“Damned if I ever thought I’d live to see the day when a deep water schooner would be made into a howling nursery.”
Friends of my father along the waterfront in Frisco thought he was crazy to take a baby to sea. We were bound for Chile and thence to Australia. Father’s friends reminded him that the trip was a hard one on account of sudden storms and freak weather off the west coast of South America.
“If I can handle a bunch of squareheads and a scow of a ship in a typhoon, a baby will be easy,” was Father’s answer to their warnings. With characteristic, clear vision he knew his course, and he determined to keep a strong hand on the helm of my life.
That trip, which was my first one, brought all the predicted complications. The patent foods which Father had provided to feed me did not agree with me. I lost weight and became so puny that Father had about given up hope that I would survive until we reached Sydney. There was only one thing for him to do and that was get some kind of food that would nourish me. We would not be in Australia for fifty or sixty days, so he turned in at Norfolk Island to see if he could buy something there to feed me.
“I tried to get a native woman with a small child to come on board and feed you from her breasts,” Father told me years afterwards, “but she was afraid to venture beyond the horizon on a white-winged ship.”
Not to be defeated in his mission, Father sent Stitches in one direction on the island and he went another, seeking some way of solving the feeding problem. Many search islands for treasure, but Father’s exploring was for something more rare on a South Sea island—food for a sick baby. Native children are fed on yarrow roots and raw fish washed down their little throats with coconut milk, but white children can digest no such diet.
After combing the island all day Father returned to the ship, discouraged. He had begun to think finer things of the land than he had when he had taken me from my home to raise on the sea.
At about midnight Stitches came on board. With triumph in his face he rolled aft and asked permission to speak to Father.
“Cap’n, I found somethin’ for the kid.”
Father looked at Stitches’ empty hands.