“Just like old man Burns!” thought Code. “Pities and spoils his rascal of a son. But the boy loved him.”

Code had not thought of that race in years. How well he remembered it now! There had been money up on both sides, and the rules were that no 187 one in either schooner should be over twenty except the skippers.

What satisfaction it had been to give Nat a good trimming in the fifty-year-old May. He could still feel an echo of the old proud thrill. He turned back to the log.

“July 1: Cloudy this day. Hot. Light S.-W. breeze. Nat tells me another race will be sailed in just a week. Swears he will win it. Poor boy, what with losing yesterday and Caroline Fuller’s leaving the Head to work in Lubec, he is hardly himself. I’m afraid the old M. C. won’t show much speed till she is thoroughly overhauled. Note––Stmr. May Schofield’s policy runs out July 20th. See about this, sure.”

There was very little pertaining to the next race until the entry for June 6, two days before the event. Then he read:

“Nat is quite happy; says he can’t lose day after to-morrow. I told him he must have fitted the M. C. with wings, but he only grinned. Take the stmr. to St. John to-morrow to look after policies, including May Schofield’s. She’s so old her rates will have to go up. Won’t be back till day after the race, but Nat says he’ll telegraph me. Wonder what business that boy’s got up his sleeve that makes him so sure he will win? Oh, he’s a clever one, that boy!”

188

Here the chronicle ended. Little did Michael Burns know he would never write in it again. He went to St. John’s, as he had said, and completed his business in time to return home the day of the race instead of the day after.

The second race was never sailed, for Code Schofield received a telegram from St. John’s, offering him a big price for a quick lighterage trip to Grande Mignon, St. John being accidentally out of schooners and the trip urgent.

Though loath to lose the race by default, the money offered was too good to pass by, and Code had made the trip and loaded up by nightfall. It was then that he had met Michael Burns, and Burns had expressed his desire to go home in the May so as to watch her actions in a moderate sea and gale.