I ended with a bit of the sermon and a prayer, and when I raised my head the old man of the sardonic grin was standing before me.
"Missus," he said in a husky whisper, "I'd like to shake your hand."
I took his hard old fist, and then, seeing that many of the other sailors were beginning to move hospitably but shyly toward me, I said:
"I would like to shake hands with every man here."
At the words they surged forward, and the affair became a reception, during which I shook hands with every sailor of my congregation. The next day my hand was swollen out of shape, for the sailors had gripped it as if they were hauling on a hawser; but the experience was worth the discomfort. The best moment of the morning came, however, when the pastor of the ship faced me, goggle-eyed and marveling.
"I wouldn't have believed it," was all he could say. "I thought the men would mob you."
"Why should they mob me?" I wanted to know.
"Why," he stammered, "because the thing is so—so—unnatural."
"Well," I said, "if it is unnatural for women to talk to men, we have been living in an unnatural world for a long time. Moreover, if it is unnatural, why did Jesus send a woman out as the first preacher?"
He waived a discussion of that question by inviting us all to his cabin to drink wine with him—and as we were "total abstainers," it seemed as unnatural to us to have him offer us wine as a woman's preaching had seemed to him.