“Gimme a chanst tae get ma wind!” McGlashan sat down on a pile of freight and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “It was like this, ye see,” he said, when he had recovered his breath. “We came up on deck when yon steamer whustled, an’ we ran fur the dory which Donald and Jack had jist left hanging on the rail. The steamer hit her abaft the main-mast, aboot the gurry-kid, and it didna hit the dory. Me’n Jack jist tumbled intae it, and when the mast went, the dory went intae the water. We lost the oars and were driftit awa’ frae the schooner, but efter two hours floatin’ aboot we were picket up by a Yankee schooner and landed in Halifax a while syne. That’s all there is tae tell, except that we were sure the skipper and Donald were lost, as we knew you were baith aft when the steamer hit.” He gave a deep sigh and continued. “Anyway, we’re all here, thank God, but the schooner’s gone, and ma good clothes are gone, and ma alarrm clock, too, and I had a fine codfish chowder on the stove fur yer dinners that day that also went—” He spoke so solemnly that the listeners laughed immoderately. “By gorry, cook, you’re a haound!” they chuckled. What was at first thought to be a tragedy, was now looked upon as an experience, an incident for yarning and joking about, and they spent much time in chaffing McGlashan about the loss of his “alarrm clock,” his clothes and the chowder.
Arriving back in Eastville Harbor, Donald and the skipper were disappointed to find that Ruth was in Halifax staying with the Stuarts. Had they known, they would have looked the girls up before coming home. However, they would be in Halifax at the inquiry the following week, and Donald looked forward to seeing Ruth then with feelings of anticipatory pleasure. He had not seen or heard from her for four months, and when a youth is in love with a pretty and very desirable girl, four months is a terribly lengthy period.
At the Nickerson home, Jud’s parents were kindness personified. Old Mrs. Nickerson took Donald in hand and purchased him an outfit of both sea and shore clothes. They were not expensive clothes, but they were of good wearing stuff. For the first time in over a year, he possessed a shore suit, and, even though it was ready-made store clothes and of a fit and pattern a good deal poorer than he had worn at other times and in other circumstances, he was glad to have them and to know that he could call on Ruth in Halifax without qualms as to his personal dressing. He fancied nice clothes, and would like to be able to purchase a complete rig-out of good quality and finished tailoring, but when a lad is earning thirty-five dollars a month and saving to make a home for his mother, he cannot spend money in dress. Donald accepted Mrs. Nickerson’s gifts with deep appreciation, but with a sneaking suspicion that Judson had engineered the whole thing as a reward for services rendered.
The West Wind’s two trips of fish were sold, and the skipper announced that they had landed altogether three thousand five hundred quintals. Had they completed the season, the West Wind would have made a record catch, but, as it was, the crew were eminently satisfied with share checks in the neighbourhood of $600 per man, with a possible addition for gear, clothes and fish lost when the collision case was tried and judgment secured against the Greek steamer’s owners. Donald received a check for $140. “And there’s more acomin’ to you,” said Judson when he paid him. “You’ll draw a fisherman’s share for this last trip, but we’ve got to get the money from those Greeks first. They’ll pay us enough to help build a new vessel, for the fish we lost, and all our outfit and gear. They’ll have to pay, for they haven’t a leg to stand on. The money is as good as ours naow!” And he chuckled grimly.
When the inquiry was over, Donald intended to ship in a vessel for Glasgow and bring his mother out to Nova Scotia. He had already written her to that effect, and before he went to Halifax, he and Mrs. Nickerson arranged to rent a neat little cottage on the hill street just back of the town, and not far from the Nickerson home. It was secured furnished, and as it was at present untenanted, Donald worked around the place for a few days painting the floors, doors and wood-work, after scrubbing it out thoroughly from top to bottom. It was not a large cottage, but it was a warm one, and built of squared spruce logs shingled on the outside and match-boarded inside. There was a kitchen addition, and the main part of the house had a dining-room, parlor, and two small bedrooms upstairs. It was a vastly different place from the red sandstone villa in Maxwell Park, with its tiled bathrooms, hot and cold water, electricity and gas, but it was clean and cosy, and the rent was extremely moderate. The furniture was plain and meant to be utilized. Most of it was made by ship-carpenters, and there was no veneer or elaborate carvings. The beds were of wood, and in lieu of springs, there were mattresses of plucked feathers so soft and downy that one almost vanished in their cosy embrace. Picked rag mats covered the floors, and the place was heated in winter by a small box stove which burned wood, and which stood in the dining-room, and disseminated heat into the parlor through a square opening in the wall.
An acre of good garden ground went with the place, and there was a small building suitable for a stable and wood-shed immediately back of the dwelling. A well, equipped with a pump, stood near the kitchen door in handy proximity to save laborious water carrying, and the former tenants had planted vines which clustered over the little front porch, and there were rose bushes, lilacs, and hollyhocks around the front and sides of the house.
On the eve of his departure for Halifax and Scotland, Donald viewed his future home and tried to imagine what it would be like when his mother arrived and was installed within. He could picture her reading by the stove of a winter’s night, or working in the garden in summer. She would have chickens, of course, and maybe a pig or two. His mother knew all about these things. Then he thought of Ruth.... Of course, she wouldn’t live in a cabin like that, but by the time he was in a position to marry her, he hoped to have a home of his own—a big wooden house like what other Eastville skippers owned—a house with four or five bedrooms, hot air furnaces and plastered walls and modern plumbing. They all had pianos, a horse and buggy, and good furniture imported from Halifax. He would get that ... in time. He’d go with Judson in the dory again next summer, then he would go to navigation school in Halifax and get his second mate’s ticket for off-shore. He was able to pass the examination now, but he hadn’t the necessary sea-time in to qualify. Another year or two fishing and he would go skipper—fishing in the summer and running fish and lumber to the West Indies in winter. He would be skipper, if all went well, by the time he was twenty, and when he attained his majority, he would ask Ruth to marry him. With these pleasant thoughts, he squared up a rumpled rag mat on the floor of his future home, straightened a deal table and studied the effect of a cheap vase—he knew it was cheap and gaudy and he wanted to stow it away—on the sideboard—and after a final look around, he gave a satisfied sigh and locked the front door. At the front fence, he looked back at the cottage—nestling cosily amid a few dwarf spruce—and whistling cheerfully he swung down the road ruminating over a suitable name for his coming domicile. “Shelter Harbor! That’s a good one,” he murmured. “I think mother would like that. M-m! Shelter Harbor—that’s the name, for it’ll be a shelter harbor for the both of us!”