These men were commissioned to make my wardrobe. They cut a small pair of pants from Stitches’ well worn dungarees and made little suspenders on them. The button-holes were works of art embroidered with infinite pains by Stitches. While they were engrossed in their sewing a Hungarian sailor who was a bit of a bully, by name “Gooney” Bulgar, leaned out of his bunk and remarked:
“You ladies of the sewing circle will now adjourn an’ tea will be served in the Cap’n’s parlor,” with which he waved an effeminate, coy hand in the shellbacks’ faces.
It was never definitely settled which of them landed on him first. Bulgar claimed that Stitches had scratched him with his needle and none would bear witness that Scotty and Erickson hadn’t used a steel marlinspike on him. At any rate he resembled a piece of raw hamburger steak when they brought his limp body aft to my father to be revived. If there is one thing prevalent on shipboard it is he-men, and any suggestion that impugns their virility has to be settled with belaying pins to the finish. Whatever really happened, the event is recorded in the Log Book as follows:
“This day at sea, the 27th of September, Able-Bodied Seaman Gustav Bulgar fell, in the course of duty, off the fo’c’s’le head on to the main deck and was badly injured. Treated by Captain. Given dose of salts and wounds painted with Friar’s Balsam. Captain found it advisable to fine seaman Five Dollars for carelessness.”
After that slight interruption to their sewing, the three men resumed, and turned out a complete wardrobe for me. Scotty had an old pair of rubber sea boots that were worn out at the bottoms so he cut off the tops, and turned out a pair of tiny rubber sea boots for me. With the remaining scraps he fashioned a sou’wester oilskin hat for me. He was at a loss for something to line it with, as the only available material on the ship was cast off clothing. A sailor never does anything by halves, and unless that sou’wester was lined, it was not complete in his estimation. As he was taking a mental inventory of the material he could lay hands on in the fo’c’s’le, “Pimples,” the cabin-boy, came in. It was his first trip at sea. He had come to get experiences so he could be a famous writer of sea stories like Jack London. He was still so green in the ways of the sea that he wore shoes and socks. Pimples had won his cognomen by his complexion which was caused half by adolescence and half by the food which fell to his lot after the crew and captain had eaten the best of it. It was unfortunate for Pimples that he intruded into the fo’c’s’le at that moment, for Scotty saw his shoes and socks.
“Come here, Barnacles,” he cooed to the cabin-boy. “Come closer so I can see how big your muscles are getting now you are at sea.”
Pimples came over to him eagerly, happy to be recognized as an equal by a regular sailor. When he was close enough, Scotty tripped him, and sat on his stomach. While Pimples squirmed, Scotty took off his shoes and socks and, holding a brown woolen sock up for the others to see, he shouted:
“Here’s the lining for the sou’wester,” and then he booted the luckless cabin-boy out of the fo’c’s’le.
When the little clothes were finished and the sock-lined oilskin cap proudly displayed, the sailors called in the Jap cook, Yamashita, to approve of their handiwork. The cook looked at them and then snorted with Oriental disapproval:
“Where nightgown for Missy? No damn sense sailor got.” He went back to his galley and presently emerged with two bottles and three flour sacks. The bottles contained cake frosting coloring, red and green. He took some string and dipped it in the red and made red string, and then dipped some more string in the green. These colored strings he used to embroider intricate cross stitch designs on the neck and arms of the flour sack nightgown and dress. In spite of his many washings of the sacks to remove the printing on them, a dim memory of the words, “Pure as the drifted snow,” remained on them forever.