The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-07-20


vesselin thick weather, but be unrivalled
in the field, if spoken. One and another
Of the pilots tell with some sly amuse-
ment of meeting Cunarders or the steam
ships of the Old Dominion Line, as far
down east as La Have Bank, and the rest
of the fleet meeting the vessel on Browns
Bank, pestered the poor master beyond
all patience, refusing to believe that he
could have picked up pilot outside of
them. Captain William Abbott was on
cruise eastward 1856 miles from Boston
Light. He knew that the Cephalonia
would be passing somewhere in the re-
gion. The wind died down to whisper;
sails hung limp, sea CLASSY, when the
funnel tops of the steamship began to
slide along the horizons rim, passing
miles to southwark. On forlorn hope
the pilot began firing his signal gun. In
less than five minutes, to his astonish-
ment, the tunnels swung and started for
him. On being taken aboard Captain
Abbott was told that the gun had been
first heard by the doctor, who was down
some where in the waist of the ship and
below the waterline. The principle of
submarine signalling enabled the pilot to
ride smiling past the other schooners of
the fleet some half way in.
But the competition grew too stiff.
The boats combined and three stations
were established. The system under
went certain necessary changes, the sail
areas of the schooners were calamitously
cut down, and life became more rational
if less exciting.
The sail areas were cut down. and
there is mourning every time a fisher
man races past. Going down the harbor
OF Monday morning to take the Inner
Station, with an easter coming on to
blow bit, the pilot boat had a tow as
far as Castle Island. At about the same
hour the Regina shook out her wings at
I wharf. At the wheel sat Captain Jere
Shea, and the crew worked to spread her
canvas. At quarantine she swooped
ahead and was off down the South Shore
with flap of wings. There were four
pilots in the cockpit Of the schooner
which the fisherman passed. They rue
fully eyed the shorn canvas of their own
vessel, openly admiring the trim of the
| fisherman. "But she wouldn' t have done
that before the combination" quoth
they. Speed had counted then.
1t will hardly be imagined. that the life
! grows monotonous. There is plenty of
opportunity for amusement down outside
with impromptu rescues. By summer it
may be broken-down motor boat full
of hysterical women and drifting to sea,
or one of those catboat ''suicide parties"
which put off from Castle Island with
ballast of BudWeiser. Or at about this
season sudden offshore breeze starts to
blow the dory fishermen to sea, and the
pilot boat has to gather up her skirts
and go skipping hither and yon to gath
er them up out of the wet. One of the
captains who mimics to the life the pas
sionate vocables of the SiciIians, tells of
one afternoon when the Louise was kept
busy picking up one after another, for
the minute they tumble aboard, they
burst into loud weeping and walls of
Save my brotha! Save my coz! Dey
blowa to seal" So they saved about three
cozes and broth. The sequel came two
years later, on a stormy forenoon, when
the schooner lay near Boston Light. A
stiff breeze blew, and a power dory was
barely making head against wind and
tide. 1t pushed on inch by inch until
the schooner could throw a line. The
Sicilian fell over the side painting, and
his first words We're ''Sancta Maria.
Sauna old story!"
At the end Of Lewis Wharf, up mar
row outside stair, is an office which gets
what cool breeZes blow in summer, and
in winter it is as bleak as the rest of the
waterfront. The room is longer than it is
wide, and about the walls are leather
cushioned benches, comfortable for Sleep
ing, Longing or smoking. AT one end Of
the office stands a massy black walnut
desk. with stuffed pigeonholes, on legs
as thick as those of a grand piano and
almost as ornate. The ceiling slants to
the pitch of the shed roof This leaves,
above the windows which front the har-
Dor, diminishing strip of wall above
the easements, which is filled with a
frieze of framed photographs of pilots in
Boston harbor for the last forty years.
They are fixed to the wall much as the
masters certificates at the branchings
of stairways in steamers, where he who
rides may read. The prints, Autographs,
engravlngs, photographs and framed
documents which line the matchboard
walls are running review of the his
tory OF the port for the last sixty years,
at least. Square-rlggers under full sail
are careenlng past rocky headlands with
light cleaning above, crack steamships
OF malt century ago are slanting up
stormy seas, hull and rigging of an an
clent cut; woodcut of an old Cunarder,
a side-wheeler, swishing out of the har-
Dor down a lane cut in the ice of IA,
snow resting on the tops of piling and on
the roofs of the city rising to Beacon
Hill; fading photographs OF the shattered
hull of the pilot boat Columbia on her
side on Scituate beach, where she was
left by the November gale of '98; a let
ter from the Navy Department signed by
Secretary John D. Long, thanking the
pilots for their patriotic offer to guide
United States vessels without fee during
the Spanish War. Clustered photographs
of the pilots of New Orleans, the pilots
of Liverpool, the pilots of New York,
hang above the benches, with framed
picture Of a wheel, among the spokes of
which are disposed the photographs of
the Boston pilots. A blackboard beside
the door announces the vessels sailing
and their dates; and beside it, on strips
Of board, hang the names of the pilots
assigned, in their order of rotation. The
place is heated by one of those stoves of
ample girth which invite the soles of
boots in wintry weather. Outside, under
the windows, fleet of towboats keep
up pudder, and as often as they jostle
the piles the whole structure quakes.
You are thus instructed that the screw
ing of pictures to the walls is not a nauti-
cal affectation, but precaution.