It was proposed that we should elect him our local member to the provincial Parliament. It might be managed. We suggested it to him, dwelling upon the opportunities it would afford for the exercise of his special talents which, we said, were being thrown away in a little town like Three Rivers. He conceded that we spoke the truth; "but," he said, after a moment of thoughtful silence, "I am a sailor born and bred, and my health would never stand the confinement. Never!"
Next it was found that we could secure for him the position of purser on the S. S. Lady of the Gaspé. But this offer he refused even more emphatically.
"Purser!—Me!" There was evidently nothing more to be said.
Writing to Montreal, Father Quinnan learned that if he so wished Captain Pettipaw might have again the command of the little freighter that ran to the Labrador; and the proposition was laid before him with sanguine expectations. Again he declined.
"The Labrador! Thank you! They wouldn't even know who I was!"
"You could tell them, Captain."
"What good would that do?"
No answer being forthcoming to this demand, still another scheme had to be sought. It was the Mayor who finally saved the day for Three Rivers. He instigated a Patriotic Fund, to which every man, woman and child contributed what he could, and with the proceeds a three-masted schooner of two hundred tons burden was acquired (she had been knocked down for a song at a sheriff's sale at Campbellton); she was handsomely refitted, rechristened, and presented, late in October, to Captain Joe, as a tribute of esteem from his native town.
It is not for me to say just how grateful the Captain was, at heart; but he accepted the gift with becoming dignity; and before the winter ice closed the Gulf (so expeditiously had our plans been carried out) the Gloria was ready to sail with a cargo of dry fish for the Barbadoes.
The evening previous to her departure there was a big farewell meeting in the Palace of Justice, with speeches by the Mayor and Father Quinnan, a piano duet, and an original poem by Eugénie White, beginning: