The Press., 1890-02-20

in a canvas bucket from the mizzen chains to wash over that deck. The remaining five boys would push wearily about with their brooms, hand brushes, squabs and squilgees, sue perintended by our extraordinary fourth mate (always to me an object of interest, from the fact of the secret carefully .hoarded in my breast that I had pulled him into the New York dock), who, with microscopic eye, inspected each crack and seam after the boys labors, in search of atomic particles of dirt, and called them back with all the dignity of com mand, and small amount of command ing personality behind it, whenever he deemed he had discovered any. When this labor was finished was generally so exhausted as to have no appetite for breakfast. But sailors stomach is not presumed to be at all sensitive under any conditions. And above all, a "boy" "a boy belonging to squad of boys who about once day were encouraged and enthused to exertion and maritime ambition by the assurance conveyed them by one of the mates that they weren't "worth their salt" = what business had boys stomach to put on airs at sea? Most landsmen, if called up at o'clock on muggy morn ing and worked like mules for a couple of hours on digestive vacuum, would probably at the breakfast hour feel more the need of food than the appetite to par take of it.
 Though I followed the sea nearly two years, am no sailor. The net result of my maritime experience is capacity for tying bow line or square knot and a positive knowledge and conviction con corning which end of the ship goes first. also know enough not to throw hot ashes to windward.
 But on yard could never do much else but hold on. The foolhardy- men about me would lie out flat on their stomachs amid the darkness and storm. and expose themselves to the ~r risk of pitching headlong into the sea in the most reckless manner while trying to '.spin the wind" out of Q t'gallant sail. But I never emulated them. I never lived up to the maritime maxim of tone hand for yourself and the other for the owners" kept both hands for myself, and that kept me from going overheard. What would the owners have cared had I gone overboard2 Nothing. Such an occurrence twenty-five odd years ago | would, weeks afterward, have been re- | ported in the marine news this way: Common sailor, very common sailor, fell from t'gallant yard off Cape Horn and lost"
 The owner would have secretly re- l joiced, as he bought his Christmas toys for his children, that the t'gallant yard had not gone with the sailor. No; on yard in storm believed and lived up to the maxim: "Hold fast to that which is good" The yard was good. Yet was ambitious when boy before the mast on the clipper which brought me to Cal ifornia. was quick to get into the rig ging when there was anything to do aloft. But once in the rigging was of little utility.
 The first time went up at night to loose one of the royals, I thought should never stop climbing. The deck soon vanished in the darkness of very black tropical night, the mastheads were likewise lost in Cimmerian ob- scurity-whatever that is. At last I found the yard. I wasn't quite sure whether it was the right one or not. didn't know exactly what to do. Iknew I had to unite something somewhere. But where? Meantime the savage Scotch second mate was believing, as it then seemed, mile below me. knew the below was for me- I had to do some thing, and I commenced doing. I did know, or rather guessed, enough to cast off the lee and weather gaskets, or lines which bind the sail when furled to the l SYn%r o most slovenly knot. But the bunt gas ket (the line binding the middle and most bulky portion of the saiD bothered me. couldn't unite it. l picked away; at it desperately, tore my nails and skim ming my knuckles.
 Tie believing from below continued as fercely as ever, which, though not intelligible as to words, was certainly exhorting me, and me only, to vigilance. Then watch got tired waiting for me. l Thinking the sail loosed, they began F proper place and me with it. l chung, on 4 and went up higher. That, by the way, always comes of holding fast to that which is good. Then a mans head came bobbing up out of the darkness. It was that of good natured Nantucket boy, whose name of course was Coffin. He asked me the trouble. I went into lengTny eXplanaGlon aDOuL Cne unmanageable knot. "Oh, the knotr' said he. "Cut itr' and he cut it. I would never have cut, it. In my then and even present nautical ignorance l should have expected the mast or yard to have fallen from cutting anything aloft. Only few days previous had seen the captain on the quarter deck jumping up and down in his tracks with rage because common seaman had, by mistake, cut mizzen brace, and the sec 3 ~ond mate, as usual, had jumped up and down on the seaman when he reached the deck. feared to set similar jump ing process in operation. Coming on deck after my lengthy and blundering sojourn loosing] a royal, expected to be mauled to pulp for my. stupidity. But both watch and believing mate had gone below and heard no more of it.
 A few days after my unsuccessful as- tension, the Wizard one morning shot through bank of fog and San Fran cisco lay before us.
 Il PRENTICE MULFoRD.