"Come down out of that! Hey you! Lay down!" Peter heard and obeyed. "Lay aft!" "Yes, sir!" "Hey, Chips!" "Aye, aye, sir!" from Chips. "Bring a knife aft. Cut the tail off of this. Now!" Chips had trimmed a good two feet off of Peter. "That looks fine. Now take off another foot, we want to have this fine fellow in style."
When Chips got through, after a lot of sarcastic criticism by the mate, and laughter by all hands mustered in the waist, Peter looked like a well trimmed bird. His jacket was so short that the drip from its end went into the top of his trousers. He made a move to pick up the discarded tail, no doubt thinking it would do to sew on as an extension. "No, you don't!" shouted the mate. "Throw that overboard, Chips! Now, go forward, watch below. No, you don't," to Peter; "you lay aloft and furl that sail, my fine fellow, and show us what a starboard watch hand can do."
Poor Peter lay up in a dismal manner and after a lot of shouting from the deck, he came down and went below with a good half hour of his watch gone, all on account of the offending garment, showing that even at sea the correct thing in dress is essential; at least it was so in those strict old days.
Officers in the old ships were very precise as a rule in matters of this kind. A number of years after the coat incident, I was serving under Captain Geo. D. Morrison, one of the old-time sailing-ship masters. We were on the bridge of a fine steamer. Eight bells had just been made and a quartermaster, an important little man, came up out of the fo'c'sle where he had his quarters, and as he walked aft along the forward well deck he drew a huge silver watch out of his pocket as though to verify the correctness of the bells on the bridge.
"Great Scott!" exclaimed the skipper. "What in thunder are we coming to with sailors carrying watches? I suppose they will carry walking sticks next. But, sir," turning to me, "not on my ship! Send that man down to the chart room!"
When Erricson, the quartermaster, arrived on the bridge, I sent him down to the skipper. The old man closed the chart room door, he was a very religious man, and after a short session, the quartermaster came out looking much scared. When we got to San Francisco, he was paid off, and Captain Morrison handed me an envelope to give to the man; this contained a heavy turnip-like object that no doubt was the offensive watch.
As soon as warm weather struck us, the last remnant of our potato bin went bad, and some of them were thrown overboard. This ended a duty that had helped to pass away many an hour for the farmers of the watch when they were sent forward to pick the sprouts off of the spuds and discard those that were too bad. Chow always picked out the bad ones anyway, and for the most part we subsisted on concoctions of half-rotten potatoes. Someone, Old Smith, I believe, said that raw potatoes were good for the scurvy. We all tried eating them. Scouse and the Kanakas were the only ones who could stomach the raw tubers. They always picked out the best sound potatoes and seemed to relish them; at any rate they robbed the cabin table of a good many messes of selected spuds.
When the old potato bin was knocked down, we had a general clean up under the fo'c'sle head, a scrubbing and overhauling of the bo'sun's lockers, the paint locker, and the oil stores. The short half deck forming the fo'c'sle head was not high enough for a man to stand upright under it, the lockers being arranged along the sides up into the bow. In the very nose, next to the hawse pipes, were the toilets of the ship, that is, those for the crew. These were very wet and uncomfortable in heavy weather. They were kept scrupulously clean, however. Large oil tanks were provided above these, fitted with small copper tubes leading into the sea alongside of the forefoot of the ship. Small cocks provided for the release of oil in heavy weather.
The bo'sun's locker contained everything necessary for carrying on the marling-spike work of the ship; fids, serving mallets, iron spikes, and the like. The tar pots were strung along a beam in the top of the locker and the shelves at the sides held the deck stores of small stuff, marline, spun yarn, rope yarn, houseline, hambroline, roundline, ratline stuff, etc. Several new coils of various sizes of rope, untarred hemp and manila were always carried in the bo'sun's locker against an emergency. Another compartment of the locker held the deck tackles, the "handy billys" and all emergency gear. This locker also carried the straps, rope circles used in attaching tackles to spars and rigging. Of such straps we had hundreds, always in apple-pie order. Small "salvagees" for clapping a fall onto a stay, large three-inch rope straps for hooking the rolling tackles onto the mast doublings. The compartment for blocks was also kept in fine shape, so we could lay our hands on things in the darkest night. Great snatch blocks for carrying a tack or sheet to the main or fo'c'sle head capstan, or for taking the fore or main tops'l halyards to the same; secret blocks for bunt jiggers, a small round block about the size of a soup plate, with the sheave completely covered, the whip, for it is a single block, reeving through small holes in the edge of the shell to prevent the canvas fouling between the rope and the sheave as is possible in an ordinary block. Clump blocks, small and "clumpy" like a roly-poly baker's loaf. These are very strong blocks and are used at the ends of the staysail and jib sheets for the reeving of the whips. These sheets, as sailors know, are always in two branches and the clump block makes it easy to haul the weather sheet, block and whip over the stay without catching, as the lee sheet is hauled aft. There are others called sister blocks, double and treble blocks, fiddle blocks, great jeer blocks for sending up and down heavy spars, stepping masts, etc. Many of the blocks aboard ship take their names from the particular use to which they may be put, such as quarter blocks, brace blocks, hanging blocks, clewline blocks.
When we were cleaned up forward, and ready for the last long spell of fine weather, with its round of marling-spike work, chipping, painting, tarring and holystoning, we were treated to a few hours of excitement that was different from the usual thing of that kind aboard the Fuller, as we had a chance to enjoy the show like spectators at the rail, and not, as on most occasions, when we saw the circus in the same way that the performers see it, namely, dangling from the flying trapeze near the top of the tent.