The Captain snorted a little over the fresh bread and some of the other things.
"If you'd ever had to live for months at a time on salt-hoss an' hard tack, the same's I've done, you wouldn't bring soft bread on a boat. It spiles in no time."
That did not seem to me a good argument, for if the Captain didn't like to live on these things, why should he want us to bring them? But I could see that Jimmy Toppan—who liked everything done sailor-fashion—was rather fascinated by the idea of eating nothing but ship's food. Ed Mason and I, however, had read the books by Clark Russell, and we didn't want to eat biscuits full of weevils, bad meat, and all the other unpleasant things they gave to sailors. We agreed that salt horse, or fresh horse, either, did not strike our fancy. Anyhow, we ate up the soft bread the first day so we did not have to worry about it afterwards. We counted on getting fish and clams for chowders, and probably some lobsters at Duck Island.
By this time, Clarence was coming ashore in the tender. He did not sit facing the stern, and pull with the oars as any ordinary person would have done. Instead, he faced the bow, and used the oars to push with. He had seen the Captain doing this, and, like Jimmy, it was his aim to be as much of a sailor as possible. Why the Captain did it, I cannot say, unless it was for the reason that sailors often seem to enjoy doing things in an odd and awkward fashion, so as to puzzle landsmen. Neither of them made very good progress by it, and Clarence wabbled the boat, and caught crabs every other stroke.
At last he got alongside the wharf, and we put some of our things in the boat, and rowed out to the "Hoppergrass." It took two trips to carry everything, for we had bags of clothes, as well as rubber boots and oil-skins. Ed Mason and Clarence, between them, managed to let the water-melon slip out of the straps, so it fell into the river and went bobbing down stream with the tide. The Captain and I, who were still in the tender, went after it.
Did you ever try to fish a big water-melon out of a river? It is about the roundest thing, and the slipperyest thing, and the hardest thing to get hold of, that you could imagine. It rolls over and over, and when you get it out—plop! it tumbles back into the water and sinks out of sight. Then it comes up again— bobbing—at some other place. Clarence and Ed were in an argument as to which of them had dropped the melon, while Jimmy stood up in the bow and shouted directions to me.
"Gaff it! gaff it! Why don't you gaff it?"
"How can I gaff it? What can I gaff it with,—you!"
"Never mind him," said the Captain. "Now, look,—I'll lay the boat right across its bows. … Now, wait. … Now! Can't you get it now?"
I did get it that time, and we took it back to the "Hoppergrass."