About this time I began to get anxious, possibly it was home-sickness, but I kept asking the Captain, “When are we going to wet our salt?” That was the term we used to show that our salt was used up. To bother me he would say, “About the first of October,” but my good friend Mr. Sherman would tell me that July first would find us all cleaned up. In my spare time it was my duty to help him in the hold, where he was at work salting the fish. I used to bring the salt to him in a half bushel measure, and you may be sure that I spilled all of it that I could so the salt would be used up all the sooner and we could be on our way back home. I would ask him if he thought he was getting salt enough on the fish to keep them from turning red, and how he would laugh. I watched the salt bins and prayed that they would soon be emptied. Between cooking and fishing it was a busy time for me, and up to this time I had caught over 1200 head of fish, which meant some extra money for me, as I was to get 50 cents a hundred for all the fish that I caught. My position for fishing was aft over the stern, and up to this time good luck had been with me. At night, when we reported our daily catch, the Captain asked me if all my fish had eyes, but I did not understand what he meant until a loud roar of laughter from the men showed me that he meant to insinuate that I had been cheating in my count. At this I burst into tears, but again Mr. Sherman came to my rescue and soundly berated the Captain for continually picking on me.
After this my cooking was praised up by the Captain and he let me alone, as Mr. Sherman was a man whose words carried much weight. We had fish chowders for supper every night while on the Banks, and you may be sure that the fish was fresh, because scarce one half hour would pass before the fish would be in the pot. The previous winter at home my mother had taught me how to make bread and other things, but some of them I had forgotten, especially in regard to the boiling of rice. On this particular occasion I was ordered to prepare a supper of boiled rice and bean soup. I asked one of the crew about how much rice to use, and he told me to use at least two quarts, which he thought would be plenty, and you may be sure it was. I put it to soak in my big boiler on the stove, and as it commenced to cook it began to swell and soon ran over on top of the stove. I commenced to shift it into my other kettles, and soon had them all full and the water bucket besides. By this time the joke was known all over the boat, and when the Captain came down he said, “Cookie, are you sure you have saved out enough rice for yourself?” But I answered him right off, “Yes, sir; two buckets full,” at which they all had a hearty laugh, but you may be sure that they did not fool me again.
On July 21st, 1850, we had wet all of our salt, and the schooner was laden deep to her scuppers. On this glorious day we were to start for home, and on this day I was just nine years old, but the fact that we were to start for home was celebration enough for me. How many boys of this generation can say that they passed their ninth birthday in such a position? Thankful they should be that times have improved so that such work at so early an age is not often necessary.
We ran our flag to the mast-head, hauled down the trysail and bent on the main-sail and began to heave in the anchor cable. The Captain, with a big pair of mittens on, tends the cable as it comes in around the windlass, and the cook takes in the slack and coils it down around the fore-hatch, quite a job for an able-bodied man to attend to, but boys in those days often were able to do the work of a man. While heaving up the anchor our merry crew sang shanty songs, and when the anchor was up all sail was made and we were off for Cape Cod with a light east wind. The watch was set with two men in each watch of two hours each, and then I began to count the days it would take us to get home. A few days after I heard the Captain say we were in the latitude of Cape Cod, and thought sure we must soon be home, but learned afterwards that although in the latitude of the Cape we were a long ways off from it.
Our homeward journey was a pleasant one, and in about eight days we anchored inside of Billingsgate Island on a fine morning about eight o’clock. One could smell the land and the salt hay, and oh, how beautiful and green the land looked to me! We rowed up into the Town Creek, and each one started to walk to his home. All of my belongings were in a calico pillow case and I was bare-footed, but I ran nearly all the way home, some two miles distant, and never before nor since was I so glad to get back home. I was dirty as a pig, but fat and healthy, and mother laughed and cried over me as she welcomed me home. She brought out the big wash-tub and scrubbed me from head to foot, and when a clean suit was put on I hardly knew myself.
We made a stay of three days, and then took the schooner to Beverly, Mass., where we washed our fish out at a wharf owned by a Mr. Crowell, and prepared the fish for the flakes to have them properly dried.
We then made ready for the fish grounds in Cape Cod Bay to finish out the number of days required in order to get our bounty money which was offered by the State.
Then, when the tide was up, we went into Provincetown and fitted out for Fall mackerel fishing, or otherwise termed, hooking, and went down on the Maine coast, in and out of several harbors, and keeping with the fleet. We made a very successful season of our fall fishing, and the shoresmen cleared something over $700 to shore—a rich voyage for those days, while I, poor Cookie, labored and toiled from March 25th to the 23rd of May for the magnificent sum of $45, together with something like $15 for extra fish caught.
The Captain was a crafty old soul; he reported to my mother that I was the best boy and best cook he had ever had, but he failed to report to her what a “sassy” boy I was. However, I never liked him, and told mother that never again would I sail under him as cook.
Years have passed on and all my old shipmates who were with me on this, my first experience at sea, have answered the roll call. Our old craft met her fate years ago, and “Cookie” is the only survivor. Although I have passed the allotted “threescore years and ten,” I still look back on my first sea trip without regrets. The men of these days were true men, God-fearing and honest and upright in all of their dealings. As seamen they were unequalled or surpassed by none. The training-school of the Grand Banks fisherman was a rough and hard one, but most of the famous American sea captains were apprentices in that school that made it possible for the American Flag to be seen in every port of the commercial world and for the term “Yankee Skipper” to be used in a sense of praise and commendation.