Immediately a large, powerfully built man thundered, “Take your feet off that box, and all of you let the young fellow alone.”
They obeyed, and my heart went out to my new friend. I didn’t know who he was, but I soon found out. It was three miles to the ship, and as we approached her she did look fine, and her appearance cheered up my rather faint heart. When we were aboard we were told to get our chests into the forecastle, which I had visited before with the shipkeeper. The forecastle was supposed to accommodate eighteen, and the bunks were arranged around the sides in a double tier. The gloom seemed to deepen and, as I was told to take a bunk forward, which was one of the poorest, I thought of my mother and wished that I was at home. In a short time came the cry, “All hands on deck.”
When we emerged some one told me to go forward and help work the windlass.
“It’s time to weigh anchor,” he said.
A “greenie” remarked, “I don’t see how they are going to weigh the anchor; they ain’t got no scales.”
A general laugh followed. We set to work and one of the men started a rude chantey, and the old hands joined in. Chanteys are the songs sailors sing when at work, and the mere singing seems to make labor lighter.
At last the anchor came up. In the meantime men had been sent aloft to shake out the sails, and the vessel started on her long voyage. As I caught a glimpse of land and historic land, too, often spoken of by the early voyagers, I felt as if I had sundered the last tie with home, and I found it difficult to keep back the tears.
Just then the shipkeeper came to me and said, “I’m going out in the vessel and coming back in the pilot boat. Now let me tell you something. Even if things don’t go right, keep a civil tongue in your head. Do what you’re told to do, and be respectful to those over you, and never try to be familiar with them. If you do, you’ll find it won’t pay. Now let me tell you something more. The first mate’s name is Coster Lakeum. He sailed in this very vessel on the former voyage as third mate. He’s a man who doesn’t talk much, but he’s a fine seaman. I’ve told him that while you look to be eighteen you’re only fifteen. Don’t ever try to be familiar with him, and he may prove your best friend in the ship. You’ll be a lucky boy if he should take you for stroke oar in his boat.”
We had to beat out to sea as there was a head wind. As the vessel tacked I was bewildered and wondered how any one could learn the names of all the ropes and how to handle them.
“Get out of my way and get to work,” said a hard-looking, burly fellow, jostling me as he said it. He was an American of almost repulsive countenance, and a man for whom then and there I conceived a strong dislike. Well, I couldn’t work, for I didn’t know how to, and I noticed that all the greenies seemed stupid, like myself, and were at a loss what to do. The old sailors were handling the ship, and in a couple of hours we reached the offing, the pilot boat came up, and my good friend, the shipkeeper, shook me by the hand, and he and the pilot stepped aboard the little craft and were soon far astern. On our port were the islands, on one of which Gosnold made a temporary settlement eighteen years before the Mayflower anchored in Provincetown Harbor. While the islands bear the name of Gosnold’s Queen, their individual Indian names are still retained, and furnish a curious and interesting rhyme: