"Why don't you begin to write your piece instead of wastin' time on my old hulk? I want to see it's done all ship-shape. We ain't goin' to have no 'Doc' Wilson nor a lot of fresh young pilots laughin' at our blunders. I'll overhaul the writin' for you."
Wilson was eager to begin. The skipper found a half-filled log-book, and the butt of a pencil, and the reporter sat by the pilot's bunk, and wrote with frowning effort. His labor was so evident that at length the interested pilot asked:
"You seem to be making heavy weather of it, Jimmy. Mind my lookin' over the nigh end of it?"
Wilson passed the log-book over with a flutter of expectancy. He was proud of his opening paragraphs. He flattered himself that he had caught the spirit of the tragedy of the last and lost pilot-schooner. The old man read them with puckered brow, and laid the book down without comment. Wilson waited and had to break the awkward silence:
"Anything the matter with that?"
"Well, I had only a common school education, and I've been at sea fifty years. I'm no judge, I guess. It's too high-falutin' for me. Those dictionary words are mighty imposin', and the opening verse of poetry looks gilt-edged. But, well, every man to his trade."
The very young reporter looked hurt, and the pilot tried to soothe him by flatly denying the truth of everything he had said. Wilson put the book away and went on deck. In his mind there was a glimmering notion that his literary method might be open to criticism. The old fear and lack of self-confidence came back. He would rest another day and try again.
Next morning the brig was beating against a baffling wind, and the Delaware Capes were two hundred and fifty miles away. A mattress was brought on deck, and the old man was laid on it beneath an awning. He was growing weaker, and began to fret when he found the brig was making so little headway toward her port and his home. Wilson was moody and worried about his comrade. He had no heart for his "story."
After a while the British skipper sat down beside the old man, and began to ask him about the loss of the Albatross. The pilot began with the start of the last cruise, and with crisp and homely detail, and with many breaks in his voice, he carried the tale down to the loss of the vessel, the loss of his comrades, and the escape of the oldest and youngest of those that had sailed in her. And because he felt it all so deeply, the story did not once wander from its chartered course.