The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-04

and young Johnny is tending the lib
sheets.
There is a special flavor about the crabs
caught off shore of which the sluggish
harbor crab cannot boast. He does not
take in slickens with his daily food, and
he has to take more exercise chasing his
three meals a day than his brother of the
harbor. This gives him such keen appe-
tite that he is always fatter and firmer
than the inshore fellow, and commands a
better figure in the crab market.
Now when Johnny Jansen "drops a
hook" off HaIf-mile Rock, keeping decent
distance away from the breakers, he sets
from twenty to thirty nets, all baited with
luscious slumgullion from the kitchen
slops. There be COWS lights and bullock
livers" and a hearty welcome to the off
shore crab to come and regale himself.
The bait is passed around in five-fathom
water and the crabs flock to tie feast.
They swarm over the edge of the nets and
are gorging themselves with the unfamil-
lar Injuries when Johnny Jansen hauls
away, and young Johnny tears them
away from the banquet and losses them
into the sacks. The off-shore crab is a
vicious fellow and as ready and quick with
his nipplng claws as a prize-fighter with
his bunch of fives, but you g Johnny is up
to all the lodges of the crab ring, and gets
back hold on the belligerent crab before
the ugly fellow can get in any of his fine
work.
Once, and only once, did the king of the
crab-fishers meet with disaster. A big sea
hit him, knocking the bottom of his craft
clean out but Johnny grasped it, and was
Even then, like a stout seaman, he did not
desert his ship, but pulled her high upon
the sands, and hammered away at her
until she is now as good as new. He is q
great believer in carrying on sail. He
wants plenty of canvas to keep her out of
the trough of the sea, and he can smell q
squall even before it touches the water.
When the evening falls, Mrs. Johnny
keeps her eye on Yellow Bluff for the
toiler of the sea, and when Johnny's sail
is seen creeping up along shore, the good
housewife puts the finishing touches to the
dinner, sets the table, and places the demi-
john of claret on the right OF Johnny's
seat, for the bread-winner will be wet and
thirsty and hungry by the time he has tied
up his vessel at the moorings before his
house.
What would notthe jaded epicure, whom
all the art of French cuisine cannot tempt
to relish, give for the appetites of those two
Johnnies when the steaming dish of
meat is put upon the table, flanked with
mealy potatoes and washed down with
Berseker draughts of the finest wine?
Pheasant la Brlllat Savarin cannot COM
pare with that steaming platter of corn
beef and cabbage, Chateau Lafitte has no
bouquet like that colossal cup of homely
claret. And the fragrance OF Johnny's
pipe, when the coffee and pie have been
disposed of, for the King is an epicure in
his way, is an incense to the genius of to-
bacco.
Young Johnny has his own trading skiff,
just big enough to hold one and load of
crabs, and in this fast sailing vessel he
crosses Richardson's Bay and disposes of
his cargo among the houses and the arks
of Belvedere. Young Johnny likes to out
do the old man in carrying on sail, and is
completely hidden under the cloud of
dingy canvas he hoists. A life of hard
ship, a life of peril, it is true, but the
health gathered from the sea and the con-
tent, which is the reward for hardy inde-
pendence, are ample compensation to the
King of the crab-fishers and his royal family.