Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-10
GIN FROM THE BANKS"


crests; and every riding sail in all the feet
thunders stiffiy in salute. The bows no
longer climb suffering up the Swells. They
tear through them, drowning, and spilling
salt water to go spouting down both sides
of the bowsprit along the decks. Again
and again the men, sitting below at break
fast hear the swash of water as she takes
it green over the side.
Watching Their Rivals.
Holding to lines and dashed booms, the
men of the feet look sharply around the
horizon, watching their rivals. Suddenly
a voice rings from our bow, whipped back
by the wind:
1.-THE Paxton's putting her dories over"
'She is, is she?" shouts our captain. 80
she is. Well. that settles it. Over you go,
boys"
sling the high-sided dories at the word.
Over they go with un into sea so
heavy and wild that from our slippery
cascade washed deck it looks, momentarily
as if the whole feet of smacks were 60
ing to the bottom. wicked thrust of rush.
ing waves that try to crush them against
the side, evaded with a clever short twist
of an oar; brief pounding into the very
middle OF swirling wave-and off they go,
pulling steadily and as easily as if they
were rowing on a mill pond, up the long
hills of gray and green, posing a mo-
ment on the sharp tops. and disappearing
again and sink until they anchor at last,
black specks, mile and more away from
their house and home.'
1t is no weather for dories to be out !;
and many skipper watches the growing
sea and the whistling straining wind an
X1ously from his leaping smack. But time
Is growing short. If the smack is to have
a full fare, she must get it now or never,
ket
The Gamble With the Sea.
So, weighing the chances of his marine
dice with keen and instant decision, the
fisherman CANDLES with the sea, and for
unequal stakes. Against the fish that are
staked by the gray old sea, the men stake
lusty, brave young life
Harder and harder blows the wind The
clear-cut rim of sea and sky in the north
mas 1nsensibly grown trif1e dull. Only
the eye of seagull or a fisherman could
see the difference. But presently from
schooner after schooner sound the conch
sneils, blowing the home-call to their dories
Specks appear converging on the semi
circle of anchored vessels, grow from
specks to tiny black shapes and from
shapes to dores, streaming home in an
SWer TO the warning signals.
before the rearmost have more than come
into fair sight, the thing that brewed in
the north is on them-white, binding, a
driving snow storm, biting with the cold Of
the Labrador current.
Now ring bells, blow horns, sound gun
and pistol! The fishing fleet of the Grand
Bank has lost too many men in the snow
storms of the past to take a chance Too
many Christmas markets have been sup
piled by vessels that came in with flag at
half-mast, while somewhere in the unknown
plains of sea drifted their dories with men
turning frozen faces toward the staring,
passionless Atlantic sky.
Dory after dory, with frosted white fig
ures in them and soft white mounds cover
tpey fhnir Gcl, ~rJ;l
lie under our lee to toss their catch on
deck and call out their scores before the
men scramble heavily on deck and shake off
the fringing ice that covers them from
eyelaSheS to feet.
HomewardBound at Last.
The fish. herding fathoms deep, undis-
turbed by the gale overhead, have been bit
ing well. The piles grow high on deck with
each dory's load. And when the cleaning
and icing down is done that night, all hands
stretch themselves happily to sleep with
the knowledge that the next day will see
the riding sail replaced by the great MAIN
SAIL and that before noon the craft will
be gliding and sliding over the restless seas,
bound west by south for port.
But 1t is no yachting cruise that awaits
them. Between the banks and Gloucester,
Boston and New York fish markets is a
rolling ocean drunken with wintry temper
Before the fishermen of America make the
twin lights of Thatcher's Island, the steady
eye of Minots Lodge, the welcome soft
shine of the Stepping Stones that tell He'll
Gate is near, or the fierce winking of Sandy
Hook that shoots its electric beam over
thirty miles of sea, there will be frozen
sails cracking like a board when they are
moved, and ropes of ice instead of manila
hemp. and decks glazing with sleet. There
Will be driving through arching seas and
scudding before gates that blow straight
down from Greenland.
But the girls at home are pulling on the
tow rope; rolling, lurching on her sides
like a slipping horse, dipping into the
trough headfirst like a wrestler tunillns
she goes smoking through it. Scared and
frosted and sailed and a little shattered
she lies behind the long wharves of Boston
town or in the snug, populous square wood
en- cove of Fulton market at last
Winch and windlass clatter, baskets flop
into her hold and come up, twisting slowly
heaped with silvery loads. Outside the
wagons wait to carry the Christmas fish
through the green and red decorated town.
And the skipper energies from the cabin,
transformed from oilskn-clad norman
into a spick and span person rugged in the
latest style of shore toys to go and see his
girl, and tell her that they had an ordi-
mary cruise, with nothing happening that
was worth mentioning.