Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1903-11-27
ANDREW HANSEN'S DEBT.
HEEzzH EN8EE HE8HHlH8E EEEHs
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was bettered some nine dollars by two
weeks work. And Andrew had no
boat-puller to share his profits, but
tofled alone, he and his alarm clock
that warned him to wake and work
when sleep was heavy upon him.
One Sunday at noon Andrew came
down from the little house under the
hill, shambling sullenly out ON the
wharf to where his boat lay nosing a
fender pile. His pipe was gripped in
his teeth, and he ragged that the day
should be so fine when he must go out
and spend it in a dirty boat alone,
while his wife sat in white anger at
his parting silence
After a slow look over the bay he
jolted down the ladder, pulled his boat
in sharply and dropped on the net
heaped amidships. Then with quick
jerks he stepped the mast, threw off
the riding line, and with a thrust Of
an oar was out in the stream. Five
minutes later No. 345 was speeding
across toward the deep calm in the lee
of the Washington hills. Bowed. in the
stern was Andrew Hansen, clutching
his tiller in one hairy hand and hold
ing the sheet in the other. Only once
did he glance back, to see if the fish
warden's launch was still tied up by
her dock. For Sunday, until six
o'clock In the evening, Is Closed
Sunset found him below Sand Is
land slowing the last fathoms of his
reeking net. A dozen poor fish slid
p oh nd Fo,s+h in fba 10
BILE Of the boat. Andrew flung in the
last armful of net, and stood up to
ease his aching back. His eve caught
a solitary pink cloud riding high in
the evening sky, and his gaze fastened
ON it truculently.
Gradually the ocean wind chilled
and the dusk came on like puffs of
smoke before it. The crystal Of the
lee shores dimmmed, and the bar
! leaped higher against the blackened
embers Of the west. The clear gleam
from a lighthouse threaded the twi-
| light, and No. 345 plunged wildly over
gray combers. Still Andrew poised
his bulk over the boat, and as the
seas, rising with the tide, tossed it an
grily, his grim face hardened Before
his mind rose the image Of the man.
ager who had cheated him, Of the fel-
low fisherfolk who had looked at him
quizzically, or hostilely, or pityingly
His big fists clenched because, were
it not for one thing, he was strong
enough to fend against them all. That
one thing had ridden his heart till the
very thought of it made his teeth
fasten in his lips and the blood swell
his veins to bursting.
With a sudden access of rage, he
pulled out of his jacket pocket his fish
book and held it's almost obliterated
pages up before him. The grabbed
scrawls of many weighers were jum-
bIed in its rude columns. But hate
knew the false entries, and his finger,
shriveled by the cold brine, shook as
it traced them out. Then the vision
of the little home under the hill, a
pa1e-faced wife, and a babe with tiny
fists, blurred his sight and effaced the
sordid characters. And then a sand
laden wave fell on No. 345, and flooded
it till Andrew was knee-deep in water.
With a leap he seized an oar swung
the boat round till it met the next
roller head on. and with a few swift
jerks raised the sail. The wind was
getting up fast, but in pure defiance
he put in the spirit. and, before No.
345 could yield dangerously to it's pres
sure, drove the boat into the eye of the
gale with another sweep of the oar,
and then fell upon the tiller. The
fish book f1oated in the water among
the Shiny chums.
1t was black night, and Andrew set
to scanning the lights before running
up the bay. The roar of the surf was
growing shriller and the foam that
blew past him was alive, not dead
from long drifting. In his wide sweep
of the rivers mouth he caught sight
of a strange light off the south end of
the bar. He looked again and again.
He forgot his wrath in this new mat
ter, and peered under the foot of his
shaking sail, careless Of the fact that
his boat was half waterlogged and
that his catch was stopping about in
the bottom. For Andrew knew that
that glimmer was on another boat and
from its position he also knew that
| it was driving into the terror of all
who use Astoria Bay. the chops Off
| Clatsop Spit.
Then his anger came over him again.
Had 1t not been for the false entry
in his fsh-book, and the harsh injus-
dce Of the manager, he would not now
be out in the night, helplessly watch
ing some unknown fellow struggling
with death. He seemed to catch a
| glimpse Of a smart house, with red
fire in a CRATE, and the manager of the
Astoria Crescent toasting himself and
talking to his wife. His own clothes
were sour upon him, and the brine
hardening about his eyes made 1t tor
ture to look into the wind. Then, with
a defiant curse at the transient vision,
he stopped to his net, and, raising it
fathoms at an armful, thrust it over
the side. 1t is the last sacrifice Co
lumbia river fisherman makes. But
out in the tossing surges of the bar he
saw still wavering light.
Unburdened, No. 345 answered her