# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 18/Number 6/Before Michael Came

Extracted from Red Book magazine, Chicago, April 1912, pp. 1034-1045. Accompanying illustrations by W. H. D. Koerner may be omitted.
BEFORE MICHAEL CAME
Another Adventure of Lighthouse Tom
By FREDERICK R. BECHDOLT.
Co-Author of “9009”
ALTHOUGH Lighthouse Tom kept a saloon in The Street of Foreign Parts and also had attained the dignity of being a grandfather, the sea still claimed him as one of her rough children. Like the roaring customers who banged his bar with iron knuckles, he could not stay away from his old foster mother. I found him putting on his coat, when I dropped in one afternoon.
“Ye’re in time fer a walk,” said he. “I’m going to take a turn about the city front.”
A grizzled ex-skipper, who was always sitting somewhere about the place, took charge and we two went out together. It was one of those rare drowsy days when the sun shines on San Francisco bay and there is no breeze to speak of. The Street of Foreign Parts was somnolent; we passed windows which bore the names of distant ports. We turned the corner and walked down to East Street. Crossing that busy thoroughfare we made our way to the wharves.
Bowsprits reached out over our heads as we walked; riggers worked far above us, clinging to dizzy perches; the smell of brine and barnacles and decaying piles was in our nostrils. The craft of the seven seas lay in the slips; slender, tall-masted schooners redolent with the odor of Puget Sound lumber; tramp steamships with hulls of red and black; two old wooden ships with painted ports; a dainty French bark over whose rail leaned a sailor in a red yarn cap; white transports taking on cargo for the Philippines; and stern-wheeled steamers discharging loads of produce from the banks of inland rivers.
A riff-raff of tugs and launches were moving in and out among all these Big sisters of theirs. Out in the stream a battleship lay moored to a buoy. Nearby a dingy whaler swung at anchor; she was somber, sinister in color and line; her whole appearance was forbidding; a grim ship, and she seemed to say that she had seen much evil.
“She’ll sail to-morrow,” said Lighthouse Tom. “God help her crew.” He gave her a long look and swore under his breath. His eyes hung on her, and hate was in them. A silver-haired giant, he had now no kindness about him; he was again the man of action; and hot passions flamed within him. In a moment it was passed, and we found a sunny nook on a long dock, with the warehouse behind us and the bay in front. We sat down and Lighthouse Tom filled his black clay pipe.
“The salt water pulls me down here,” he said at length. “I’m getting old, but I can’t stay away.” He sniffed the air and forgot to light up. As if he could not resist the grip of his former calling, he fell to comment on some of the vessels that lay close by. His talk dealt with ropes and timbers and pulley blocks, every one of which owned its peculiar name; he dived into technicalities and my head spun trying to follow him, for these things puzzle a landsman sorely. When he had run on for some time, he lighted the tobacco and smoked in silence.
A young fellow had been loafing aimlessly about the dock. The peculiar dejection of his attitude and the ill set of his worn clothes told their story plainly enough. He was one of those whom the city had lured from afar and he had found the promises empty. His face was pinched.
While Lighthouse Tom was smoking a man came up to this loiterer. He, too, was unmistakable; you can find his type on any crowded waterfront, never working, always prowling about, and usually in some sailors’ saloon. In the old days of the crimps and boarding houses they were more numerous and sleeker; now they often fetch up in police court with a charge of larceny against them. The pair talked for a moment. I saw Lighthouse Tom glance that way and stiffen. The pinched youth was shaking his head emphatically; the other man departed.
“Foxy boy,” said Lighthouse Tom and chuckled; he raised his voice. “Come over here, mate.”
The boy looked our way; hesitated and in the end came. “What sort of a job did he offer ye?” demanded Lighthouse Tom.
The other gave one suspicious glance, and then, as if reassured by the face of his questioner, smiled wanly. “He said he wanted men for a big tramp steamer that was going to Seattle,” said he; “and that there was lots of work up that way. It didn’t look good to me.”
Lighthouse Tom was fumbling in his trousers pockets. He brought forth a dollar and a half dollar. “Here,” said he. “Up on Market Street, a matter of five blocks, there is an employment agency. Ye can get a job there fer the dollar; the rest will stake ye fer a bed and meal. Ye’ll do well to steer clear of the city front when the whalers is in port.”
When the boy had got over his astonishment and had departed, Lighthouse Tom nodded to my look of inquiry. “That ‘big tramp steamer’ is the whaler out there in the stream,” said he; “and Puget Sound would be two years in the Arctic fer that lad.”
I said something about thinking that shanghaiing was done with, since the sailors’ union had managed to get recent legislation.
“It never will be with the whalers.” He cursed them again, and his clear old eyes flamed, as he looked out at the somber vessel in the stream. “I get savage when I think of them,” said he. “The men’s hearts that has been broke aboard of them! I know. No man knows better. Did I ever tell ye how I got my dose of whaling?”
The sun was warm and we had an hour or more of basking ahead of us. I begged him for the yarn; and he launched into it with more profanity. There was no doubt that every oath came from his heart.
“Ye see,” he explained, “I’d’ been shanghaied two times before. I told ye of one of them; the other was when I was a slip of a lad and it didn’t count. One ship was the same as another in them days, and the sea was the best place fer me. But this was after I had married and settled down and I had it in mind never to go to sea ag’in.
“Ye remember how I stole the missus from Old Pedro, her father, when Big Joe was about to marry her? And ye mind how Old Mother Martin helped me and give me seventy-five dollars advance money for the v’y’ge. ’Twas enough fer any man to make his start with. But a sailor is in a hard way ashore, and I had been to sea ever since I was a kid. ’Twas all I knowed, ever since I had cast loose from the old man in Dublin, eleven years old. Cabin boy and able-bodied seaman and fisherman; that was what I had behind me. I was lost now. Me and the lass left Mother Martin’s boarding house and found a little shack on the side of Rincon Hill. I started out to look fer a job. To this day when I see a lad a-castin’ his eye around fer work and gettin’ none, my heart goes out to him. There’s nawthin’ makes a man feel so down and out as getting turned away.
“I got it. Every day I got it. I had no trade; I did not know the ways of the land; I was as helpless as a ship aground on a lee shore? The worst of it was a-coming home to Annette. She could talk next to no English, and I could not lay my tongue to Portugee. All I could do when I come in with the soles of me feet all blistered from walking and my heart as heavy as a ship’s lead, was to shake my head at her. And then she would smile up at me as much as to say, ‘Fair weather ahead, lad,’ and she would kiss me, and we would set down and eat what she had cooked up fer me. She learned her first English during them days. Enough to tell me one night that the baby was a-coming.
“That made me savage. No money in the locker now, and she in the biggest need that she had ever been in. Old Pedro was still sore at her for slipping her cable and getting spliced to me, when he had had it all laid out for Big Joe. He would not come anigh us and he would have laughed if he had knowed the case that we was in.
“Well, I made much over her that night, and I talked about the boy. For a boy it was to be; I was dead set on it. ‘Boy,’ says I over and over to her; and she says ‘Boy’ back to me. But when I come to take thought of it afterwards I was not so sure that she meant the word. I laid awake long after she had gone to sleep alongside of me and the more I thought, the savager I got. At last I dropped off, and the next morning she sung out, ‘All hands’ to me. The first thing that come into my head was what she had told me. I had good reason to hustle now.
“Well, I went down to East Street; and it seemed like every man I laid my eyes on was either working or going to his job with his dinner bucket in his fist. And I had no job. All the time I had the lass in mind; and I have knowed ever since that mornin’ the feeling of being a thief.
“I tell ye, lad, I seen men with the money a-jingling in their pockets and it made my heart go black inside of me. And if it had been night then, I would of taken a chanst, the same as many a poor devil has done before and since. What right had they to money when my wife was with child and I was broke?
“Them was hard times, and men was a-saying, ‘Please, Mister’ on every corner—men that had worked all their lives. But some way, I did not run afoul of them. ’Twas only the lucky ones I seen, with the smiles on their faces. I went here and there, mostly places where I had been before; and I got turned away the same as I always had. It looked to me as if no man was friend to me. Ye do not know the dirtiness of that feeling. I was beating about the city front, trying the best I knowed how to lay out some new course to steer by, and me head was spinning with the things that was a-running through it, when I run afoul of Big Joe.
“I had not cast my eyes on him since I smashed his face in front of Old Pedro’s second-hand store and made off with Annette, when he was a-going for to marry her himself. I told ye he was bully of the Comax Bunkers gang. He come now along with a half a dozen of them big coalheavers. They was in their dongarees and undershirts and their faces was black from the work. No sooner did I clap eyes on them, than Big Joe sighted me. He come bows on.
“Now, what with the trouble I was in and the way I felt to all men, I was a-looking fer the worst of it anyways. It sort of made me feel good to see him too; fer I figured it that I could hammer hell out of him and one or two of fell on him, I felt the blood choking his mates before they got me down. I squared away like.
“But he grinned like a jack lantern and stuck out his big black paw. ‘Lighthouse Tom,’ says he, ‘how are ye annyhow?’ Fer a matter of a minute I did not get my bearin’s, and he sung out, ‘What! Are ye sore yet? Mates,’ says he, ‘this here is the bully that trimmed me, the one I told ye about.’ The gang of them come crowding up with the whites of their eyes a-rollin’. ‘How is the Missus?’ says he. ‘By God, ye have a good woman, Lighthouse Tom.’ I gripped him by the hand then. Damned if he didn’t tell the rest of them about our fight ag’in, and their eyes hung out like I was some curio. ‘And,’ says he, ‘the best man got her. Come on,’ says he, ‘and have a drink with us.’
“We went to a saloon acrost the way and Big Joe asked me how I was a-making it. I told him I was a-casting about fer some sort of a job. ‘You come along with me,’ says he. ‘Ye can learn to swing a scoop. I’ll get ye on this arternoon.’
“That took all the wind out of my sails. It had been that hard weather, and here come a line from a quarter I had never looked to. I told him as much. He laughed down at me—fer big as I was then, he was half a head the loftier—and, says he, ‘Better for the lass, she come to ye. I like me liquor and me bulldog too well to make fast with a woman. I know it, if I didn’t know it then. Ye fought me fer her and ye won, Lighthouse Tom. And I have lost too many bets on Sunday coursin’ races to raise a roar when all was fair and above board,’ says he. ‘We’ll make fer the bunkers now; the timekeeper is there.’
“So that arternoon I shoveled coal under the hatchway of a big bellied tramp along with Big Joe and twenty other Lack, hairy, sweatin’ devils. In a fog of black dust, and work like I had never seen before. It got me too; I near to went under. But Big Joe was me friend and the gang give me all the best of it. I have seen many a new hand come to one of them colliers sence, and get the heavy end; and I learned then what luck I had been in. This all in the knack of it, and soon I got so that I could swing my scoop and trim my pile all proper and stand up to it with the best of them. But that was later on.
“That night I come home to Annette as black as Big Joe; and my pins was a shaking under me with what I had done. But I had six hours’ time in, and that meant three dollars earned. I left a black mark where I kissed her. And when I had sluiced off the dust and eat me supper, we sat and talked together in the kitchen. I fell to sleep in me chair, a-teaching of her to say ‘Michael.’ That was to be the boy’s name, fer ’twas me father’s, and I liked it.
“Every evenin’ after that I used to set there in the kitchen a-teachin’ of her English. And there was no evenin’ when she would not look up at me and say ‘Michael,’ and then come over to me. and set on my lap and kiss me. Ah, lad! Them was the days, even if we was poor enough. The hard weather we had been through made this seem like a quiet harbor.
“Sometimes I would not come home until midnight or after. That was in the beginning of the winter when the colliers was comin’ into port every day or two, and the gang used to be working overtime. Six bits an hour fer that and God knows we ’arned it, too. When we knocked off the balance of them would head fer the saloons; and on Sundays they would gamble away their wages on the coursin’ races or backing Big Joe’s bulldog ag’in a pit dog from up in the Mission. But I had none of that. I took me money home to the lass and she stowed it away in the locker ag’in the boy that was to come. I would be making me way from the city front when it was dark and raining; and I would see nothing nor feel aught of the wind and wet fer thinking of her a-waiting there fer me. Proud we two was; and foolish with talking of the one thing. Ah! Now I’m old and have two grandchildren!”
Lighthouse Tom fell silent and his old face seemed to grow younger as he looked out across the blue waters of the bay. Suddenly his features darkened and his eyelids dropped. I followed his gaze toward the black bulk of the whaler swinging on her cable out in the stream, a pariah among the ships; a wicked looking, dirty colored hulk. He shook his head.
“Bad weather ahead,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “We was a-sailing clost to a lee shore and we never knowed it. Ah, well; ’tis strange how them things comes about.
“All that winter I shoveled coal. Ye can go down to the bunkers there and see what it is like. Two men to a tub; four tubs to a hatch; and us between decks where the black fog of the dust was so thick ye could cut it with a shovel, and everything was full of gas. Big Joe was my mate, and I’ve seen him knock the necks off of two whisky bottles in a shift. I did not drink aught but oatmeal water for the reason that beer and whisky cost money and I was saving every cent that the lass and me could lay by. Spring time come; two hundred dollars in the bank, and the boy was due by our reckoning inside of three months.”
He stopped again, and then he swore. “I do not like the thought of it,” he went on. “Even now it is a hard yarn fer me to spin, lad, fer the ugliness biles up inside of me when I think of it. There come one day, a hard day in the belly of an old wooden ship, scant room between decks and nasty shoveling. That noon I blowed meself fer two big tall steam beers over at the Bells of Shandon. And there was luck in that too, as ye’ll see fer yourself later on.
“I run acrost two old shipmates of mine there; Olaf Hansen and Shrivel-Head Pete, both of them fishermen. We had been together two seasons in the old days and knowed one another well. So I had a yarn with them, and told them about the lass and the good luck that was a-coming to us. They was a-blowing in their advance money, fer they was to sail on the old Fremont within the week. They wanted me to stay and help them spend it, but I couldn’t see it that way. That arternoon things come hard.
“Two men laid out with gas in the for’ard hold; and in the evenin’ a tub tipped and a matter of three hundred pounds of coal come from aloft. It got one of the byes that was a-standin’ hard by me; and when we picked him up his skull was mashed in. What with the hard work we was a-having and this bad luck, we was all glad when we climbed to deck at one o’clock in the marnin’. The gang started on a run fer East Street to get a drink. I steered a course for home.
“I hadn’t any more than set out. I was a-thinkin’ of the lass and the way she would be a-looking when I come in to her. My mind was not with them things that was around and about; and I was a-coming out from under the coal bunkers where all was dark; on Frisco’s city front. And a whaler lying out there in the stream the same as this one is this arternoon. I heard the scrape of a foot hard astern, and it sort of brought me back to meself. I turned to look, and three men piled onto me from dead ahead. As I tried to fend them off, the one that I had heard got me with the side of his hand in the back of the neck.” Lighthouse Tom made a swift, short chopping movement with his open hand. “Like that. I went down and out.
“When I come to I was laid by the heels; ropes around me arms and legs and a handkerchief stuffed into me mouth. But that was not the first thing I took note of, lad. Someone kicked me with his heavy boot. I looked up and I seen there, a-looking straight down at me, a blue-eyed nigger.
“Yes, sir, a big Jamaica nigger with blue eyes, in the black face of him. I had been wild mad when I looked up; when I clapped me eyes on that, I turned sick like. For a matter of a half a minute I was scared. The shine of an arc light come down on us from a pier head and it showed him plain. And then I seen how I was a-laying in a ship’s boat and the men was a-giving way for all that was in them. I knowed then.
“This mongrel that had kicked me was Lily Brown, the mate of the old Henry Buck, the worst hell ship in the whole whaling fleet. She is gone to pieces long sence, and many’s the poor devil thanked God when he heard of it, too.
“But I was telling ye about me in the boat. They must of handed me one or two fer luck when I went down, fer me head was spinning so that I could not be thinking for long at a time. I do not mind how they got me to the deck. All I do mind was that face of Lily Brown and the heaviness of me heart for a-thinking of the lass a-waiting fer me there alone. A-waiting there in the kitchen with the supper warm in the oven fer me, and a-wondering why I was not on hand by now. A-listening fer me step and a-saying ‘Michael’ to herself. I tore me wrists and ankles raw on the rope whilst they dumped me down the forecastle companionway; and I must of fainted away later on, for I mind a-hearing of the donkey engine and the roar of the anchor chain in the hawseholes, and that was the last.
“The stink of a whaler’s forecastle was in me nose when I come to ag’in. I was a-rolling about like an old cask with the movement of the ship. The tug had cast loose and we was outside the heads. No man needed to tell me; I knowed what it was all about. Me on the old Henry Buck with the Arctic ahead and back home, the lass a-waiting, and sick from worry by this time. They had loosed the ropes from me now and I heard some one sing out, ‘All hands.’ I found me pins and made out for to get to the main deck.
“’Twas in the gray of the early mornin’ and the wind was raw, It freshened me and I could feel me legs a-growing stiffer under me. The old Henry Buck was a-rolling and everything on deck was on the jump. I stiddied meself and I got a look at the crew.
“Ye know how it is with a whaler; one crew amidships, harpooners and boatmen and the like, and another for’ard. Well, them first was bad enough, as tough as they make them. But the sea men! Lad, such dock’s scourin’s was never seed before. Not a sailor among the whole of them: bums sick from a-waiting fer a square meal; scum picked up from the dance halls of the Barbary Coast and hoodlums grabbed on their way to jail. A sweet lot! But even whilst I was a-casting me eye over them, I could not but feel sorrow for them all. Better the worst of the crowd had stayed ashore fer the hangman than come aboard the Henry Buck! And then I clapped me eyes on Lily Brown.
“Blue eyes in a black face. A-standing hard by; and instid of a cap or a sou’wester he had a red handkerchief tied up at the four corners on his head, so that the kinky wool come out all about it like a fringe. His black arms was bare and he was in his shirt and dongarees. He had a big belt and a long revolver slung alongside of him. He used to wear that gear to scare the new hands, and he looked fierce enough in it, too. But the minute me eyes lit on him I felt the blood a-choking in me neck. I made a leap for him.
“He had no time to get that gun if he had a mind to. I do not think he so much as tried. I was on him with me two hands about his throat. We went to the deck together. I sunk me fingers in and felt his pipes give and give. And then the others came—two from aft and four or five harpooners and boatmen—and pried me off. They dragged me to the skipper and he had them spread-eagle me on the for’ard hatch.
“They laid me flat and pulled my arms and legs as far as they would go, and triced me there all hard and fast so that I could not stir an inch. The burning in me jints was like red-hot fire. My face was up, a-looking at the sky. And Lily Brown come and leaned over me and spit on me as I laid there. All day and all night they kept me there. I thought that I had died with the last thing I knowed, that black mongrel cursing me, and me heart a-busting inside of me for the thinking of Annette. Well, I come to in the forecastle, stowed away in me bunk. And from that day I was a good dog.
“Ye see it was this way. When I come to meself I was alone down there, and I got time for thought. I knowed what I was up against. And says I to meself, ‘I will bide me time and see whether there is God. There is the lass to get back to and there is Lily Brown to kill with me two hands. And the v’y’ge is not done with yet. I will wait and I will find out.’”
Lighthouse Tom groped in his pockets and hauled forth his tobacco. He filled up his pipe, lighted it and smoked for a minute. It seemed to calm him, for his face became placid and he said, as if it were to himself, “Ah, well, ’twas many years ago." Then he resumed his yarn.
“The worst of a whaler is not the mate, or the Arctic or the scurvy that rots the meat on your bones. It is the crew. Of all the pickings from this side of hell, the old Henry Buck had the worst. From the start that forecastle was full of nawthin’ but jobbing. They would lay out a course to murder Lily Brown, and then, some poor devil would tip it off in the hope of getting a square deal for it himself. Every night mutiny was hatched up for’ard; and every mornin’ they knowed all about it in the cabin. So there was always knocking down and tricing up and trouble enough. A sweet mess! I stayed away from it all. I kept to meself. I said nothing to nobody, and bided me time.
“The old Henry Buck was a slow tub enough and there was no hurry anyways, fer the ice was hardly due to be out of Behring Sea at the best ye could put it. So we loafed along under sail with the engines idle. I counted the days until Michael was due to be a-coming into port. It was hard, hard! Sometimes I had to fight meself to keep me hands down to me sides and say, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ when Lily Brown was a-handing me the rough side of his dirty tongue. And I had to look down on the deck lest he should see what was in me heart. But I done it. They got it into their heads that I was broke. And then, ye see, I was a good able-bodied seaman, which the rest of that crew was not by a long ways.
“Well, Behring Sea was full of ice. And we put back to Dutch Harbor to stand by fer the breaking. Sence the day we made for that port I have been what ye might call a Christian. That is to say, I have always knowed that there is God.
“Ye see, Dutch Harbor was the last of the world in them days. Chances was after that a whaler would see no other port unless it might be some out of the way station. And hell would really begin. So I give up an idee that had come into me head of making a run fer Lily Brown and taking him overboard with me. I would of done it, too, if we had not put back. I was in a bad way; I had got to talking to meself, so that I had to keep a weather eye out, fer fear they would catch me at it and hear what I was a-saying.
“We made Dutch Harbor in the night time. Marnin’ come with us at anchor. A lot of mountains shuts the place in; they come right down to the water’s edge. I was on deck near the rail a-looking at the tops of them, when here come the old Fremont a-racing by: She was the fastest schooner in the fishing fleet in them days. She had left Frisco long behind us and had caught up easy enough. She come so dost that I could of throwed a stone from our deck to hers. And there, up for’ard, was Olaf Hansen and Shrivel-Head Pete, the same two that I had took drink with in the Bells of Shandon that arternoon before Lily Brown laid me by the heels.
“We three looked into each other’s faces; and I seen them grab hold of each other’s arms. But that was all. I made no sign and they made none. I turned as if there had been nothing in the wind at all, and Lily Brown was right behind me. He was all rigged out in that there pirate gear of his, with his six-shooter in his belt.
“‘Know that craft?’ says he.
“I had better sense than to lie, fer all hands knowed I was an old seaman on this coast. So I says, ‘Sure, I sailed on her once years ago.’
“‘Who was them men on deck?” says he.
“‘Couldn’t tell ye, sir,’ says I; ‘men has changed sence I was to sea last.’
“He grunted something; then he started away. In a minute he came back ag’in..‘Get below,’ says he, ‘and don’t show yer face on deck unless ye’re called.’
“‘Aye, aye, sir,’ says I. If he had give me orders then to lick off his boots, I would of done it, and ship shape, too. Ye may lay to that, lad.
“I went below. I laid down in me bunk and put me poor head to figuring it out. ’Twas plain as a map. The whole crew of the Fremont would know now that I had been shanghaied on the old Henry Buck. For hadn’t I told Olaf Hansen and Shrivel-Head Pete about the lay of the land, ye see? And back in port the lass, according to the reckoning I was a-keeping, was a month from the day when there would be two of them there, a-standing by fer me.
“That poor, rotten bunch that we called our crew, was all a-whispering together. I knowed that they had something on, but I paid no heed to that until one of them came over to my bunk. He was a one-eyed hoodlum from down in Butchertown, that had shipped of his own free will, because he had San Quentin a-waiting for him if he stayed ashore. Says he, ‘Mate,’ says he, ‘there’s a steamer in the harbor.’ I knowed then that it must be the Dora or the Bertha, for they was a-making them westward ports then. ‘She will be a-sailing sometime in the night,’ says he. ‘Are ye game fer to go with us? We’ll make a rush fer the two men on watch, and get a boat overside,’ says he; ‘and we’ll board her and tell our story.’
“I told him that it would only land them back on the Henry Buck in irons. He went away. They had more talk together and I seed how they was arguing of it out among themselves. And at last they seemed to give it up. In the arternoon six of them started ag’in. And the one-eyed hoodlum come over to me once more. This time they had it laid out to get the boat and make a try fer the land and the mountains. ‘Any place,’ says he, ‘is better than this hell’s hole.’ But I shook me head and told him it was no use and I was done with all that sort of thing.
“So the forecastle was lonesome enough that evening, for they all held away from me more than ever they had and whispered amongst themselves. And all the time I was a-lying there a-wondering how the play would come up fer me and when it might come annyhow. Ye see, that was the trouble. I did not know; and I could only wait and dig me finger nails into me hands. Weary waiting, it was, lad. For I was young and well-nigh crazy, too.
“The best I could figure it was this: They would be a-standing by on the Fremont, and some of them was bound to be pretty clost by midnight. If I got no hail in any fashion from them, and nothin’ come, I could slip on deck then and make a run and a jump fer it over the side. I was a good swimmer and chances was there would be a dory a-waiting for me to take me on.
“Well, midnight drawed along and I begun to wonder whether mebbe I hadn’t better be thinking of stirring; when I heard some of them poor devils begin to move in their bunks. I seen six of them slip out and come together; and I made out how they was all dressed but in their socks. While they was bunched, I see the shine of a knife in the hand of the one-eyed hoodlum that had had the talk with me. It come to me mind that mebbe they might stick me to keep me quiet. But even while I was a-thinking of that, they begun to make fer the companionway. One of the bunch went on ahead; and the rest waited until he come a-crawling back. Then all six went up together, bent over and easy on their feet as tomcats.
“I waited and did not move. Pretty quick there come a scufflin’ noise on deck. And that was all. It seemed like a year, and then there came a bump. Says I to meself, ‘They’ve got Lily Brown;’ and I felt like I had been cheated. And just as I was a-thinking there come a long, horrid screech; and hard on that the racket of a boat being lowered away.
“It didn’t take long fer the pounding of the boots from aft. ‘All hands on deck,’ sings out a voice. ’Twas Lily Brown. I cracked my head ag’in a timber a-tumbling up. And no sooner had I hit the planks above when a yell sounded from alongside. ’Twas men in sore distress, too. Just then I stubbed me toe on something soft. I looked down and I see the third mate sprawled out, flat. I slipped in the blood that was all over everything and capsized alongside of him. As I was a-rightin’ meself that yell come ag’in from the water. I knowed what it was. They had pulled the boat plugs while they was in port; and them poor devils was a-drowning alongside of the Henry Buck.
“I made a run fer the rail, and I got the noise of oars hard by. That would be the Fremont’s dory. I knowed that. Lily Brown and four others was a-cursing the air blue making ready to lower away another boat. I knew what I had to do. I whirled where I was a-standing and made that blue-eyed nigger in two jumps. I swung one and then two and he went to the deck like a log of wood. And now there was no time to waste. Down in Frisco the lass was a-waiting; and here was the Fremont’s dory a-coming on the jump. I only took a second to put me boots into that mongrel face and spile it worse than ever it had been spiled in the making. And then I went over the rail while two harpooners was about to lay hands on me.
“When I come up—I took two long minutes fer it, for I was in all me clothes—Olaf Hansen had me by the collar. I got the gunwale and yelled fer them to give way. And round about the air was full of the hollaring of them drowning men. I tumbled in; and right astern the Henry Buck’s boat was a-rattling down. The byes in the dory made the oars crack, and a shot came after us when they was bending fer the third stroke. Dutch Harbor was as noisy as one of them East Street saloons when a battleship is in port, and the men ashore with three months’ pay. I heard afterwards as how they got all their hands back only one, the hoodlum from Butchertown, and he was better off as it was, what with prison behind him and the Arctic ahead.
“Shrivel-Head Pete was a-grinning at me when I righted meself in the dory. He told me how they had been a-standing by for a matter of two hours; and was laying it out to make up a boarding party if I did not show my head. All the time the other boys was pulling fit to kill. We went right on past the Fremont. ‘The Bertha sails in the half hour,’ says Shrivel-Head; ‘we fixed it with the man on the dock. They will stow ye away in the fireroom.’
“And so they did. I was a-drying out when the Henry Buck’s skipper come aboard of the Bertha; but he did not make a search, for they give him a game of talk on deck that sent him back to the Fremont. Inside of an hour we was outside of Dutch Harbor.
“Well, there was a whole string of little half-way ports to make, and the Bertha was no ocean grayhound any how. So we took a matter of three weeks and more before we entered Puget Sound. I had to loaf about Seattle for another two days, a-waiting for the sailing of a Frisco boat. I worked me passage down in the fireroom, and one mornin’ I walked down the gangplank to the wharf over there. ’Twas a lumber carrier I had come in, and she had a good-sized cargo too. What’s more we met head-winds and a heavy sea. So me month was up, that I had figured that evenin’ before I cleared the Henry Buck’s rail.
“Lad, I made for Rincon Hill with all sail on and a fair wind. I do not call to mind one thing from the dock to the shack where. I had left the lass, only that I had collisions with two or three that was slow in getting acrost me bows; and a cop was set on taking me to the station fer a crazy man. I come to the place at last. I went up to the door on a run, all out of wind. Mother Martin opened it in me face.
“‘So,’ says she, ‘ye’re back in port. ’Tis time! Where have ye been a-keepin’ of yerself, and what have ye to say?’ says she.
“She was as ugly as a fighting bulldog, but it was only the way of her, for she knowed that I had been in a hard fix. ’Twas all over East Street how I had been shanghaied on the Henry Buck three days arter we had sailed. Well, I made shift to tell her as fast as I could how I had got back. ‘The lass,’ says she, ‘is all snug and in good trim. As good as ye could look fer. The baby come last night:.’
“‘Leave me in,’ says I. ‘Gangway quick.’
“‘Aisy,’ says she. ‘Ye’re not on the Henry Buck now, lad. Yer wife is got to be give word first. Stand by and I’ll be out directly.’
“I cooled me heels on the doorstep until I was well-nigh crazy. She come out with her skinny old finger on her lip. ‘Take off yer boots,’ says she. ‘And make a try to tread light.’ I stripped them off and follied her inside.
“The lass was a-lying in her bed. She was main weak, of course; and I went alongside of her on me knees. We had our word or two together and then she give me a queer look, half scared, half proud like. And Mother Martin come slipping in behind me with the baby in her arms.
“‘Michael,’ says I and come to my feet a-grinning with the pride that was a-busting in me.
“‘Michael nawthing!’ says Mother Martin. ‘That’s no name fer a girl.’
“And so it was; and as fine a one as ye ever clapped eyes on. I stood there a-looking and old Mother Martin give me signals with her eyes to take notice of the missus.
“She was a-lying there, a-looking like she was waiting fer some sort of a word from me. And I seen it agin in them big eyes of hers, like she was in a way scared along with all the proudness that was in her. And I remembered how I had made her say ‘Michael’ after me. And I felt like a fool; for here, I was with a lass instid of a bye and glad of it. And so I told her and she begun to cry then. For ye see, lad, she was main weary with it all.”
Lighthouse Tom pulled at the tobacco and said nothing for a minute or two. At length, “It was two year before Michael did come. Ah, well. And now I’m a grandfather. A man grows old. He does.”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1950, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 73 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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