The size of that school filled us with joy and yet it was the very size of it that caused us our trouble. It was too big for the seine, and when they began to settle down and take the twine with them the trouble began for us. No bit of twine ever made to be handled from a seine-boat was big enough to hold that school of fish when they began to go down.

The skipper was awake to it early and signalled for the vessel to come alongside. So the Johnnie stood over to us, and Hurd, pushing the spare dory over with Moore's help, came jumping with it to the side of the seine where I was alone in the first dory. He hadn't even stopped to get into his oilskins, he was in such a hurry. By the skipper's orders I had made fast some of the corks to the thwarts in the dory and Billie took some into the spare dory. The whole length of the seine-boat they were making fast the seine too. In that way the skipper hoped to buoy up the fish and hold them until we could lighten the seine up by bailing some of the fish onto the deck of the vessel. But it was of no use. There must have been a thousand barrels of them, and dories and seine-boat began to go under. It was over the rail of my dory and spare dory both, and both Billie and myself to our waists, when the skipper sung out for us to jump and save ourselves. We hung on a little longer, but it got to be too much for us and overboard we went. We were not in danger then. It is true that the sea was making and we were weighted down with oilskins and rubber boots, but we had for support the corks that had not yet gone under. And along the corks we hauled ourselves toward the seine-boat. I was praying that the sharks that sometimes follow up mackerel would not bother us. It is probable that they would not even if there were any around, as mackerel are better eating. And such a fuss as we made hauling ourselves through the water! We'd have scared away a whole school of sharks. Before we could get to the seine-boat that, too, was under. "Jump!" called the skipper, and "Jump everybody!" called Clancy, and themselves both hanging on to a last handful of twine. The men in the seine-boat jumped and struck out for the vessel, which was now quite close, with the cook, the only man left aboard, throwing over keelers, draw-buckets, the main sheet—anything within his reach that was loose and would support a man.

The skipper and Clancy hung on to the last. "Jump you, Tommie!" called the skipper. "Not me till you go," answered Clancy. They couldn't do a bit of good, but they hung on, each grabbing handfuls of twine in a last effort to hold up the seine. The seine-boat went under—and they up to their necks—and then it turned over and in toward the seine. Some of us hollered—we were afraid that it was all up with both of them—that they would be thrown toward the inside and tangled up in the seine. But both of them bobbed up, the skipper saying nothing, but Clancy sputtering like a crazy man. The dories coming loose gave a few of us a chance to climb up on the bottom of them, and when the seine-boat came bobbing up most of the others climbed up on the bottom of that. And there was some swearing done then, you may be sure! The gang would have been all right then, waiting to be picked up by the cook from the vessel, which was then pretty handy; but the seine-boat started to go under again and then came the slap of a little sea, and overboard went seven or eight of us. Clancy was one of those thrown into the water. We all remembered it afterwards because he called out for Andie Howe.

"Where's Andie?"

"Here," said Andie.

"Where?"

"Hanging onto the bow of the seine-boat."

"Well, hang on a while longer," said Clancy and struck out for the vessel, and made it too, oilskins, big boots and all. He threw two or three lines out at once—one especially to Thad Simpson, the other man of the crew besides Andie Howe who it was known couldn't swim. So Clancy hauled him in. The third man he hauled in was Billie Hurd.

"Good Lord, Tommie," said Billie, "you hove a line over my head to Andie Howe."

"You pop-eyed Spanish mackerel!" roared Clancy at him, "you ought to know by this time that Andie can't swim."

"I know, but he was all oiled up, and look at me——"

"Go to hell," said Clancy.

We all got aboard after a while, but our fine new seine was gone, and the big school of fish too. After a hard grapple we got the dories and a little later the seine-boat, and after a lot more work we got them right side up. The dories we pulled the plugs out of to let them drain and then took them on deck, but the seine-boat we had to pump out. By then it was pretty well on in the night and I remember how the moon rose just as we had it fairly well dried out and dropped astern—rose as big as a barrel-head and threw a yellow light over it, and then went out of sight, for a breeze was on us.

And "Oh, Lord! that thousand-barrel school!" groaned everybody.



XI

AN OVER-NIGHT BREEZE

It wasn't bad enough that we came near losing a few men and our boat, and our seine altogether, but it must come on to breeze up on top of that and drive us off the grounds. After putting everything to rights, we were having a mug-up forward and wondering if the skipper would take sail off her or what, when we heard the call that settled it.

"On deck everybody!" we heard. And when we got there, came from the skipper, "Take in the balloon, tie it up and put it below. Haul down your stays'l too—and go aloft a couple of you, fore and aft, and put the tops'ls in gaskets."

We attended to that—a gang out on the bowsprit, half a dozen aloft and so on—with the skipper to the wheel while it was being done. When we had finished it was, "Haul the seine-boat alongside—pump out what water's left." Then, "Shift that painter and hook on the big painter. Drop her astern and give her plenty of line. Where's the dorymen? Where's Tommie and Joe? Haul the dories into the hatch, Tommie, and make 'em fast. Gripe 'em good while you're at it. Clear the deck of all loose gear—put it below, all of it—keelers, everything. Maybe 'twon't be much of a blow, but there's no telling—it may. She mayn't be the kind that washes everything over, but put it all safe anyway."

The skipper watched all this until he had seen everything cleared up and heard "All fast the dory," from the waist. Then he looked up and took note of sky and wind. "Don't feel any too good. Maybe 'twill blow off, but we might's well run in. We'll have to wait for our other seine anyway and Wesley will be sure to put into the Breakwater for news on his way down, especially if it comes to blow."

He dropped below then to light his pipe. Seeing me and Parsons, with me trying to fix up Parsons's leg where it had been gashed—Eddie never knew how—in the mix-up of the evening, the skipper said, "There's some liniment in the chest and some linen in one of the drawers under my bunk. Get it. And some of you might's well turn in and have a nap. She'll be all right—the watch and myself can look after her now," and he went on deck again, puffing like an engine to keep his pipe going.

Most of them did turn in and were soon asleep. Some of the older men had a smoke and an overhauling of their wet clothes, while a few joined in a little game of draw before turning in. One or two were deploring the loss of the seine. The nearness to losing lives didn't seem to be worrying anybody. For myself, I was somewhat worked up. There was one time in the water when I thought I was gone. So I went on deck after the skipper. It was a black night and breezing all the time and I wanted to see how the vessel behaved. The Johnnie was close-hauled at this time and swashing under, and I knew without asking further that the skipper intended to make Delaware Breakwater.

While hurrying forward, after lending a hand to batten down the main hatch—the Johnnie plunging along all the time—and my head perhaps a little too high in the air, I stumbled off the break and plump over a man under the windward rail. I thought I was going to leeward and maybe overboard, but somebody hooked onto the full in the back of my oil-jacket, hauled me up the inclined deck again, and in a roaring whisper said, "Get a hold here, Joey—here's a ring-bolt for you. Don't let go on your life! Isn't it fine?" It was Clancy. He had nights, I know, when he couldn't sleep, and like me, I suppose, he wanted to watch the sea, which just then was firing grandly. Into this sea the vessel was diving—nose first—bringing her bowsprit down, down, down, and then up, up, up, until her thirty-seven-foot bowsprit would be pointing to where the North star should be. Whenever she heaved like that I could feel her deck swelling under me. I remember when I used to play foot-ball at the high school at home and it was getting handy to a touch-down, with perhaps only a few yards to gain and the other side braced to stop it, that a fellow playing back had to buck like that from under a line when he had to scatter tons, or what he thought was tons, of people on top of him. The vessel was that way now, only with every dive she had hundreds of tons to lift from under. At a time like that you can feel the ribs of a vessel brace within her just as if she was human. Now I could almost feel her heart pumping and her lungs pounding somewhere inside. I could feel her brace to meet it, feel her shiver, as if she was scared half to death, and almost hear her screech like a winner every time she cleared it and threw it over her head.

Now down she went—the Johnnie Duncan—down and forward, for she wouldn't be held back—shoulders and breast slap into it. Clear to her waist she went, fighting the sea from her. To either side were tumbling the broken waves, curling away like beach combers. The hollow of each was a curved sheet of electric white, and the top—the crest—was a heavier, hotter white. The crests would rise above our rail and break, and back into the hollows would fall a shower of shooting stars that almost sizzled. There wasn't a star above, but millions on the water!

"Ever see anything like that ashore, Joey-boy?" said Clancy, and I had to roar a whisper that I never had.

Through this play of fire the Johnnie leaped with great bounds. She boiled her way, and astern she left a wake in which the seine-boat was rearing and diving with a fine little independent trail of its own.

Two men forward—the watch—were leaning over the windlass and peering into the night. They were there for whatever they might see, but particularly were they looking for the double white light of Five Fathom Bank lightship. The skipper was at the wheel. When he got in the way of the cabin light, we could catch the shine from his dripping oil-clothes, and the spark from his pipe—which he kept going through it all—marked his position when he stepped back into the darkness.

Clancy noticed him. "There's a man for you, Joey. Think what it meant to a young skipper with a new vessel—the loss of that school and the seine on top of it the very first day he struck fish. If we'd got that, he might have been the first vessel of the year into the New York market. And think of the price the first fish fetch!—and the honor of it—and he breaking his heart to make a reputation this year. And yet not a yip out of him—not a cranky word to one of the gang all night. A great man I call him—and a fisherman." I thought so, too.

Sometimes I imagined I could see the wink of red and green lights abreast and astern, which I probably did, for there should have been fifty sail or so of seiners inside and outside of us—there were sixty sail of the fleet in sight that afternoon—and I knew that, barring a possible few that had got fish and were driving for the New York market, all the others were like ourselves, under lower sails and boring into it, with extra lookout forward, the skipper at the wheel or on the quarter and all ears and eyes for the surf and lights inshore when we should get there.

"Something ahead! dead ahead! sa-ail!" came suddenly from forward. There was a scraping of boot-heels at the wheel. "What d'y'make of it?—all right, I see her!" In the shadow we saw the skipper pulling the wheel down. Ahead I imagined I saw a dark patch, but to make sure I squirmed up to the fore-rigging. Whoever she was, the light from her cabin skylight was right there and I realized that we were pretty close, but not really how close until a boat bobbed up under my jaws almost. Right from under our bow it heaved. It was a seiner and that was her seine-boat towing astern, and I could easily have heaved a line to her helmsman as we swept by her. There was an awfully tall shadow of sails—half up to the clouds I thought—and the black of the hull looked as long as a dock. A voice was hurled to us, but we couldn't quite make it out—but it was the watch, probably, saying a word or two by way of easing his feelings.

We worked up to the windward of that one and slowly crowded past her tumbling green light. Then the skipper let the wheel fly up and we shot ahead and soon we had her directly astern, with her one green and one red eye looking after us. "That's one fellow we outsail," thought I to myself, and I knew I was beginning to love the Johnnie Duncan.

All through that night it went on like that.

At four o'clock or so in the morning the cook stuck his head out of the slit in the forec's'le companionway and spoke his welcome little piece. "Can't have any reg'lar sit-down this morning, boys. Have to leave the china in the becket for a while yet, but all that wants can make a mug-up, and when we get inside—if we do in anything like a decent hour—we'll have breakfast."

At five o'clock the sky began to brighten to the eastward, but there was no let-up to the wind or sea. If anything it was breezing up. At six o'clock, when the short blasts of the lightship split the air abreast of us, things were good and lively, but there was no daylight to go by then. The wash that in the night only buried her bow good was then coming over her to the foremast and filling the gangway between the house and rail as it raced aft. The beauty of double-lashing the dories began to appear, and all hands might have been towing astern all night by the look of them. But the Johnnie Duncan was doing well and the opinion of the crew generally was that the skipper could slap every rag to her and she'd carry it—that is, if she had to. The skipper put her more westerly after we had passed the lightship and on we went.

We had the company of a couple of coasters in this part of the drive; and by that, if nothing else, a man might know we were inshore. Some Gloucester men were in sight, too, though most of the fleet, we guessed, were still outside of us. The coasters were colliers, three-masters both, and reefed down, wallowing in the sea. One had her foretopmast snapped short off, and such patched sails as she had on looked lonesome. The gang, of course, had to make fun of her.

"There's one way to house a topm'st!"

"Broke your clothes-pole, old girl!"

"Better take in your washing there—looks like rain!"

"Go it, you beauty! I only wish I had my cameraw. If y'only suspected how lovely you look!"

Two big ocean tugs, one clear white and one all black, offered a change in looks, though in nothing else, for each one, with two barges of coal, was making desperate hauling of it, and the Breakwater yet a good bit away.

"Hustle 'em, you husky coal-jammers!" roared Parsons at them, as if he could be heard beyond the rail. "I wouldn't be aboard of you for my share of the Southern trip—and mackerel away up in G, too. Would you, Billie?"

"Then? Naw!" said Hurd, with a wrinkling of his little nose.

"No, nor me neither," said Long Steve. "Hi—ever hear the cook—ever hear George Moore's song:—

'If ever you go to sea, my boy, Don't ever you ship on a steamer; There's stacks to scrape and rails to paint— It's always work to clean her. When the wind is wrong and the shore is by, They'll keep you clear of leeway, But they roll and they jolt and they're never dry— They're the devil's own in a sea-way!'"

Steve, trying to sing that, had one hand hooked into a ring-bolt under the rail and he was slowly pickling—we were all pickling—like a salted mackerel in a barrel.

An hour past Five Fathom and the tall white tower of Cape Henlopen could be made out ahead, as well as the gray tower of Cape May through the mists to the northward. The wind was coming faster and it felt heavier. We could judge best of how we were looking ourselves by watching all our fellows near by. We could see to the bottom planks of two to leeward of us, while on the sloping deck of one to windward it was plain that only what was lashed or bolted was still there. When they reared they almost stood up straight, and when they scooped into it the wonder was that all the water taken aboard didn't hold her until the next comber could have a fair whack at her.

The men—that is, a few of them—might joke, but were all glad to be getting in. There's no fun staying wet and getting wetter all night long. If it wasn't for the wetness of a fellow it would have been great, for it was the finest kind of excitement, our running to harbor—that night—especially in the morning when we were passing three or four and nobody passing us. We went by one fellow—the Martinet she was—a fair enough sailer—passed her to windward of course, our gang looking across at their gang and nobody saying a word, but everybody thinking a lot, you may be sure. It was worth a square meal that.

With the Martinet astern, the skipper let her pay off and run for the end of the Breakwater. For a while he let the wind take her fair abeam, with sheets in, and the way she sizzled through the water was a caution. There was a moment that an extra good blast hit her that my heart sank, but I reflected that the skipper knew his business, and so tried to take it unconcernedly. Everybody around me was joking and laughing—to think, I suppose, that we would soon be in.

A moment after that I went down to leeward. The sea was bubbling in over her rail at the fore-rigging and I wanted to get the feel of it. I got it. It is pretty shoal water on the bar at the mouth of the Delaware River and quite a little sea on when it blows. One sea came aboard. Somebody yelled and I saw it—but too late—and slap! over I went—over the rail—big boots and oilskins I went down into the roaring. For a second my head came up and I saw the vessel. Everybody aboard was standing by. The skipper was whirling the spokes and the vessel was coming around like a top. I never saw a vessel roll down so far in all my life. I went under again and coming up heard a dull shout. There was a line beside me. "Grab hold!" yelled somebody. No need to tell me—I grabbed hold. It was the seine-boat's painter. The Johnnie was still shooting and when the line tautened it came as near to pulling my arms out of my shoulders as ever I want to have them again. But I hung on. Then she came up, and they hauled the painter in and gaffed me over the rail.

"You blankety blank fool!" roared Clancy, as soon as I stood up—"don't you know any better? A fine thing we'd have to be telegraphing home, wouldn't it? Are you all right now?"

"All right," I said, and felt pretty cheap.

While being hauled in, knowing that I was safe, I had been thinking what a fine little adventure I'd have to tell when we got back to Gloucester, but after Clancy got through with me I saw that there were two ways to look at it. So I took my old place under the windward rail and didn't move from there again till it was time to take sail off her.



XII

THE FLEET RUNS TO HARBOR

Nearing the Breakwater we had more company. Other seiners, with boats astern and dories on deck, were coming in; jumbo, jib, fore and reefed mainsail generally, and all plunging gloriously with a harbor near at hand.

For the next few hours of that morning any watcher in the lighthouse on the Breakwater could have seen plenty of samples of clever seamanship. At our time we were only one of a half-dozen at the business of working around the jetty, some making for one end and some for the other. There was a great trying of tacks and some plain criticism of tactics and weatherly qualities. There was one who tried to cut in before he could quite make it. When he had to put back or run ashore and lose her, a great laugh went up, though there was nothing the matter with the try. He had only tried too much.

Eddie Parsons was the sharp critic. "Trying to beat out the fleet, hey? And with that old hooker? Nothing wrong with your nerve, old man, but some fine day, when there's a little wind stirring, you'll roll that tub over a little too far. That's right—jam her up now! Think you got a steamboat? Wonder nobody ever told you about sailing a vessel. Come out of it, old man, and let her swing off."

We had yet to get in ourselves, and that we had the Johnnie Duncan to eat into the wind we were thankful. At last we were by and reaching down to the end of the jetty. We all began to feel good once we were sure of it. It was fine, too, to listen to Clancy as we got near. He was standing on the break, leaning against the weather rigging and looking forward.

"You'd think she'd been coming here for a hundred years, wouldn't you? Look at her point her nose now at that beacon—don't have to give this one the wheel at all. She's the girl. See her bow off now. Man, but she knows as well as you and me she'll be inside and snug's a kenched mackerel before long. Watch her kick into the wind now. Oh, she's the lady, this one. I've sailed many of them, but she's the queen of them all, this one."

A half dozen of lucky fellows were in before us. We drove in among them, under the bow of one and past the stern of another. They were all watching us, after the custom of the fleet in harbor. We knew this and behaved as smartly as we could without slopping over.

By and by our skipper picked out a place to his fancy. "Stand by halyards and down-hauls," was his warning.

"Ready—all ready."

"Ready with the anchor!"

"All ready the anchor, sir!"

"Down with your jib! Down with jumbo! Let go your fore halyards! Watch out now—ready—let go your anchor!"

Rattle—whizz—whir-r-r—splash! clink—and the Johnnie Duncan of Gloucester was safe to her mooring.

And not till then did our skipper, ten hours to the wheel, unclinch his grip, hook the becket to a spoke, slat his sou'wester on the wheel-box and ease his mind.

"Thank the Lord, there's a jeesly blow behind us. There's some outside'll wish they had a shore job before they get in. Hi, boys, when you get her tied up for'ard, better all go below and have a bite to eat. Let the mains'l stand and give it a chance to dry." Then he looked about him. "And I didn't notice that anybody passed us on the way." There was a whole lot in that last.

After eating a bite, I went over in the dory to the lighthouse on the jetty, where seamen's mail was taken care of. After leaving my letters I stopped to watch some of the fleet coming. It was easy enough to pick them. The long, slick-looking, lively seine-boat in tow and the black pile of netting on deck told what they were, and they came jumping out of the mists in a way to make a man's heart beat.

There was a man standing on the jetty. He was master of a three-masted coaster, he told me. "You come off one of them Gloucester mackerel-catchers?" he asked me. I said yes. "That new-looking one that came in a while ago?" I said yes again.

"I was watching her—she's a dream—a dream. I never see anything like them—the whole bunch of 'em. Look at this one—ain't she got on about all she can stand up under though? My soul, ain't she staggering! I expect her skipper knows his business—don't expect he'd be skipper of a fine vessel like that if he didn't. But if 'twas me I'd just about take a wide tuck or two in that ever-lastin' mains'l he's got there. My conscience, but ain't he a-sockin' it to her! I s'pose that's the way some of your vessels are sailed out and never heard from again—that was never run into, nor rolled over, nor sunk in a reg'lar way, but just drove right into it head-first trying to make a passage and drowned before ever they could rise again. Well, good-luck to you, old girl, and your skipper, whoever he is, and I guess if your canvas stays on you'll be to anchor before a great while, for you're making steamboat time. Go it, old girl, and your little baby on behind, go it! There ain't nothing short of an ocean liner could get you now. Go it! a sail or two don't matter—if it's a good mackerel season I s'pose the owners don't mind if you blow away a few sails. Go it, God bless you! Go it! you're the lads can sail a vessel, you fishermen of Gloucester. Lord, if I dared to try a thing like that with my vessel and my crew and the old gear I got, I rather expect I'd have a rigger's bill by the time I got home—if ever I got home carryin' on like that in my old hooker."

I watched her, too. She was the Tarantula, Jim Porter, another sail-carrier. Around the point and across she tore and over toward the sands beyond, swung off on her heel to her skipper's heave, came down by the wreck of a big three-master on the inner beach, and around and up opposite what looked like a building on the hill. Then it was down with the wheel, down with headsails, let go fore-halyards, over with the anchor, and there she was, another fisherman of Gloucester, at rest in harbor after an all-night fight with a lively breeze.

And I left the master of the coaster there and went back to the Duncan, where the crew were standing along the rail or leaning over the house and having a lot of fun sizing up those who were coming in. It is one of the enjoyments of the seining fleet—this racing to harbor when it blows and then watching the others work in. I've heard it said that no place in the world can show a fleet like them—all fine vessels, from one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet over all, deep draught, heavily sparred, and provided with all kinds of sail. They were ably managed, of course,—and a dash to port makes the finest kind of a regatta. No better chances are offered to try vessels and seamanship—no drifting or flukes but wind enough for all hands and on all points of sailing generally.

They came swooping in one after the other—like huge sea-gulls, only with wings held close. Now, with plenty of light, those already in could easily see the others coming long before they rounded the jetty. Even if we couldn't see the hulls of them, there were fellows who could name them—one vessel after the other—just by the spars and upper rigging. The cut of a topsail, the look of a mast-head, the set of a gaff—the smallest little thing was enough to place them, so well were they acquainted with one another. And the distance at which some of them could pick out a vessel was amazing.

George Moore, coming up out of the forec's'le to dump over some scraps, spied one. "The Mary Grace Adams," he sang out,—"the shortest forem'st out of Gloucester. She must've been well inside when she started—to get in at this time. Slow—man, but she is slow, that one."

"Yes, that's the old girl, and behind her is the Dreamer—Charlie Green—black mast-heads and two patches on her jumbo. She'll be in and all fast before the Mary Grace's straightened out."

And so it was—almost. The Mary Adams was one of the older fleet and never much of a sailer. The Dreamer was one of the newer vessels, able, and a big sailer. They were well raked by the critics, as under their four lowers they whipped in and around and passed on by.

After the Dreamer came the Madeline, with "Black Jack" Hogan, a fleshy man for a fisherman, who minded his way and remained unmoved at the compliments paid his vessel, one of the prize beauties of the fleet. The Marguerite, Charley Falvey, a dog at seining, always among the high-liners, who got more fun out of a summer's seining than most men ever got out of yachting, who bought all the latest inventions in gear as fast as they came out and who had a dainty way of getting fish. The Marguerite dipped her bow as she passed, while her clever skipper nodded along the line.

The King Philip, another fast beauty, made her bow and dipped her jibs to her mates in harbor. At sight of her master, Al McNeill, a great shout goes up. "Ho, ho! boys, here's Lucky Al! Whose seine was it couldn't hold a jeesly big school one day off here last spring but Billie Simms'? Yes, sir, Billie Simms. Billie fills up and was just about thinking he'd have to let the rest go when who heaves in sight and rounds to and says, 'Can I help y'out, William?' Who but Lucky Al McNeill, of course. Bales out two hundred barrels as nice fat mackerel as anybody'd want to see. 'Just fills me up,' says Al, and scoots to market. Just been to New York, mind you, that same week with two hundred and fifty barrels he got twelve cents apiece for. 'Just fills me up,' says Al, and scoots. No, he ain't a bit lucky, Captain Al ain't—married a young wife only last fall."

Then followed the Albatross, with Mark Powers giving the orders. Then the Privateer, another fast one, but going sluggishly now because of a stove-in seine-boat wallowing astern. Then the North Wind, with her decks swept clear of everything but her house and hatches. Seine-boat, seine and dory were gone.

After her was a big, powerful vessel, the Ave Maria, with the most erratic skipper of all. This man never appeared but the gossip broke out. Andie Howe had his record. "Here comes George Ross. What's this they say now?—that he don't come down from the mast-head now like he used to, when he strikes a school. When I was with him he was a pretty lively man comin' from aloft—used to sort of fall down, you know. But now he comes down gentle-like—slides down the back-stay. Only trouble now he's got to get new rubber boots every other trip, 'count of the creases he wears in the legs of them sliding down the wire. I tell you they all lose their nerve as they get older. There's Billie Simms coming behind him. He's given up tryin' to sail his vessel on the side and tryin' to see how long he c'n carry all he c'n pile on. Billie says 't'ain't like when a fellow's young and ain't got any family. I expect it's about the same with George since he got married." The master of the Ave Maria didn't even glance over as he piloted his vessel along. He very well knew that we were talking about him.

Pretty soon came one that everybody looked at doubtfully. She sported a new mainmast and a new fore-gaff. "Who's this old hooker with her new spars? Looks like a vessel just home from salt fishing, don't she? Lord, but she needs painting." Nobody seemed to know who she was, and as she got nearer there was a straining of eyes for her name forward. "The H-A-R-B-I—oh, the Harbinger. Must be old Marks and the old craft he bought down East last fall. This the old man, of course—the Harbinger. How long's she been down here? Came down ahead of the fleet? Well, she ought to—by the looks of her she needs a good early start to get anywhere. They ought to be glad to get in. I mind that September breeze twenty year ago that the old man said blew all the water off Quero and drove him ashore on Sable Island. He says he ain't taking any more line storms in his. No, nor anybody else in the old square-enders he gen'rally sails in. I'll bet he's glad to change winter trawling for summer seining. I'll bet he put in a few wakeful nights on the Banks in his time—mind the time he parted his cable and came bumping over Sable Island No'the-east Bar? Found the only channel there was, I callate. 'Special little angels was looking out for me,' he says, when he got home. 'Yes,' says Wesley Marrs—he was telling it to Wesley—'yes,' says Wesley, 'but I'll bet keepin' the lead goin' had a hell of a lot to do with it, too.'"

So they came rolling in by the end of the jetty until they could make one last tack of it. Like tumbling dolphins they were—seiners all, with a single boat towing astern and a single dory, or sometimes two dories, lashed in the waist, all gear stowed away, under four lower sails mostly—jumbo, jib, fore and main, though now and then was one with a mainsail in stops and a trysail laced to the gaff, and all laying down to it until their rails were washing under and the sea hissed over the bows.

Anybody would have to admire them as they came scooting past. When they thought they were close enough to the Breakwater—and some went pretty close—up or down would go the wheel, according to which end of the jetty they came in by, around they would go, and across the flats and down on the fleet they would come shooting. They breasted into the hollows like any sea-bird and lifted with every heave to shake the water from bilge to quarter. They came across with never a let-up, shaving everything along the way until a good berth was picked out. Then they let go sails, dropped anchor and were ready for a rest.

Nobody got by our fellows without a word. And we weren't the only crew of critics. Bungling seamanship would get a slashing here, but there was none of that. It was all good, but there are degrees of goodness, of course. First-class seamanship being a matter of course, only a wonderful exhibition won approval from everybody. And crews coming in, knowing what was ahead of them, made no mistakes in that harbor.

A dozen ordinary skippers sailed past before a famous fisherman at length came in. Everybody knew him—a dog, a high-liner, truly a master mariner. A murmur went up. "There's the boy," said Tommie Clancy. "I mind last summer when he came into Souris just such a day as this, but with more wind stirring. 'Twas Fourth of July and we had all our flags to the peak—and some fine patriotic fights going on ashore that day—our flag and the English. The harbor was jammed with seiners and fresh-fishers. You couldn't see room for a dory, looking at 'em end on. But that don't jar Tom O'Donnell. What does he do? He just comes in and sails around the fleet like a cup-defender on parade—and every bit of canvas he had aboard flying—only his crew had to hang onto the ring-bolts under the wind'ard rail. Well, he comes piling in, looks the fleet over, sizes up everything, picks out a nice spot as he shoots around, sails out the harbor again—clean out, yes sir, clean out—comes about—and it blowing a living gale all the time—shoots her in again, dives across a line of us, and fetches her up standing. We could've jumped from our rail to his in jack-boots, he was that close to us and another fellow the other side. Slid her in like you slide the cover into a diddy box. Yes, sir, and that's the same lad you see coming along now—Tom O'Donnell and his Colleen Bawn."

He certainly was coming on now, and a fine working vessel he had. She showed it in every move. She came around like a twin-screw launch, picked out her berth like she had intelligence in her eyes, made for it, swirled, fluttered like a bird, felt with her claws for the ground underneath, found it, gripped it, swayed, hung on, and at last settled gently in her place. There was no more jar to the whole thing than if she had been a cat-boat in a summer breeze. "Pretty, pretty, pretty," you could hear the gang along our rail.

"They talk about knockabout racing craft," said Clancy, "but did y'ever see anything drop to a berth slicker than that? And that's a vessel you c'n go to sea in, and in the hardest winter gale that ever blew you c'n turn in when your watch is done and have a feeling of comfort."

"Where's the steam trawler, the porgy boat, we saw yesterday?"

"Put into Chincoteague most likely—nearer than here."

"That's what we'll have to come to yet—steamers, and go on wages like a waiter in a hotel."

"Yes," said Clancy, "I s'pose so, but with vessels like we got and the seamen sailing out of Gloucester we'll stave 'em off a long time yet, and even as it is, give me a breeze and a vessel like this one under us and we'll beat out all the steam fishermen that ever turned a screw."

One of the latest experiments in a fishermen's model reached in then and her coming started a chorus. They were always trying new models in Gloucester, everybody was so anxious to have a winner. This one's sails were still white and pretty and her hull still shiny in fresh black paint. The red stripe along her rail and the gold stripe along her run set off her lines; her gear didn't have a speck on it, her spars were yellow as could be and to leeward we thought we could still smell the patent varnish. For that matter there were several there as new-looking as she was, our own vessel for one; but there had been a lot of talk about this one. She was going to clean out the fleet. She had been pretending to a lot, and as she hadn't yet made good, of course she got a great raking.

"She's here at last, boys—the yacht, the wonderful, marvellous Victory! Ain't she a bird? Built to beat the fleet! Look at the knockabout bow of her!"

"Knockabout googleums—h-yah! Scoop shovel snout and a stern ugly as a battle-ship's, and the Lord knows there was overhang and to spare to tail her out decent. Cut out the yellow and the red and the whole lot of gold decorations and she's as homely as a Newf'undland jack."

"Just the same, she c'n sail," said somebody who wanted to start an argument.

"Sail! Yah! might beat a Rockport granite sloop. Ever hear of the Henry Clay Parker, Mister Billie Simms, and the little licking she gave this winner of yours? No? Well, you want to go around and have a drink or two with the boys next time you're ashore and get the news. It was like a dogfish and a mackerel—the Henry just eat her up. And there's the others. Why, this one underneath us'd make a holy show of her, I'll bet. And there's half a dozen others. There's the—oh, what's the use?"

"Oh, Eddie Parsons, a perfect lady and coming in like a high-stepper and yet you must malign her beauty and make light of her virtue," and Clancy jammed Parsons's sou'wester down over his eyes—"hush up, Eddie."

Into the harbor and after the Victory heaved another one. And she was the real thing—handsome, fast and able. And she had a record for bringing the fish home—an able vessel and well-known for it. She could carry whole sails when some of the others were double-reefed and thinking of dragging trysails out of the hold. And her skipper was a wonder.

"You c'n cut all the others out—here comes the real thing. Here's the old dog himself. Did he ever miss a blow? And look at him. Every man comes in here to-day under four lowers, no more, and some under reefed mains'l, or trys'l, but four whole lowers ain't enough for this gentleman—not for Wesley. He must carry that gaff-tops'l if he pulls the planks out of her. He always brings her home, but if some of the underwriters'd see him out here they'd soon blacklist him till he mended his ways. It's a blessed wonder he ain't found bottom before this. Look at her now skating on her ear. There she goes—if they'd just lower a man over the weather rail with a line on him he could write his name on her keel!"

And she certainly was something to make a man's eyes stick out. There had been a vessel or two that staggered before, but the Lucy fairly rolled down into it, and there was no earthly reason why she should do it except that it pleased her skipper to sport that extra kite.

She boiled up from the end of the jetty, and her wake was the wake of a screw steamer. She had come from home, we knew, and so it happened she was one of the last to get in. The harbor was crowded as she straightened out. We knew she would not have too much leeway coming on, and what berth she was after kept everybody guessing.

"If she goes where's she pointing—and most vessels do—she'll find a berth down on the beach on that course, down about where the wreck is. It'll be dry enough walking when she gets there. If she keeps on the gait she's going now, she ought to be able to fetch good and high and dry up on the mud. They'd cert'nly be able to step ashore—when they get there. Ah-h-h, but that's more like it."

She was taking it over the quarter then. She cleared the stern of the most leeward of the fleet and then kicked off, heading over to where the Johnnie Duncan and the Victory lay. The betting was that she would round to and drop in between us two. There was room there, but only just room. It would be a close fit, but there was room.

But she didn't round to. She held straight on without the sign of a swerve. On the Johnnie, the gang being almost in her path picked out a course for her. Between the outer end of our seine-boat and the end of the bowsprit of the Mary Grace Adams was a passage that may have been the width of a vessel. But the space seemed too narrow. Our crew were wondering if he would try it. Even the skipper, standing in the companionway, stepped up on deck to have a better look.

"He's got to take it quarterin', and it ain't wide enough," said Eddie Parsons.

"Quartering—yes, but with everything hauled inboard," said the skipper. "He'll try it, I guess. I was with him for two years, and if he feels like trying it he'll try it."

"And s'pose he does try it, Skipper?"

"Oh, he'll come pretty near making it, though he stands a good chance to scrape the paint off our seine-boat going by. No, don't touch the seine-boat—let her be as she is. We'll fool 'em if they think they c'n jar anybody here coming on like that. There's room enough if nothing slips, and if they hit it's their lookout."

It looked like a narrow space for a vessel of her beam to go through, but she hopped along, and the eyes of all the harbor followed her to the point where she must turn tail or make the passage.

She held on—her chance to go back was gone.

"Watch her, boys. Now she's whooping—look at her come!"

And she was coming. Her windward side was lifted so high that her bottom planks could be seen. Her oil-skinned crew were crowded forward. There were men at the fore-halyards, at jib-halyards, at the down-hauls, and a group were standing by the anchor. Two men were at the wheel.

She bit into it. There was froth at her mouth. She was so near now that we could read the faces of her crew; and wide awake to this fine seamanship we all leaned over the rail, the better to see how she'd make out. The crews of half the vessels inside the Breakwater were watching her.

She was a length away and jumping to it. It was yet in doubt, but she was certainly rushing to some sort of a finish. She rushed on, and w-r-r-rp! her weather bow came down on the Johnnie's seine-boat. But it didn't quite hit it. Her quarter to leeward just cut under the Adams' bowsprit and the leech of her mainsail seemed to flatten past. For a moment we were not certain, but no jolt or lurch came and our seine-boat seemed all right. Another jump and she was clear by. And then we felt like cheering her, and her skipper Wesley Marrs, too, as he stood to the wheel and sung out, "Couldn't scare you, could I, Maurice. I thought you'd haul your seine-boat in. I've got your extra seine," and swept by.

From our deck and from the deck of the Adams, and from the decks of half a dozen others, could be heard murmurs, and there was a general pointing out of the redoubtable skipper himself to the green hands that knew him only by reputation. "That's him, Wesley himself—the stocky little man of the two at the wheel."

If the stocky little man heard the hails that were sent after him, he made no sign, unless a faint dipping of his sou'wester back over his windward shoulder was his way of showing it.

He had business yet, had Wesley Marrs. There was a tug and a barge and another big seiner in his course. He clipped the tug, scraped the barge, and set the seiner's boat a-dancing, and two lengths more he put down the wheel and threw her gracefully into the wind. Down came jib, down came jumbo, over splashed the anchor. She ran forward a little, rattled back a link or two, steadied herself, and there she was. Her big mainsail was yet shaking in the wind, her gaff-topsail yet fluttering aloft, but she herself, the Lucy Foster of Gloucester, was at your service. "And what do you think of her, people?" might just as well have been shot off her deck through a megaphone, for that was what her bearing and the unnatural smartness of her crew plainly were saying.

We all drew breath again. Clancy unbent from the rail and shook his head in high approval. He took off his sou'wester, slatted it over the after-bitt to clear the brim of water, and spoke his mind. "You'll see nothing cleaner than that in this harbor to-day, fellows, and you'll see some pretty fair work at that. That fellow—he's an able seaman."

"Yes, sir—an able seaman," said the skipper also.

And Clancy and the skipper were something in the line of able seamen themselves.



XIII

WESLEY MARRS BRINGS A MESSAGE

Generally a day in harbor is a day of loafing for the crew of a seiner; but it was not so altogether with us that day. Within two hours of the time that Wesley Marrs came in to the Breakwater in such slashing style the skipper had us into the seine-boat and on the way to the Lucy Foster. By his orders we took along ten empty mackerel barrels. "We'll go over to the beach first and fill these barrels up with sand." We all knew what the sand was for—the Johnnie Duncan was going to be put in trim to do her best sailing. Coming down the coast the skipper and Clancy decided that she was down by the stern a trifle.

So we attended to the sand, and on the way back hauled our second seine out of the hold of the Lucy Foster, and piled it into the seine-boat. With the last of the twine into the seine-boat and just as we were about to push off from the Lucy, Wesley Marrs put a foot on the rail of his vessel and spoke to Maurice.

"And when I was taking the last of that aboard in the dock in Gloucester, you wouldn't believe who it was stepped onto the cap-log and looking down on the deck of the Lucy says, 'And you'll take good care of that seine for Captain Blake, won't you, Captain Marrs?' Could you guess now, Maurice?"

"No," said Maurice.

"No, I'll bet you can't. It isn't often she comes down the dock. Miss Foster no less. 'And what makes you think I won't?' I asks her. 'Oh, of course I know you will,' she says, 'and deliver it to him in good order, too.' 'I'll try,' I says, as though it was a desp'rate job I had on hand—to put a seine in the hold and turn it over to another vessel when I met her. 'But what makes you worry about this partic'lar seine, Miss Foster?' I asks."

"Which Miss Foster was it, Wesley—the one your vessel is named after?" broke in our skipper.

"No—no—but the younger one—Alice. 'But what makes you worry?' I asks her, and she didn't say anything, but that one that's with her all the time—the one that goes with the lad that designed the Johnnie Duncan——"

"Joe's cousin here——"

"That's it—the fat little Buckley girl—a fine girl too. And if I was a younger man and looking for a wife, there's the kind for me—but anyway she up and says, 'Alice is worried, Captain Marrs, because she owns a third of Captain Blake's vessel—a good part of her little fortune's in the Duncan—and if anything happens to the seine one-third of it, of course, comes out of her. And it cost a good many hundred dollars. So you must be careful.' 'Oh, that's it?' says I. 'Then it'll be shortened sail and extra careful watches on the Lucy till I meet Maurice, for I mustn't lose any property of Miss Foster's.'"

We rowed away from the Lucy Foster, and I supposed that was the end of it. But that night going on deck to take a last look at the stars before turning in, there was the skipper and Clancy walking the break and talking.

"And did you know, Tommie, that Miss Foster owned any of this one?" the skipper was saying.

"No," said Tommie, "I didn't know, but——"

"But you suspected. Well, I didn't even suspect. And there's that seine we lost last night—cost all of eight hundred dollars."

"That's what it did—a fine seine."

A few minutes later the skipper went below, and Clancy, seeing me, said, "Hold on, Joey. Did you hear what the skipper said?"

"About Miss Foster owning a share of the vessel?"

"Well, not that so much, but about the loss of the seine?"

"Yes—why?"

"Why? Joe, but sometimes a man would think you were about ten year old. I tell you, Joe, I'm not too sure it's going to be Withrow. And if you don't see some driving on this one when next we get among the fish, then—" But he didn't finish it, only clucked his tongue and went below.

Clancy was right again. During the night the weather moderated, and in the morning the first of the fleet to go out past the Breakwater was the Johnnie Duncan. It looked to us as if the skipper thought the mackerel would be all gone out of the sea before we got back to the spot where we had struck them two days before.



XIV

A PROSPECT OF NIGHT-SEINING

We might have stayed in harbor another twenty-four hours and lost nothing by it. It was dawn when we put out from the Delaware Breakwater, and by dark of the same day we were back to where we had met the big school and lost the seine two days before. And there we hung about for another night and day waiting for the sea to flatten out. Mackerel rarely show in rough weather, even if you could put out a seine-boat and go after them. But I suppose that it did us no harm to be on the ground and ready.

On the evening of the next day there was something doing. There was still some sea on, but not enough to hurt. Along about eight o'clock, I remember, I came off watch and dropped into the forec's'le to fix up my arm, which was still badly strained from hanging onto the seine-boat's painter when I was washed overboard. The skipper, taking a look, told me not to go into the dory that night, but to let Billie Hurd, who was spare hand, take my place, and for me to stay aboard. I would rather have gone into the dory, of course, but was not able to pull an oar—that is, pull it as I'd have to pull when driving for a school—and knowing I would be no more than so much freight in the dory there was nothing else to do. "And if we see fish, Clancy'll stay to the mast-head to-night—as good a seine-master as sails out of Gloucester is Tommie—better than me," he said. "I'm going in the seine-boat, and Eddie Parsons, you'll take Clancy's place in the dory." And buttoning his oil-jacket up tight, he put on his mitts and went on deck.

That evening the forward gang were doing about as much work as seiners at leisure usually do. It was in the air that we would strike fish, but the men had not yet been told to get ready. So four of them were playing whist at the table under the lamp and two were lying half in and half out of opposite upper bunks, trying to get more of the light on the pages of the books they were reading. Long Steve, in a lower port bunk nearer the gangway, was humming something sentimental, and two were in a knot on the lockers, arguing fiercely over nothing in particular. There was a fellow in the peak roaring out, "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled." Only the cook, just done with mixing bread, seemed to have ever done a lick of work in his life, and he was now standing by the galley fire rolling the dough off his fingers. The cook on a fisherman is always a busy man.

Down the companionway and into the thick of this dropped Clancy, oiled up and all ready to go aloft. To the mast-head of a vessel, even on an April night in southern waters, it is cold enough, especially when, like a seiner, she is nearly always by the wind; and Clancy was wrapped up. "I think," said Clancy, as his boot-heels hit the floor, "I'll have a mug-up." From the boiler on the galley-stove he poured out a mug of coffee and from the grub-locker he took a slice of bread and two thick slices of cold beef. He buried the bread among the beef and leaned against the foremast while he ate.

Once when Clancy was a skipper he did a fine bit of rescuing out to sea, and after he got home a newspaper man saw him and wrote him up. I had the clipping stuck on the wall of Withrow's store for months and had read it so often that I knew it by heart. "In heavy jack-boots and summer sou'wester, with a black jersey of fine quality sticking up above the neck of his oil-jacket, with a face that won you at sight; cheeks a nice even pink; damp, storm-beaten, and healthful; with mouth, eyes, and jaw bespeaking humor, sympathy, and courage; shoulders that seemed made for butting to windward—an attractive, inspiring, magnetic man altogether—that is Captain Tommie Clancy of the Gloucester fisherman, the Mary Andrews." That, was how it read, and certainly it fitted him now, as he stood there in the middle of the thick curling smoke of the pipes, holding the mug of coffee in one hand and the sandwich of bread and meat in the other, leaning easily against the butt of the foremast, and between gulps and bites taking notice of the crew.

"Give me," he said to the cook as the proper man for an audience, "a seiner's crew when they're not on fish for real gentlemen of leisure. Look at 'em now—you'd think they were all near-sighted, with their cards up to their chins. And above them look—Kipling to starb'd and the Duchess to port. Mulvaney, I'll bet, filled full of whiskey and keeping the heathen on the jump, and Airy Fairy Lillian, or some other daisy with winning ways, disturbing the peace of mind of half a dozen dukes. Mulvaney's all right, but the Duchess! They'll be taking books of that kind to the mast-head next. What d'y' s'pose I found aft the other day? Now what d'y' s'pose? I'll bet you'd never guess. No, no. Well, 'He Loved, but Was Lured Away.' Yes. Isn't that fine stuff for a fisherman to be feeding on? But whoever was reading it, he was ashamed of it. 'Well, who owns this thing?' says I, picking up the lured-away lad. 'Nobody,' speaks up Sam there. Of course he didn't own it—O no!

"Violet Vance," went on Clancy, and took another bite of his sandwich. "Violet Vance and Wilful Winnie and a whole holdful of airy creatures couldn't help a fisherman when there's anything stirring. I waded through a whole bunch of 'em once,"—he reached over and took a wedge of pie from the grub-locker. "Yes, I went through a whole bunch of 'em once—pretty good pie this, cook, though gen'rally those artificial apples that swings on strings ain't in it with the natural tree apples for pie—once when we were laying somewhere to the east'ard of Sable Island, in a blow and a thick fog—fresh halibuting—and right in the way of the liners. And I expect I was going around like a man asleep, because the skipper comes up and begins to talk to me. It was my first trip with him and I was a young lad. 'Young fellow,' says the skipper, Matt Dawson—this was in the Lorelei—'young fellow,' says Matt, 'you look tired. Let me call up the crew and swing a hammock for you from the fore-rigging to the jumbo boom. How'll that do for you? When the jumbo slats it'll keep the hammock rocking. Let me,' he says. 'P'raps,' he goes on, 'you wouldn't mind waking up long enough to give this music box a turn or two every now and then while the fog lasts.' We had a patent fog-horn aboard, the first I ever saw, and I'd clear forgot it—warn't used to patent horns. But just another little wedge of pie, George.

"However, I suppose when there's nothing doing there's no very great harm. But we'll try to keep some of you busy to-night. Praise the Lord, the moon's out of the way and it's looking black already and the sea ought to fire up fine later on. And there's a nice little breeze to overhaul a good school when we see one. If any of you are beginning to think of getting in a wink of sleep then you'd better turn in now, for you're sure to be out before long. I'm going aloft."

Clancy climbed up the companionway. Then followed the scraping of his boot-heels across the deck. Half a minute later, had anybody cared to go up and have a look, I suppose he would have been discovered astraddle of the highest block above the forethroat—he and the skipper—watching out sharply for the lights of the many other vessels about them, but more particularly straining their eyes for the phosphorescent trails of mackerel.



XV

CLANCY TO THE MAST-HEAD

The men below knew their skipper and Clancy too well to imagine that they were to be too long left in peace. And then, too, the next man off watch reported a proper night for mackerel. "Not a blessed star out—and black! It's like digging a hole in the ground and looking into it. And the skipper's getting nervous, I know. I could hear him stirrin' 'round up there when I was for'ard just now, and he hollered to the wheel that up to the no'the'ard it looked like planty of fish. 'And I callate we ain't the only vessel got eyes for it,' he said."

"Yes," said his watch-mate, who had just dropped down, "it's nothing but side-lights all 'round and——"

Just then came the skipper's voice from aloft. "Tell the boys they might's well oil up and be ready." The watch did not have to repeat it—we all heard it below, and fore and aft, in cabin and forec's'le, the gang made ready. Cards, novels, and all the hot arguments went by the board, and then after a mug-up for nearly all we slid into oil-clothes, boots and sou'westers, and puffing at what was probably to be the last pipeful of the evening, we lay around on lockers and on the floor, backs to the butt of the mast and backs to the stove—wherever there was space for a broad back and a pair of stout legs our fellows dropped themselves, discussing all the while the things that interested them—fish, fishing, fast vessels, big shares, politics, Bob Fitzsimmons, John L. Sullivan, good stories, and just then particularly, because two of the crew were thinking of marrying, the awful price of real estate in Gloucester.

By and by, ringing as clear as if he himself stood at the companionway, came the skipper's voice from the mast-head: "On deck everybody!" No more discussion, no more loafing—pipes were smothered into bosoms, and up the companionway crowded oilskins and jack-boots.

Then came: "It looks like fish ahead of us. Haul the boat alongside and drop the dory over."

We jumped. Four laid hands on the dory in the waist and ten or a dozen heaved away on the stiff painter of the seine-boat that was towing astern. Into the air and over the starboard rail went the dory, while ploughing up to the vessel's boom at the port fore-rigging came the bow of the seine-boat.

Then followed: "Put the tops'ls to her—sharp now."

The halyards could be heard whirring up toward the sky, while two bunches of us sagged and lifted on the deck below. Among us it was, "Now then—o-ho—sway away—good," until topsails were flat as boards, and the schooner, hauled up, had heeled to her scuppers.

"Slap the stays'l to her and up with the balloon. Half the fleet's driving to the no'the'ard. Lively."

The Johnnie liked that rarely. With the seventy-five foot main-boom sheeted in to her rail, with the thirty-seven-foot spike bowsprit poking a lane in the sea when she dove and a path among the clouds when she lifted, with her midship rail all but flush with the sea and the night breeze to sing to her—of course she liked it, and she showed her liking. She'd tear herself apart now before she'd let anything in the fleet go by her. And red and green lights were racing to both quarters of her.

"Into the boat!" It was the skipper's voice again, and fifteen men leaped over the rail at the word. Two dropped into the dory and thirteen jumped from the vessel's rail onto thwarts or netting or into the bottom of the seine-boat—anywhere at all so that they get in quickly. As extra hand on deck I had to stand by and pay out the painter.

In the middle of it came the skipper sliding down from the mast-head. "Drop astern, boat and dory," he called out, and himself leaped over the quarter and onto the pile of netting as into the Johnnie's boiling wake they went. The thirty-eight-foot seine-boat was checked up a dozen fathoms astern, and the dory just astern of that. The two men in the dory had to fend off desperately as they slid by the seine-boat.

On the deck of the Johnnie were the cook, who had the wheel, and myself, who had to stand by the sheets. There would be stirring times soon, for even from the deck occasional flashes of light, marking small pods of mackerel, could be made out on the surface of the sea. Clancy, now at the mast-head alone, was noting these signs, we felt sure, and with them a whole lot of other things. To the mast-heads of other vessels out in the night were other skippers, or seine-masters, and all with skill and nerve and a great will to get fish.

The Johnnie was making perhaps ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. "Slack away a bit, slack away. We're not porpoises."

I jumped to attend to the painter just as Clancy's voice broke in from above: "Swing her off about two points, ease your main sheet and keep an eye on that light to looard. Off, off—that's good—hold her—and Joe, slack stays'l and then foretops'l halyards. Be ready to let go balloon halyards and stand by down-haul. Look alive."

I paid out some sheet from the bitt by the wheel-box, unbuttoned the after stays'l tack, jumped forward and loosed up halyards till her kites dropped limp.

"Down with your balloon there—and at the wheel there, jibe her over. Watch out for that fellow astern—he's pretty handy to our boat. Watch out in boat and dory!" The last warning was a roar.

The big balloon gossamer came rattling down the long stay and the jaws of the booms ratched, fore and main, as they swung over. From astern came the voices of the men in boat and dory, warning each other to hang on when they felt her jibing. Some of them must have come near to being jerked overboard. "Why in God's name don't you slack that painter?" came the voice of the skipper from the boat.

I leaped to give them more painter, and "Draw away your jib—draw away your jumbo," came from aloft. Sheets were barely fast when it was: "Steady at the wheel, George—steady her—ste-a-dy—Great God! man, if you can't see can't you feel that fellow just ahead? And, skipper, tell them to close their jaws astern there—water won't hurt 'em. Ready all now?"

"Ready!" roared back the skipper.

"All right. Down with your wheel a bit now, George. Down—more yet. Hold her there."

The vessels that we had dodged by this bit of luffing were now dropping by us; one red light was slowly sliding past our quarter to port, and one green shooting by our bow to starboard. Evidently Clancy had only been waiting to steer clear of these two neighbors, for there was plenty of fish in sight now. The sea was flashing with trails of them. Clancy now began to bite out commands.

"Stand ready everybody. In the boat and dory there—is everything ready, skipper?"

"All ready, boat and dory."

Out came Clancy's orders then—rapid fire—and as he ripped them out, no whistling wind could smother his voice, no swash of the sea could drown it. In boat, dory and on deck, every brain glowed to understand and every heart pumped to obey.

"Up with your wheel, George, and let her swing by. Stea-dy. Ready in the boat. Steady your wheel. Are you ready in the boat? Let her swing off a little more, George. Steady—hold her there. Stand by in the boat. Now then—now! Cast off your painter, cast off and pull to the west'ard. And drive her! Up with the wheel. More yet—that's good. Drive her, I say, skipper. Where's that dory?—I don't see the dory. The dory, the dory—where in hell's the dory?—show that lantern in the dory. All right, the dory. Hold her up, George. Don't let her swing off another inch now. Drive her, boys, drive her! Look out now! Stand by the seine! Stand by—the twine—do you hear, Steve! The twine! Drive her—drive her—blessed Lord! drive her. That's the stuff, skipper, drive her! Let her come up, George. Down with your wheel—down with you wheel—ste-a-dy. Drive her, skipper, drive her! Turn in now—in—shorter yet. Drive her now—where's that dory!—hold her up!—not you, George! you're all right—ste-a-dy. Hold that dory up to the wind!—that's it, boys—you're all right—straight ahead now! That's the stuff. Turn her in now again, skipper. In the dory there—show your lantern in the dory and be ready for the seine-boat. Good enough. Now cover your lantern in the dory and haul away when you're ready."

To have experienced the strain and drive of that rush, to have held an oar in the boat during that and to have shared with the men in the confidence they gathered—ours was a skipper to steer a boat around a school—and the soul that rang in Clancy's voice!—why, just to stand on deck, as I did, and listen to it—it was like living.

During this dash we could make out neither boat nor dory from deck, but the flashes of light raised by the oars at every stroke were plainly to be seen in that phosphorescent sea. Certainly they were making that boat hop along! Ten good men, with every man a long, broad blade, and double banked, so that every man might encourage his mate and be himself spurred on by desperate effort. Legs, arms, shoulders, back, all went into it and their wake alive with smoke and fire to tell them they were moving! To be in that?—The middle of a black night on the Atlantic was this, and the big seine-heaver was throwing the seine in great armfuls. And Hurd and Parsons in the little dory tossing behind and gamely trying to keep up! They were glad enough to be in the dory, I know, to get hold of the buoy, and you can be sure there was some lively action aboard of her when Clancy called so fiercely to them to hold the buoy up to the wind, so that the efforts of the crew of the seine-boat, racing to get their two hundred odd fathoms of twine fence around the flying school, might not go for naught.



XVI

WE GET A FINE SCHOOL

With his "Haul away now when you're ready," Clancy came down from aloft. He was sliding down evidently by way of the jib halyards, for there was the sound of a chafing whiz that could be nothing else than the friction of oilskins against taut manila rope, a sudden check, as of a block met on the way, an impatient, soft, little forgivable oath, and then a plump! that meant that he must have dropped the last twelve or fifteen feet to the deck. Immediately came the scurry of his boot-heels as he hurried aft. In another moment he stood in the glow of the binnacle light, and reaching back toward the shadow of the cook, but never turning his head from that spot out in the dark where he had last seen the boat, he took the wheel.

"All right, George, I've got you. A good-sized school, by the looks, if they got them, and I think they have. Did you see that boat ahead we near ran into?—the last time we put the wheel down? Man, but for a second I thought they were gone. I hope no blessed vessel comes as near to our fellows. And they were so busy rowing and heaving twine they never saw us, and myself nearly cross-eyed trying to watch them and our own boat and the fish all the time. Go below, George, she's all right now, and tell Joe—where is he?—to go below, too, and have a mug-up for himself. He must be soaked through taking the swash that must've come over her bow for the last hour. But tell him to come right up so's to keep watch out ahead."

I didn't go below, however, but standing by the fore-rigging kept an eye out ahead. Clancy himself stood to the wheel with his head ever turned over one shoulder, until he saw the flare of a torch from the seine-boat. "Good!" he exclaimed. "What there is is safe now, anyway."

After that his work was easy. He had only to dodge the lights of other vessels now, the old red and green lights that had been our neighbors all that evening, and a few new yellow flares that came from other seine-boats. So his eyes ranged the blackness and in rings about his own seine-boat he sailed the Johnnie Duncan. That the crew were quite a little while pursing up only gave him satisfaction. "A nice school, Joe, if they got it all," he said, "a nice school of 'em." And after a pause, "I think I'll stand down and have a look."

He ran down, luffed, and hailed, "Hi—skipper, what's it like?"

From the row of figures that were seen to be crowding gunnel and thwarts and hauling on the seine, one shadow straightened up beside the smoky torch and spoke. "Can't be sure yet, Tommie, but things look all right so far. A fair-sized school if we don't lose 'em."

"Lord, don't lose 'em, skipper, though I think you've got 'em fast enough now. Sounds natural to hear 'em flipping inside the corks, don't it? Ought to be hurrying 'em up, skipper—it's getting along in the night."

Clancy, very well satisfied, stood away again and continued to sail triangles around boat and dory. Being now clear of the greater part of the mental strain his spirits began to lighten. Merely by way of being sociable with himself he hummed some old ditties. There was that about the old coaster, the Eliza Jane. I liked to hear him sing that, as, dancing a one-footed jig-step by the wheel-box, he bumped it out:

"Oh, the 'Liza Jane with a blue foremast And a load of hay came drifting past. Her skipper stood aft and he said, 'How do? We're the 'Liza Jane and who be you?'

He stood by the wheel and he says, 'How do? We're from Bangor, Maine—from where be you?'

"The 'Liza Jane got a new main truck— A darn fine thing but wouldn't stay stuck. Came a breeze one day from the no'-no'-west And the gosh-darned thing came down with the rest.

Oh, hi-diddle-di—a breeze from the west— Who'd 'a' thunk the truck wouldn't stuck with the rest?

"Oh, the 'Liza Jane left the wharf one day, A fine flood tide and the day Friday, But the darned old tide sent her bow askew And the 'Liza Jane began for to slew.

Oh, hi-diddle-di—she'd 'a' fairly flew, If she only could sail the other end to.

"Oh, the 'Liza Jane left port one day, With her hold full of squash and her deck all hay. Two years back with her sails all set She put from Bath—she's sailing yet.

Oh, hi-diddle-di for a good old craft She'd 've sailed very well with her bow on aft."

There was a long story to the Eliza Jane, but Clancy did not finish it. Maybe he felt that it was not in harmony with that lowering sky or that flashing sea. Maybe, too, in the waters that rolled and the wake that smoked was the inspiration for something more stirring. At any rate he began, in a voice that carried far, an old ballad of the war of 1812.

Two or three more stanzas to warm up, and the fight was on. And you would think Clancy was in it. He laid every mast and yard of the enemy over the side of her, he made her decks run with blood, and at the last, in a noble effort, he caused her to strike her flag.

By the time he had finished that, it happened that we were running before the wind, and, going so, it was very quiet aboard the vessel. There was none of the close-hauled wash through her scuppers, nor was there much play of wind through stays and halyards. It was in fact unusually quiet, and it needed only that to set Clancy off on a more melancholy tack. So in a subdued voice he began the recitation of one of the incidents that have helped to make orphans of Gloucester children:

"Twelve good vessels fighting through the night Fighting, fighting, that no'the-east gale; Every man, be sure, did his might, But never a sign of a single sail Was there in the morning when the sun shone red, But a hundred and seventy fine men—dead— Were settling somewhere into the sand On Georges shoals, which is Drowned Men's Land.

"Seventy widows kneeling——"

A long hail came over the water and a torch was raised and lowered. "Hi-i—" hallooed the voice.

"Hi-i-i—" hallooed back Clancy as he pulled down his wheel. You might have thought he intended to run over them. But no, for at the very last second he threw her up cleverly and let her settle beside the boat, from which most of the men came tumbling immediately over the side of the vessel. Of those who stayed, one shackled the boat's bow onto the iron that hung from the boom at the fore-rigging, and having done that, braced an oar between himself and the vessel's run to hold the boat away and steady while another in the stern of the boat did the same thing with his oar. In the boat's waist two men hung onto the seine.

A section of the cork edge of the seine was then gathered inboard and clamped down over the vessel's rail, with the mackerel crowded into the middle part, and the bunt of the seine thus held safely between boat and vessel. Into this space the sea swashed and slapped after a manner that kept all in the boat completely drenched and made it pretty hard for the men in bow and stern to fend off and retain their balance at the same time.

And then began the bailing in. Guided by the skipper, who stood on the break, our big dip-net, which could hold a barrel easily, was dropped over the rail and in among the kicking fish. A twist and a turn and "He-yew!" the skipper yelled. "Oy-hoo!" grunted the two gangs of us at the halyards, and into the air and over the rail swung the dip-net, swimming full. "Down!" We let it sag quickly to Clancy and Parsons, who were at the rail. "Hi-o!" they called cheerfully, and turned the dip-net inside out. Out and down it went again, "He-yew!" and up and in it came again. "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and flop! it was turned upside down and another barrel of fat, lusty fish flipped their length against the hard deck. Head and tail they flipped, each head and tail ten times a second seemingly, until it sounded—they beat the deck so frantically—as if a regiment of gentle little drummer boys were tapping a low but wonderfully quick-sounding roll. Scales flew. We found some next morning glued to the mast-head. I never can get some people to believe that it is so—mackerel scales to the mast-head.

"He-yew!" called the skipper, "Oy-hoo!" hollered the halyards gang, "Hi-o!" sung out Clancy and Parsons cheerily at the rail. "Fine fat fish," commented the men in the seine-boat, the only men who had time to draw an extra breath.

Blazing torches were all around us. Arms worked up and down, big boots stamped, while inboard and out swung the dip-net, and onto the deck flopped the mackerel. "Drive her!" called the skipper, and "He-yew!" "Oy-hoo!" and "Hi-o!" it went. Drenched oilskins steamed, wet faces glowed, glad eyes shone through the smoke flare, and the pitching vessel, left to herself, plunged up and down to the lift and fall of every sea.



XVII

A DRIVE FOR MARKET

Her deck was pretty well filled with mackerel when "All dry," said Long Steve, and drew the last of the seine into the boat.

"Then hurry aboard and drop that seine-boat astern. And—whose watch? Take the wheel—wait till I give you the course—there. But don't drive her awhile yet. Some of those fish might be washed over. But it won't be for long."

"Ready with the ice?" he asked next.

"All ready," and the men who had been chopping ice and making ready the pens in the hold stood by to take the mackerel as we passed them down.

As soon as we had enough of them off the vessel's deck to make it safe to drive her, the skipper gave her a little more sheet and let her go for New York. We hustled the seine-boat aboard too. Some other vessels must have got fish, too, and there was no time to waste.

It was a good-sized school and when we had them all iced and below—more than thirty thousand count—it was time for all hands to turn in—all but the two men on watch of course. I didn't turn in myself, but after a mug-up and pipeful below came on deck again. It was a pretty good sort of a night for a dark night, with a moderate breeze that sang in your ears when you leaned against the halyards and a sea that lapped bucketfuls of spray over her rail forward and that tumbled away in a wide flat hump as our quarter slipped on and left it behind.

I found the skipper leaning against the weather rigging and watching a red light coming up on us. Noticing me he said, "There's that porgy steamer that we beat out for that school the other day overhauling us now. There's the beauty of steam. The crew of this one knows more in a minute than they know in a week about fishing in that steamer, and we'd be carrying our summer kites when that gang, if they were in a sailing vessel, would be laying to an anchor; and with our boat out and their boat out and a school in sight they'd have to take our leavings. But here's one of the times when they have the best of it."

There wasn't much wind stirring then, but it promised to breeze up, or so the skipper thought, and I'm sure I was glad to hear him say it, for the harder it blew the sooner we would get to New York and the better our chance to beat the porgyman. First in to market got the cream.

It was pretty well on to daybreak when the porgy steamer got up abreast of us and after a while worked by. One of them took the trouble to sing out to us when they went by, "Well, you got a school before us, but we'll be tied up and into the dock and spending our money ashore whilst you're still along the Jersey coast somewhere."

And we supposed they would, but Hurd, who was then to our wheel, had to call back to them, "Oh, I dunno. I dunno about that—it's a good run to Fulton Market dock yet." And, turning to us, "I hope the bloody old boiler explodes so nobody'll be able to find a mackerel of 'em this side the Bay of Fundy. Of course I wouldn't want to see the men come to any harm, but wouldn't it jar you—them scrubs?"

The skipper wasn't saying anything. And it meant a lot to him, too. He was looking after the steamer and, I know, praying for wind. We could see it in his eyes.

And sometimes things come as we like to have them. At full dawn it was a nice breeze with the Johnnie Duncan washing her face in plenty of good spray and the fine sun shining warm on a fresh sea-way. Another hour, the wind hauling and still making, the Johnnie was down to her rail, and awhile after that she was getting all the wind she needed.

"We may have a chance to try her out on this run, who knows?" said the skipper. We were coming up on the porgy steamer then and you should have seen his eyes when they looked from the rail to the deck of his vessel and from the deck again to aloft. On the steamer the gang were in the waist watching us coming and they must have been piling the coal into her below and giving her the jet steadily, for out of her funnel was coming the smoke in clouds mixed with steam.

"But their firemen can stoke till they're black in the face and they won't get more than eleven or eleven and a half knots out of her," said Clancy. "I know her—the Nautilus—and if this one under us ain't logging her fourteen good then I don't know. And she'll be doing better yet before we see New York."

They were driving the porgyman then, but she was fated. Once we began to get her she came back to us fast enough, and once she was astern she troubled us no more. After the porgyman we passed a big white yacht, evidently just up from the West Indies after a winter's cruise. She looked a model for a good sailer, but there was no chance to try her out, for they had her under shortened sail when we went by.

There was a New York blue-fisherman on our weather bow bound for New York, too, and the way we went by her was a scandal. And farther on we drove by a big bark—big enough, almost, to take us aboard. They were plainly trying to make a passage on her, but we left her too. Then we passed another yacht, but she wasn't carrying half our sail. Her hull was as long as ours, but she didn't begin to be sparred as we were. We must have had ten feet on her main-boom and ten feet more bowsprit outboard, and yet under her four lower sails she seemed to be making heavy going of it. It's a good yacht that can hold a fisherman in a breeze and a sea-way. We beat this one about as bad as we beat the blue-fisherman. As we went by we tried to look as though we had beaten so many vessels that we'd lost all interest in racing, and at the same time we were all dancing on our toes to think what a vessel we had under us. It was that passage we held the north-bound Savannah steamer for seven hours. Her passengers stood by the rail and watched us, and when at last we crowded our bowsprit past her nose, they waved their handkerchiefs and cheered us like mad.

"When we get this one loosened up a bit and down to her trim, she'll sail some or I don't know," said our skipper. He stood in the cabin gangway then and filled his boots with water, but he wouldn't take in sail. Back behind us was another seiner. We could just make out that they were soaking it to her too. The skipper nodded his head back at her. Then, with one hand on the house and the other on the rail, he looked out from under our main-boom and across at the steamer. "Not a rag—let the spars come out of her."

One thing was sure—the Johnnie was a vessel that could stand driving. She didn't crowd herself as she got going. No, sir! The harder we drove her the faster she went. Laying down on her side made no difference to her. In fact we were not sure that she wouldn't do her best sailing on her side. But it hadn't come to that yet. She was standing up under sail fine. Most of them, we knew, would have washed everything off their deck before that. And certainly there would have been no standing down by the lee rail on too many of them with that breeze abeam.

Going up New York harbor, where we had to tack, the Savannah steamer could have gone by if she had to, but big steamers slow down some going into a harbor, and we holding on to everything made up for the extra distance sailed. The wind, of course, was nothing to what it was outside, and that made some difference. Anyway, we kept the Johnnie going and held the steamer up to the Battery, where, as she had to go up North River, she gave us three toots. The people on the Battery must have had a good look at us. I guess it was not every day they saw a schooner of the Johnnie's size carrying on like that. Billie Hurd had to pay his respects to them. "Look, you loafers, look, and see a real vessel sailing in."

There was a sassy little East River towboat that wanted to give us a tow, but our skipper said it would be losing time to take sail off and wait for a line then. The tug captain said, "Oh, no; and you can't dock her anyway in this harbor without a tug."

"Oh, I can dock her all right, I guess," said our skipper.

"Maybe you think you can, but wait till you try it, and have a nice little bill for damages besides."

"Well, the vessel's good for the damages, too."

That towboat tailed us just the same, but we had the satisfaction of fooling him. The skipper kept the Johnnie going till the right time and then, when the tugboat people thought it was too late, he shot her about on her heel and into the dock with her mainsail coming down on the run and jibs dead.

A couple of East Side loafers standing on the wharf cap-log were nearly swept away by the end of our bowsprit, we came on so fast. Four or five of us leaped ashore, and with lines out and made fast in no time, we had her docked without so much as cracking a single shingle of the house across the head of the dock.

We sold our mackerel for nineteen cents apiece. Fifty-seven hundred and odd dollars was our stock, and about a hundred and forty dollars each man's share. We felt a little bit chesty after that. We were not the first to market that year, but we were the first since the early flurry, and the biggest stock so far that spring was to our credit.