"The mate? What was his name?"
"Why, Hanson, I think—don't you know him? We exchanged some little talk about New Haven, where he comes from, seeing I lived a year there once. Everyone was in a whirl of last-minute business. I felt in the way. Never knew there were so many different ropes to trip over."
Reuben set the shoes aside. "Last-minute business?"
"Why, yes." The doctor glanced down, puzzled. "What's the matter, Reuben? What did I say to disturb thee?"
"Did Uncle John say when Artemis was to sail?"
"Why, today. You didn't know?"
"No, I—pray tell me about it."
"Well—he said she ought to have sailed that day, yesterday, but they were waiting on some cargo from Gloucester, salt fish I believe, that hadn't come, and Captain Jenks all of a growl about it. They left it that they would wait till today, and if it still had not come she'd sail and—let me think—put in at Sherburne on Nantucket, and find what the islanders might offer to fill her hold. To my ignorant eye she already looked low in the water, but Captain Jenks was swearing she'd ride sweeter for another twenty ton, and a dirty shame—not his exact words—she should sail light."
"And then New York, from Sherburne?"
"Why, no, Reuben—Barbados, thy great-uncle said."