And by that time the gang were joining in and sheeting flat the topsails with a great swing.
I don’t suppose that Gloucester Harbor will ever again look as beautiful to me as it did that morning when we sailed out. Forty sail of seiners leaving within two hours, and to see them going––to see them one after another loose sails and up with them, break out anchors, pay off, and away! It was the first day of April and the first fine day in a week, and those handsome vessels going out one after the other in their fresh paint and new sails––it was a sight to make a man’s heart thump.
“The Johnnie Duncan, seiner of Gloucester––watch her walk across the Bay to-day,” was George Moore’s little speech when he came on deck to heave his first bucket of scraps over the rail. George was cook.
And she did walk. We squared away with half a dozen others abreast of us and Eastern Point astern of us all. Among the forty sail of fishermen that were standing across the Bay that morning we knew we’d find some that could sail. There was the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley’s vessel. He worked her clear of the bunch that came out of the harbor and came after us, and we had it with him across to Cape Cod. Forty miles before we beat him; but Pitt Ripley had a great sailer in the Ruth, and we would have been satisfied to hold 67 her even. “Only wait till by and by, when we get her in trim,” we kept saying.
“This one’ll smother some of them yet,” said Eddie Parsons, looking back at the Ruth. He felt pretty good, because he had the wheel when we finally crossed the Ruth’s bow.
“With good steering––yes,” said Clancy.
“Of course,” exclaimed Eddie to that, and filled his chest full, and then, looking around and catching everybody laughing, let his chest flatten again.
The skipper didn’t have much to say right away about her sailing. He was watching her, though. He’d look at her sails, have an eye on how they set and drew, take a look over her quarter, another look aloft, and then back at the Ruth, then a look for the vessels still ahead. “We’ll know more about it after we’ve tried her out with the Lucy Foster or the Colleen Bawn or Hollis’s new vessel,” he said, after a while.
One thing we soon found out, and that was that she was a stiff vessel. That was after a squall hit us off Cape Cod. We watched the rest of them then. Some luffed and others took in sail, and about them we could not tell. But those that took it full gave us an idea of how we were behaving. “Let her have it and see how she’ll do,” said the skipper, and Howe, who was at the wheel––with his clothes good and dry again––let her have it 68 full. With everything on and tearing through the water like a torpedo-boat, one puff rolled her down till she filled herself chock up between the house and rail, but she kept right on going. Some vessels can’t sail at all with decks under, but the Johnnie never stopped. “She’s all right, this one,” said everybody then. A second later she took a slap of it over her bow, nearly smothering the cook, who had just come up to dump some potato parings over the rail. The way he came up coughing and spitting and then his dive for the companionway––everybody had to roar.
“Did y’see the cook hop?––did y’see him hop?” called Andie, who was afraid somebody had missed it.