The Deep Sea's Toll

by James B. Connolly

“Now, if George Hoodley had not been like other men during all the years he was fishing, if he hadn’t joined in the talk of his mates on what was worth having in life—you know how fishermen gen’rally talk when they get going on some things—even if George Hoodley pretended to think that he thought they were a lot of blessed fools, yet it is more than likely that the opinions of the men he went to sea with had their influence with him just the same. It stands to reason they were bound to, after years of it. And then, clear back he must’ve come of flesh-and-blood people, like anybody else. For, though nobody could imagine the Hoodleys having weaknesses like other people, yet cert’nly, if you went far enough back, there must’ve been ancestors among ’em all—one or two—that enjoyed life the same as other people.

“Well, for a wife George took a very pretty girl who was young enough—some of you that know her know that well—young enough to have had grandchildren to him. Twenty or twenty-one, light-haired, pretty face, and a trim figure. I didn’t like her eyes or her mouth myself, but everybody agreed she was pretty. She had never been so far away from home that she could not be back again the same day—and that certified to her character with some people. For other things, she would come into some money when her father died. And her father didn’t object to George Hoodley. He was a thrifty man, too, and said all right—made George’s way easy, in fact.

“Now, I cal’late that George thought that he never did a wiser thing in all his life than when he married that girl. Among the men he knew there were some that’d got pretty wives, but no money; and others money, but plain-lookers. He was getting both, good looks and money, and he could laugh at them all—those who wanted her because of the money in prospect or those others who were in love with her face. And maybe he didn’t laugh at some of ’em!—the sail-carriers and others who imagined that a reputation for foolishness at sea won women’s hearts. It was a great stroke of business altogether. He would get his share of good living yet—he boasted of that. He had always taken the best care of himself—never drank and seldom smoked, and then only in the way of business—was in the prime of life, had a tough constitution, and his wife-to-be was young and pretty. He could laugh at all of them.

“Nearly everybody in Gloucester said nice things to George. ‘My, but you’re the deep one—and lucky? Oh, no, you’re not a bit lucky! But you always did have a long head—’ That’s the way most people talked to him, and he liked it. As for the few who didn’t seem pleased—the three or four who hinted, but didn’t ask outright if he thought he was doing a wise thing— George said it was easy enough to place them—they’d like to get her themselves. If he was only another kind of a man he might have been warned in time, but he was that kind that nobody felt sorry for. And that’s a hard thing, too.

“Well, they were married, and the wonderful thing of George letting his vessel go out a trip without him was on exhibition to the people of Gloucester. Yes, sir, she went to sea the day he was married. He stayed ashore that trip—that trip, but not the second.

“The truth was, they didn’t get along well together; which warn’t remarkable, maybe—she young and pretty, and he the age he was and more than looking it. Forty-seven’s a fine age for some men, but not for George’s kind. Leather-skinned he was, with lean chops of jaws, a mouth as tight as a deck beam, a turkey neck—you’ve seen turkey necks—and eyes that were cold as a dead haddock’s.

“George, I cal’late, was beginning to learn that a woman was a different proposition from a vessel, and that there were things about a woman that had to be studied out. Not that I think he tried overhard to study this one out. Listening to him as I had many a time before he got married, I knew that he figured that a woman, like everything else, had her place in the universe, and she ought to know it, or be made to know it. And now here was his wife’s case: a steady man for a husband, a good house to live in, grub and her clothes all found, or, anyway, as much clothes as he thought fit and proper for her to have. Could a woman expect more, or a man do more, than that?

“’Twarn’t long after he got married that things began to go wrong, not only at home but out to sea. There was the trip he broke his ankle. Coming home, he looked maybe for a little show of grief on the part of his wife, but, if he did, he didn’t find it. Indeed, she even said he ought to go to a hospital instead of making it hard for her at home. ’Twas common talk that she said that.

“Going out his next trip, with his leg not yet well-knit and himself having to limp out the door, he and his wife had words. Billie Shaw, passing by, heard them. ‘I don’t care if I never see you again,’ he said. ‘And if you think I’d care if I never saw you again either, you’re mistaken. I wouldn’t care if you’re lost—you and your vessel. Only I wouldn’t like to see all the crew lost.’

“That last must have set him to thinking, for he didn’t sail that day, as he said he would, but put in a day talking to people around town. I know he asked me, for one, a lot of questions. I didn’t know till later what he was driving at. ’Twas while he was questioning me that he coaxed me into shipping with him. ‘Just this trip, Martin,’ he said. ‘And your cousin Dan Spring’s thinking of coming out with me this time, to help me out. Two men left me suddenly to-day, and if you’ll come out Dan’ll surely come.’ And so out of good-nature I said I’d go with him. It’s blessed little he got out of me, though, in answer to his other questions, but he found plenty of others willing to talk.