“Put her under way, Mr. Mason,” he said to the first mate as he passed him, as quietly as if he had been saying “It’s a fine day.” The steward would have made more fuss over having the carving-knife cleaned.
It was a grand thing to be steaming out to sea in a fine ship like the North Cape; but now that the moment had come Kit felt a little more serious over it than he expected. He had never been away from home before, and a thousand recollections of the old place crowded into his mind. What were his mother and Vieve doing, and how long would it be before he should see them again? Having little to do in the middle of the morning, he went up on deck and leaned over the rail while the steamer ran down through the Narrows and into the lower bay. Everything was new and beautiful to him; but he would have enjoyed it more if there had not been, somehow, a little bit of a haze before his eyes. Suddenly he felt a friendly clap on the back, and heard the kindly voice of Tom Haines:—
“Brace up, young ’un. You might as well start your first voyage laughing as crying.”
“Oh, I’m not crying,” Kit protested; and he proved it by wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “You’ll think I’m a big baby, won’t you?”
“Not at all,” Haines answered; “I salted the ocean myself a little when I first left home. You’ll soon get used to being away.”
“It’s not only that,” Kit said thoughtfully. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the big ocean, and I can’t help thinking that my father is lying at the bottom of it somewhere. He was lost at sea about a year ago.”
“All the more reason for you to keep up a bold front, young ’un,” Haines insisted. “If you have no father, you have to shift for yourself, and for your family too, like enough. Keep at work and don’t stop to think about such things. If you want to send a line home to let them know you’re all right, you can send it ashore by the pilot, you know, when we’re outside the Hook.”
Captain Griffith was not the man to leave his ship in the hands of the pilot, as some captains do. He was up on the bridge, glass in hand, and remained there till he had seen the flags run up that announced to the signal station at Sandy Hook, “North Cape, for Sisal,” so that her departure would be announced to the owners and all interested. Then he went below, and the chief mate took his place on the bridge.
Kit was surprised, perhaps almost disappointed, to find that the sea was as smooth as the bay. It was one of those days that come sometimes even in winter, when there is hardly a ripple on the surface. There was not a sign of the seasickness he expected, and while the Captain was on the bridge he had an opportunity to write another “last line” home.
“Dear Mother,” he wrote with pencil, “I can write you another line to send by the pilot. We are at sea now, just outside Sandy Hook, and it is as smooth as Bonnibrook. I am not the least seasick. A little bit homesick, but I’ll soon work that off. I have to help set the dinner table now. Love to all. Kit.”