"I guess there ain't much you won't say for her," Pearl retorted.
"Then again, when the Alfred run her down she had the right of way."
"I guess her weight give her that," countered his wife.
Elmer got up and stared across the harbor at the new schooner which Hat was to command. The Minnie Williams sat on the ways resplendent, her masts of yellow Oregon pine tapering into a blue sky. A mellow clack of calking hammers rang across the water.
"Those ways are pitched pretty steep, it seems to me," he said. "When she goes she'll go with a flourish."
Among those who swore by Elmer for a man of wisdom was Jim Rackby, the owner of the schooner. Next day the two men met in her shadow. The ship had just been pumped full of water, and now the calking gang were going round staring up with open mouths to see where the water came out. Taking advantage of their absorption Jim Rackby asked Elmer in low tones whether he considered Hat Tyler a fit person to be intrusted with a ship.
"I don't know a better," Elmer answered in the same low tone.
"How about her losing this last ship?"
"I wouldn't say this to my wife, it would only aggravate her," said Elmer, grinding up a piece off his plug, "but the loss of that ship is only another example of what that woman can do in the way of pure calculation when she sets out to. There she had that good-for-nothing schooner on her hands. Why, she had to come in here on these very flats and squat and squirt mud up into her seams, trip after trip, as I've seen with my own eyes, to keep the cargo from falling out as much as anything, let alone water coming in; and as soon as the mud had washed out it was all hands on the pumps, boys, for dear life.
"Well, as I say, she took that ship out there in a fog, like a cat in a bag you might say, and filled up with paving stones to boot, and she planted her right there where the Alfred could come slap up against her and give the owners a chance to say 'Good morning' to the underwriters. And she owner of a good fourth at the time. Why, she's got dollars laid away now where you and I have got buttons. And, mind you, the underwriters had as good as told her that that would be her last trip. The insurance was going to fall in as soon as she made port. Now ain't that what you would call a smart woman, laying all joking aside? But I wouldn't want my wife to hear this, Jim. There's a little jealousy mixed in there, between you and me and the bedpost."