The Seiners

Excerpt

THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW’S

It was only a few days before this that the new vessel of Mr. Withrow’s, built by him, as everybody supposed, for Maurice Blake, had been towed around from Essex, and I remember how Maurice stood on the dock that afternoon and looked her over.

There was not a bolt or a plank or a seam in her whole hull, not a square inch inside or out, that he had not been over half a dozen times while she was on the stocks; but now he had to look her over again, and as he looked his eyes took on a shine. She had been designed by a man famous the world over, and was intended to beat anything that ever sailed past Eastern Point.

She certainly was a great-looking model of a vessel, and “If she only sails and handles half so well as she looks, she’ll do for me,” said Maurice. “Yes, sir, and if she’s up to what I think she ought to be, I wouldn’t be afraid to bet my share of what we make out South that she’ll hold her own with anything out of Gloucester––give her a few weeks to loosen up, of course.”

That was a good deal to say, for it was a great fleet of vessels sailing out of Gloucester; but even so, even allowing for a young skipper’s pride in his first crack vessel, it meant a whole lot coming like that from Maurice Blake.

And on top of all that Maurice and Withrow had to quarrel, though what about I never found out. I only know that I was ready to believe that Withrow was to blame, for I liked Maurice and did not like Withrow, even though Withrow was the man from whom I drew my pay every week. And yet I could not understand it, for Maurice Blake had been far and away the most successful skipper sailing for Withrow, and Withrow always had a good eye for the dollar.

No more came of it until this particular morning, some days after Maurice and Withrow had quarrelled. Wesley Marrs and Tommie Clancy, two men that I never tired of listening to, were on the dock and sizing up the new vessel. Wesley Marrs was himself a great fisherman, and master at this time of the wonderful Lucy Foster.

When she swings the main boom over

 And she feels the wind abaft,

The way she’ll walk to Gloucester’ll

 Make a steamer look a raft.

For she’s the Lucy Foster,

She’s a seiner out of Gloucester,––

was the way the fishermen of the port used to sing about the Lucy; while Tommie Clancy was Maurice Blake’s closest friend.

With ballast stored, masts stepped, rigging set up, and sails bent, setting as sweet as could be to her lines and the lumpers beginning to get her ready for the mackerel season, the Fred Withrow was certainly a picture.

After a couple of extra long pulls, blowing the smoke into the air, and another look above and below, “That one––she’ll sail some or I don’t know,” said Wesley.

“She sure will,” said Tommie; “and it’s a jeesly shame Maurice isn’t to have her.” Then turning to me, “What in the devil’s name ails that man you work for, Joey?”

I said I didn’t know.

“No, nor nobody else knows. I’d like to work in that store for him for about ten minutes....