I couldn’t understand why Mother thought that I was terrible because I acted as I did. She went on:
“The child insists on practising spitting through a crack in the back fence at the woman next door.”
Poor Mother! At that time I wondered why she was so distressed. Now that the first glamour was gone, I looked upon my sister and brothers as jelly fish because they couldn’t lick me or climb or spit or swear for beans. I had been home, “on land” as I termed it, for three weeks when Father announced that he was going to sail. Mother packed his sea bag. Father never had a suitcase. He always used his own sea “ditty bags.”
A shot of agony went through me when I realized he was leaving, and without me. I couldn’t bear it. I wouldn’t stay on the land. Unable to contain myself I ran to my father and kicked him in the pants to make him notice me more than he noticed Mother.
“Say, ain’t I going with you?” I pleaded.
Father looked at me in a puzzled way, as if he didn’t know how to answer me, then he said:
“I’m just getting ready to sail, Joan. Thought I’d get my things on board all ready in case we get a fair wind that’ll take us out without any towboat.”
That settled it for me. I’d run away. If he thought he could leave me on land while he sailed off to the South Seas again he’d be mistaken. My sense of navigation came in handy. I remembered how we came from San Francisco to Berkeley. I’d go back to San Francisco the same way, but I didn’t have any money. That night when the house was asleep I sneaked into my father’s room and got his pants. I stole a big silver dollar from them and kept it in my fist all night. It was my price to freedom. The following morning while Mother was busy, and after my brothers and sister had started for work or school, I left home. Without hat or coat I took shore leave from the house with only my four kittens for company and went to San Francisco. I found my way to the dock opposite our schooner which lay at anchorage and I told a fisherman that I belonged on the Minnie A. Caine.
“Will you row me out for this much money?” I asked, and I showed him a half dollar in change. The old fisherman grinned and told me to get in his row boat, and he pulled me out to the ship, but he wouldn’t take my money. I climbed on deck and bumped smack into Stitches. The old man’s eyes nearly popped out in joy at seeing me again.
“I knowed the Old Man wouldn’t let you stay ashore. I know he’d bring you back,” he repeated over and over like a chant.