The morning call., 1894-11-19
/" SPECk" WAS LOST
How the Tide Ran Away
With Him.
HIS "OLD MAN" LOST HOPE.
For the Boats Failed to Find
the Child.
AND THE FOG WAS so. SO THICK
A Scare That Was Given the Fish
ermen, But ALPS Well That
Ends Well.

early c0mmotioD at fsherman's wharf
and when the morning sun raised its
bright eye over the range south of D;ablo
men. women and boys were observed
hurrying over the basalt blocks from
Broadway and Vallejo streets to the water
front
The mist had not yet lifted from the
bay nor had the spluttering electric light
ceased to siZzle in its notwithstanding
gloDe at the head of the long pier. The
tide was running a trife swiftly. and
scows that could not catch breath of
wind In their sails were idly drifting down
the bay, their inanimate wings folded
against their spars. No wind was up but
the force of the inflowing current could
be readily measured by its swerling and
eddying among the toredo-eaten piling of
the docks.
And Speck was missing. So was the
little era bboat that his father had tied to
the wharf. The old man had shuffled over
to the store on the corner to have his
demijohn filed with claret. He had told
Speck to keep quiet and not move about in
the boat, for if he did he might fall over
board. The child answered in the affirm
alive in his queer Italian baby dialecI,
then proceeded to play soldiers with a
dyzen or more little pop-eyed shrimps that
had hardly yet succumbed to their over
and undoubled their bodies like a jack
knife when its blade is opened and closed
When the old man came pack the boat
was gone. The tide was still running
rapidly and The schooners still drifting
past the city front. The fog was over the
water about as thickly as it was before old
Sol had clim bed into the sky and it was
m nnsSihln q bnnNran wards from
the shore.
The old man ripped out an oath, said
something to felOw-fsherman and
rushed to the end of the wharf. He placed
his hands to his mouth and shouted lust
lily. Then he waited for an answer. but
Goat Island floated back, like a hollow
mockery of his words. He groaned and
hurriedly gave instructions to several vol
unteers TO pull in the directisn of the Oak
land ferries In their boats. The vOlun-
teers dropped down the stream and were
soon lost from view.
Then the old man wiped the beads of
perspiration from his forehead and took
a long breath. Speck is his only child.
and the little fellow is not only beloved
by his father, but is made pet by all the
fishermen. He is only years of age, but
is in love with boats, all his young life
having been spent amidst them.
The women from the neighboring
streets came to offer coincidence to the old
man and urge him to believe that when
the sun dlspelled the damp veil of vapor
Speck would be found In the boat drifting
happily with the tide. But the old man
knows something about bay currents. He
had pulled against them too often to be
deceived. He only groaned in answer as
he stepped into friends boat, which had
been got ready to join the search party.
The tide, had turned. First it ceased to
run toward the mudf1ats. then 1t remained
as Ii stagnating, broken timbers and the
hotSam of sewers biackening its surface or
remaining suspended here and there in its
muddy liquid. A half hour later the flood
was making toward the Golden Gate
Around the piers, along the seawali, off
from the basin of AlcatraZ, against Mile
Rock and around the bar buoys, whirling,
twirling, seething as only a San Frauclsc,
bay tide can. Wise fisherman shook their
heads. 'Speck is lost" they said.
The hour of noon crept on ana the fog
had lifted. Not sign Of its obscuring
form could be seen over the harbor. From
Lime Point TO Hunters Point no sign of
the missing boat and its tiny occupant
could be discovered. Speck was almost
given up as lost.
One by one the boats returned. The old
mans head was bent. and the good
natured smile that is his usual character
istic had left his face His heart was
broken; he had lost his only child and his
beloved fishing smack.
And what joy there was in the Italian
colony when a few minutes later white
ball boatman came pulling up the bay
with the missing craft. At the stern of
the latter sat Speck. as happy as could be,
and apparently perfectly unconscious at
the scare ha had caused. His baby fingers
had unloosened the painter to the boat
when it was tied TO the wharf. The tide
drifted the craft under the LON bard-street
wharf, and for fully three hours the
youngster had howled and howled like
Colorado-desert cayote, until finally his
rescuer heard he noise as he was passing
his boat in between the piles up as far
as the bulknead. There was the looked
for crab boat with Its mast broken, but
Speck was all right, you bet.