THE SEINING FLEET PUTS OUT TO SEA
The rest of that morning, between leaving Clancy and getting back to the dock again, I spent in cleaning up and overhauling my home outfit. My mother couldn’t be made to believe that store bedding was of much use––and she was right, I guess––and so a warranted mattress and blankets and comforters and a pillow were made into a bundle and thrown onto a waiting wagon. Then it was good-by to all––good-by to my cousin Nell, who had come over from her house, good-by and a kiss for her little sister––late for school she was, but didn’t care she said––and then good-by to my mother. That took longer. Then it was into the wagon with my bedding and off to the dock.
At Duncan’s store I had charged up to me such other stuff as I needed: Two suits of oilskins, yellow and black, two sou’westers, heavy and light, two blue-gray flannel shirts, a black sweater, a pair of rubber boots, two pairs of woollen mitts and 62 four pairs of cotton mitts, five pounds of smoking tobacco, a new pipe, and so on. When I had all my stuff tied up, I swung up abreast of Clancy and together we headed for the end of Duncan’s dock, where the Johnnie Duncan lay.
Quite a fleet went out ahead of us that morning. Being a new vessel, there was a lot of things that were not ready until the last minute. And then there was the new foretopmast––promised at nine o’clock it was––not slung and stayed up until after ten. And then our second seine, which finally we had to leave for Wesley Marrs to take next morning. And there were the usual two or three men late. Clancy and Andie Howe went up to have a farewell drink and were gone so long that the skipper sent me after them. I found them both in the Anchorage, where Clancy had met a man he hadn’t seen for ten years––an old dory-mate––thought he was lost five years before in the West Indies. “But here he is, fine and handsome. Another little touch all around and a cigar for Joe, and we’re off for the Southern cruise.”
We left then and started for the dock, with Clancy full of poetry. There happened to be a young woman looking out of a window on the way down. Clancy did not know her, nor she him, so far as I knew, but something about him seemed to take her eye. She leaned far out and waved 63 her handkerchief at him. That was enough. Clancy broke out––
“The wind blows warm and the wind blows fair,
Oh, the wind blows westerly––
Our jibs are up and our anchor’s in,
For the Duncan’s going to sea.
And will you wait for me, sweetheart?