Later in the season I watched the ebb and flow of the tide on the marshes that border Annisquam River.
The Outer Harbor, with Ten Pound Island near the entrance of the Inner Harbor, lay in plain view, and the shifting scenes on its restless waters possessed a fascination which I could seldom resist.
Day after day I watched the vessels of the fishing fleet as they rounded Eastern Point, bound outward or inward. These vessels were models of beauty, and looked as if they were built for racing instead of fishing. I often compared them with the clumsy coasters that rode at anchor in the Outer Harbor.
Now and then a vessel, homeward bound, rounded Eastern Point with her flag half-mast. Mute reminder of the hardships and perils of a fisherman's life.
Every morning soon after it had become light enough to see, several boats could be seen rowing shoreward. Usually there was only one man to a boat. It did not take me long to find out that these lone rowers coming in out of the night were fishermen that pulled their lobster-pots after one o'clock in the morning. I saw another lone fisherman sail out of the harbor every morning when there was wind enough to fill a dory sail. Day after day he sailed or rowed out to sea to fish for shore codfish. He supported a large family from the proceeds of his labor, but the life was lonely and perilous. I watched his return once when the wind was blowing a fierce gale. The little boat would careen until the sail trailed in the water and it seemed to me that she must capsize. At the last moment she would come up into the wind and right. In this slow, dangerous manner she was worked to the mouth of Annisquam River and tied up above the Cut Bridge. The next day I asked the fisherman how he had managed to keep his boat right side up. "Oh, that was easy. When she heeled too much, I shook her up, and kept her from taking in water." "Shook her up," was a new phrase to me.
Below my Eyrie lay the little hamlet called the Cut. Some of its cottages had straggled up to the base of the cliff just below the tent.
I could look down on a long stretch of Western Avenue beginning at the Cut and ending in Ward Five, beyond the Cut Bridge. The latter was a drawbridge, and when open the city of Gloucester was on an island, with the exception of Ward Eight, which lies on the west side of Annisquam River.
I had located in Ward Eight, but at the time did not know anything in relation to its size, as compared with the other wards of the city. A glance at the map in the city directory showed me that Ward Eight was larger in area than all the other wards combined. I also found that it comprised within its limits the Cut, Fresh Water Cove, West Gloucester, and Magnolia. It pleased me much to find that it contained about twelve thousand acres of shrub land and forest.
Two-thirds of the way from the Cut to the drawbridge, Essex Avenue connects with Western Avenue. Essex Avenue crosses the marsh to West Gloucester, and is the highway into the city for Essex and other distant towns. There is a constant stream of travel over this highway, divided among farmers, icemen, and pleasure-seekers. The travel on Western Avenue is now, and was then, made up largely from the summer colonies at Magnolia and Manchester. Showy turnouts passed and repassed, so that I had enough to attract my attention from sunrise to sunset. When facing the harbor, I could turn to the left and look across the marsh to Dogtown Common. I had to look above and beyond a straggling portion of the city. Dogtown Common, in Revolutionary days, contained forty dwellings; now it was houseless. I saw only a boulder-covered region of pasture-land, choked by huckleberry and blueberry bushes, with here and there large tangles of catbrier.
Some of the sunsets seen from the Eyrie were beautiful beyond description. Whenever a massive bank of clouds hung above the western horizon, the setting sun illuminated the city from Riverdale to Eastern Point, and every window in sight glowed like burnished gold.