The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-09-02
The LOST YVONNE.

z p. m yesterday Fine weather, with moder-
ate westerly winds throughout passage Re-
ports picked up sixth day out canvas covered
canoe Yvonne, built by Higgins & Co., Boston.
Found sweater" and silver Waltham watch,
mo. 2,267, LEO, in Yvonne. Owner supposed lost.
This is an extract from the shipping
news published by a Boston paper one
morning last August. My attention was
called to it by young man who sat be-
side me ON train coming into town from
Riverside. He put his thumb on the
place and handed me the paper with an
excited gesture.
ssMy canoe--my watch-my sweater1
he said. "Been afoat three weeks today.
T must go down to the King Philip and
claim my property"
.'Floated away by a rising tide from
some place where you had drawn the
canoe up, I suppose said /.
mo. Haven't you heard how ! lost
my canoe? I've told SO many people
about it that I thought everybody in
West Newton knew. But was forget
ting; you're almost stranger there.
Well, the Yvonne was blown out to sea
and with her."
"You don't say SO! How did you man.
age to get ashore without herr"
"That's the story. I'll tell you all
about it. There's time enough before
I'VE get to Boston.
"Three weeks ago today I got into the
IYvonne at Kennebunkport and padded
out beyond the pier to sea. The weather
%1,o Hy1,ora c7o3f
a curl on the water; nothing but the
long ocean swell Still didn't feel quite
comfortable out there. Were you ever
at sea in canoe? No?
"Well, perhaps you can imagine how
the size of the water affected me. had
never before been out in a canoe on any
thing wider than the Charles between
Riverside and Waltham. 1t wasn't that
felt in danger of capsizing or being I'M
able to get back to land, but an oppres-
.sive sense Of the enormous spread of the
sea grew on me as knelt in my cookie
shell away out there, with my head only
three feet or so from the pillows
'There was no island on the ofing-
nothing but sea and sky and gulls, ex-
Icept the red canoe Of young English
man named Albert Edward Jones, who
had gone out from Kennebunkport half
an hour or so before I did.
eve called him Wales Jones, and !
must say that more unsociable chap l
never came across than he seemed. l
suspect now that nothing worse than
shyness was the matter with him.
"All day long he was padding, gen
orally out at sea, and certainly he was
wonderful hand in a canoe.
GOTTEN he would stay out in wind
that sent bigger surf ashore than most of
the bathers liked, and in he would come,
fairly sliding along on the crest Of some
curling wave that would weller around
his canoe near the pier SO that you'd be
sure he must go down before reaching
quiet water in the river.
81 thought him foolhardy. though l
could appreciate his great skill with the
paddle. Most of the summer people re-
garded him as demented to run such
risks.
"Well, it was the wish to practice on
big water and the hope to pick up some
of Wales knack that took me out into
the open that day. said to myself,
sPll go out first in a calm, and afterward
in gentle breeze, and after that in one
mot quite so gentle, and if don't get
drowned I'll gradually learn how to
manage canoe like Wales
"But the sea is treacherous. You
don't catch me fooling with it any more
On the calculation that it will stay
just SO.
"As withstood my nervous feeling it
nearly disappeared, and padded out
perhaps mile The weather was per-
fectly clear. There was just a breath OF
air from the south at first. This died
away after awhile. The afternoon sun
beat fercely down, and yet sat 80 close
| ito the cool water that was not uncoln-
fortably hot.
81 was padding in trunks with my
well tanned arms and shins bare. My
| sweater and my watch were in the stern,
| for knelt before the second thwart.
"Instead Of coming toward me, as any
| american fellow would have done on
seeing me, Wales stood farther out, and
I could barely make out the CLEAN of his
red canoe through the heat spirals and
faint mist that cling close to the sea on a
hot, calm day. When / became con-
WINGED that he either didn't see me or
wouldn't come in for chat, began to
| think of turning back to shore.
"In fact I did turn, but I still had
plenty of daylight ahead of me. The
shore seemed not more than mile away,