The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

The new steam pilot-boat will go into commission off the Delaware Capes early next week. This change from sail to steam is another blow at the romance of blue water. Six of the eight trim schooners of the Delaware fleet have already been dismantled, not only the Albatross, Number One is cruising on the station. She will be laid up as soon as the steamer is ready to put the pilots aboard incoming vessels. Every ocean voyager will regret the passing of the pilot schooner. These stormy petrels among sailing craft have been the first messengers from the looked-for land, as specks in the tumbling waste of sea, or lying hove to in all weathers....

Wilson threw his doubts overboard. All he had ever read of bellying canvas, whipping spars, and lee rails awash leaped into the foreground of his boyish imagination. Here was his chance for such a "descriptive story" as he had dreamed of through weeks and months, this last cruise of the last pilot schooner. He dashed into the art room, snatched up the waiting camera, and bolted for the station. After he dropped panting into a seat of the accommodation train for Lewes, he found himself already overhauling his stock of sea-lore and sailor adjectives.

There was time for reflection in this four-hour journey to the sea, and ere long, sober second thought began to overtake his first wild elation. The young reporter's doubts came trooping back. He remembered now that he had never written a line of "ship-news" for the Standard. He blushed to confess to himself that his life on salt water had been bounded by the decks of river excursion steamers. And what had he ever done worth the notice of the managing editor? Of course, he had worked hard, and the world, at least in fiction, occasionally rewarded honest merit in lowly places with unexpected largess. But any "star man" of the staff would have given a week's salary for such a note as this from the chief executive of the Standard. And he, James Arbuthnot Wilson, was indubitably the rawest and humblest recruit of that keen and rough-riding squadron of talent.

An inevitable reaction swung his mood into the forebodings. The train was loafing along the upper reaches of Delaware Bay when he re-read the intoxicating note, and caught himself repeating "Dear Mr. Wilson," with a sudden glimmer of association. In another miserable moment the youth's beautiful dream was wrenched from him. What a fool he had been! "Wilson," "Wilson," he muttered and burst out:

"Of course, there is another Wilson, the tip-top man of the staff. It's the Wilson who's been filling in as chief of the Washington Bureau for six months. I heard somebody say the other night that 'Doc' Wilson was coming back, and was to go on general work again. He must have turned up over Sunday. And that new boy put his note in my box. Well, I am IT."

Young James Arbuthnot Wilson squeezed back a smarting tear. He did not try to fence with this surmise. There was no room for doubt that the kind words and the pleasant outing had been aimed at his high-salaried elder. James Arbuthnot had never clapped eyes on the gifted "Doc" Wilson, whose Washington dispatches had carried no signature and whose distant personality had made no impression upon this wretched understudy of his.

How could the pilgrim muster courage to go back and face the issue? He would be the office butt—Well, he could resign, but most likely, he reflected, dismissal would be the instant penalty of this incredibly presumptuous blunder. The only thing to be done was to drop off at the next way station and return to the scene of his downfall. But to his stammering plea the brakeman returned:

"Next train up won't get along here till late to-night. You better go through to Lewes instead of waiting seven hours at one of these next-to-nothing flag stations."

The reporter slumped into his seat and looked through the open window. The tang of brine was in the breeze that gushed up the bay with the rising tide. Across the green fields he began to glimpse flashing blue water and bits of the traffic of far-off seas. A deep-laden tramp freighter was creeping toward her port, a battered bark surged solemnly in tow of an ocean-going tug, and a four-masted schooner was reaching up the bay with every sail pulling. Across the aisle of the car Wilson noticed, with a melancholy pleasure, four deep-tanned men of rugged aspect, who played cards with much talk of ships and tides and skippers. They belonged in this picture.

Wilson thought of the stewing city far behind him, and the spirit of some sea-faring ancestor was whispering in his ear. Yes, by Jove! he would see the tragic venture through after all. It were better to return with a "story," and fall with colors flying than to slink back to empty ridicule. Let them try to overtake him if they dared. This was "Mr. Wilson's" mission, and no one could snatch it from him.