We were playing a game called “Grub” which Stitches had invented for us. “Grub” was a unique game in that it gave me my first philosophy of doing things for myself and increased my propelling powers immensely. The rules for “Grub” were simple. A line was drawn on the poop deck with chalk behind which Salt Pork and I lined up. The goal was a piece of bread on the rail aft by the wheel. At a given signal from Stitches he let go of Salt Pork and off we both went across the deck after the grub; me, a hungry kid and Salt Pork, a ravenous sea bird. I crawled on all fours after it and the gooney ran with webbed feet. If I got there first I ate the bread on the spot as fast as I could cram it down my gullet or Salt Pork would have grabbed it right out of my hand. If Salt Pork got it first I couldn’t get it away from him because he’d swallow it whole without even chewing it.
“Say, Stitches,” called Father from the gangway, “let’s give Joan a lesson in keeping her mouth shut!” He undressed me and took me to the fo’c’s’le head. Two of the crew were cooling off with a nice swim under the shadow of the bowsprit. He called to them to keep an eye on me and without further warning he threw me fifteen feet into the water below. I thought I had sunk to the bottom of the world and would never come up. When I finally did I was so frightened that I started to yell and was rewarded with a mouthful of salt water. There was nothing to hang on to, so I had to swim. My father and Stitches on the jibboom above laughed at my struggle. Of course there was no danger for me as the two sailors could have pulled me out in an instant. It seems useless to add that I learned to swim in deep water very rapidly.
Father, evidently satisfied that Lesson Number One in practical nautical knowledge was a success, remarked to Stitches:
“See how quick she shut her mouth when she hollered about nothing! If every woman could learn to keep her mouth shut at the age of two they’d be better off.”
Every day after that, during the weeks we were in Newcastle, I was thrown overboard. I came to love it and soon was a strong swimmer with an instinct for action instead of noise!
4
In which I learn that young ladies must not take baths in gentlemen’s drinking water
From the time I was two years old until about my sixth birthday nothing startling impressed itself on my baby mind. Ours was just the usual routine of a trading schooner: Seattle to Sydney with lumber and from Sydney it was “bound to the South Sea Islands for copra,” loaded with red calico, cheap knives, soap, tinfoil, anything shiny to catch the eyes and thrill the hearts of the natives.