Threading the passage, the steamer headed across the widening inlet for a wharf environed by a number of neatly-painted wooden houses—the homes and marts of Eastville Harbor’s citizens. The gaunt trunks of maples and elms rose from among the habitations—not yet clothed in their leafy garments—and a tall church spire stood out behind the town—stark white against the brown and green of the hillside. Numerous anchored schooners of beautiful model, but with booms bare of furled canvas, betokened fishermen laid up until the spring fishery called them into service, and when the packet steamer glided between them, she roared a greeting to the town, and the hills echoed to the blast of her whistle.
Captain Nickerson pointed to a spot on the shore below the wharf where the white ribs of a vessel showed up against the dull red of a shed. “There’s my father’s yard,” he said. “That’s a schooner he’s building. That white-painted house up on the hill an’ half hidden by a spruce bush is our family shack an’ where I first saw the light o’ day.” They were coming into the wharf now, and a number of men and women stood upon it awaiting the arrival of freight or friends, or actuated by curiosity to see “who was on th’ boat.” A half-a-dozen wagons and one or two slenderly-built buggies were hitched to the back-rails of the wharf—their horses placidly unconcerned at the bustle when mooring lines were made fast and the gang-plank shoved ashore.
When Captain Nickerson stepped on the dock, a tall, clean-shaven man about sixty-five years of age, with wisps of white hair showing from under his soft black hat, detached himself from the knot of spectators. He had a ruddy complexion and keen grey eyes, and his spare figure, slightly stooped at the shoulders, was dressed in blue jean overalls, to which flecks of shavings and sawdust adhered. He wore a white shirt—a Sunday relic—and his low, turn-down collar and black string bow tie gave him an air of distinction which his workman’s garb failed to disguise. He greeted Captain Nickerson in a deep, booming bass. “Judson! Here you are!” The other swung around. “Hullo, father. How are ye?” They shook hands heartily but with no ostentatious show of affection, and the older man laughed. “Not much change in you, Judson,” he said, “a mite stouter I cal’late—not much—an’ you’re looking well. Mother got your telephone message—”
“And how is mother! I hope she’s well?”
“She’s bin pretty good, Judson, pretty good,” answered the father. “She’s bin up early this morning gittin’ a rousin’ breakfast ready for you. Er—where’s your friends?”
The captain turned around. “By Jupiter, I nearly forgot them,” he cried. “I was so pleased to see you, father, an’ to git home.” He beckoned Donald and Joak to him. “Come up, boys. Father, this is Donald McKenzie an’ John McGlashan—two Scotch lads that came around from Vancouver in a schooner with me. Donald was a ’prentice in the barque I left Glasgow in an’ we’ve got quite chummy. I asked them to come home with me ontil they got a chance to look around.”
Nickerson, Senior, extended a welcome hand, and boomed forth that he was glad to meet them and glad to have them stay a while. Donald liked the genial face of the old ship-builder and wondered if he, like his son, had dormant characteristics of truculent aggressiveness. Maybe, he had, when he was younger, thought Donald, but age had calmed his spirit. That booming voice, and the tattoo marks on the old gentleman’s hands, betokened a sailor, and when he glanced at his face, so much like Judson’s, with its aquiline nose, strong jaw and set mouth, he could readily imagine him singing out biting commands from the quarter-deck of a ship years agone. Age, however, had softened the stern lines of his countenance; the grey eyes beamed kindliness and there was a merry twitch about the corners of the mouth, while the silvery hair gave the old gentleman a patriarchal appearance. They were a dominant race—these Nova Scotians—strong-minded, aggressive descendants of those puritanical British pioneers who left the Mother Country for a savage colony because it would not give them the freedom of life and religion which they craved.
As they walked up from the wharf to the tree-lined Main Street, Captain Nickerson was the recipient of many greetings. “How’re ye, Jud? Home again an’ agoin’ to stay, eh? Glad to see ye!” was the general tenor of these hearty, loud-voiced welcomes, and Donald was impressed with their evident sincerity. People who spoke loud betokened characters of bluff straight-forwardness—straight, simple living folks who believed in themselves; confident, clear-headed and hearty, and Donald was enamoured of this colonial quality. He liked these people already.
Walking along a plank side-walk—interrupted at intervals by the giant trunks of ancient elms—and flanked by neat wooden houses painted in whites, greys and yellows with trimmings of contrasting shades, they swung off at a big red building with the sign “ENOS NICKERSON & SON, VESSEL BUILDERS & SPAR MAKERS,” and approached a large square house painted the universal white with green trimmings. It was set up on a bank or small hill over-looking the yard and harbor, and a number of fine elms and spruce encircled the place and gave it a comfortable appearance. A wide verandah was constructed in the front of the house, and upon it Donald could see two female figures—one of whom was gesticulating wildly, while the other was shading her eyes with her hands against the eastern sun.
“There’s mother an’ Ruth on th’ gallery,” remarked the old gentleman. “Ruth has done nawthin’ but talk about ye comin’ sence you ’phoned yestiddy, Judson, an’ I cal’late she’s made a big mess o’ that choc’late fudge which you useter be so fond of.” Donald smiled to himself at the thought of the hard-case Bluenose mate having a penchant for chocolate “fudge.” It seemed rather ludicrous.