In every house where father or son was expecting soon to sail the women were busy with clothing and general outfit. There was a run on the store 62 carrying oilskins, sea-boots, oil-lamps, stoves, and general paraphernalia.
All these things were gotten on credit, for there is no such thing as a vessel returning empty-handed from the Banks, and Bill Boughton stood sponsor for most of them.
The owners of vessels divided their time between provisioning and overhauling their ships and the securing of crews. One rainy afternoon, when work had been generally suspended, a number of the men gathered inside Bill Boughton’s store to wait for a let-up in the downpour, and the subject of crews was broached.
“How you comin’ with your crew, Bige?” asked a tall, lanky man of Captain Tanner.
“First rate. Got a dozen men now an’ that’s about all the Rosan can take care of. At that somebody’ll have to sleep on a locker, I cal’late.”
“You’re doin’ well, Bige. I hear Jed Martin can’t round up more’n eight, an’ he’s been as fur south as Great Harbor.”
“D’ye wonder?” put in a third. “Jed ain’t never set up grub that a shark would eat. I sailed with him once five year ago, an’ that was enough fer me.”
“Twelve men ain’t much,” put in Tanner. “Them Gloucester men sail with sixteen or eighteen right along, and I’ve heard o’ one feller put out of 63 T-Wharf, Boston, carryin’ twenty-eight dories. Of course, them fellers lays to fill up quick and make short trips fer the fresh market. Ain’t many of them briners.”
“Don’t believe there’s anybody’ll carry sixteen men out of here, is they?” came a voice from over in the corner.
“Sure!” The rumble and bellow of the reply denoted Pete Ellinwood where he sat on a cracker-box, his six and a half feet of length sprawled halfway from one counter to the other. “There’s Nat Burns’s Hettie B. She’ll carry sixteen, and so will Code Schofield’s Laughing Lass––mebbe more.”