The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1928-12-21
". N. u. Service

| into fever In the SargaSSO sea and
| then, because of fabulous tales OF
dollar d day with the Great Lakes
lumber fleets. he had left salt water
behind him, and never regretted 1t.
A man could domineer labor on the
lakes. He rose in five years from sec
ond mate to master of pot-bellied,
| over-worked shingle schooner, com.
manded her for three bOisterous sea-
sons. and one night, alone, swan
ashore from her heart-breaking wreck
| on Mustache shoal.
His terrified crew hid taken the boat
ten hours before Lashed to his wheel.
Gustaf Erickson, stubborn, pitiless, I'M
afraid, an unthinking mariner who up
held the dignity of the old sea,
watched his craft sink lower and lower,
and boiling waves swarm over her
decks. In the morning the morning
of his thirty-eighth BIRTHDAY, cropping
spar. he was tossed ashore and
crawled, beaten, up a fiat sandy
| beach.
He had lived a long, long life.
A French-Canadian farmer found
him and took him home. Three months
later Gustaf married the farmers
daughter. Why not? She was young.
meek, womanly and available. BY
Gustaf's choice they named their son
| Norman.
''If it's girl" he had said, "call
her Aleece, or Ami, or any of the
hAS~
boy, he's a sailor, like me and my
father and my gradpaw. I'll call him
Norman, after my gradpaw."
By the same bewilGering odds that
had broken up Gustafs schooner and
cast him safely to land, his So Nor
ma had declined to put to sea.
launched over on the back step, await
ing the fish that Norman baked, Gus
tat Erickson thought of the FIVE fret
full years he had titled misery soil. He
had wasted many good blowing hours
| staring across dunes at the beckoning
lake. Then one morning, while his
wife cried out bitterly that he did not
love her, that he never had loved her,
he sailed away to the fishing banks.
He had no crew to bully. Alone, reck-
less, early seasons and late, he drove
the boat that his own hands had built,
setting and lifting nets, matching his
| temper against wind and weather, al
ways making good catches of fish.
He moved his wife without cere-
mony from the farm to the house on
the beach. She was past all remon-
STRANGE then. And each winter there
after, while ice spread over the water.
Gustaf Erickson sat by the stove,
night after night. in this same white
washed kitchen, and told monstrous
tales of the five fresh lakes and the
seven salty seas.
Only once, in the years that Nor
mans mother kept his house, did Gus
| tat strike her; that night she had pro-
tested when he logged their son. He
got out piece of half-inch rope be-
cause the boy had sniveled like
baby over Gustaf's favorite story of
the captains wife and dog.
1T was good dog" old Gustaf
had said, "a big dog, strong, hairy all
over. His name was Nels. We liked
that dog. The schooner ali,
the Cortland, she was a fine strong
| schooner, q five-maSter! Nobody ever
| jump ship off her, | tell you. Till
| that captains wife come aboard for q
voyage. Why do you think that wom-
an come anyway
Old Gustaf scowled.
"We hate her, us on schooner She
never give nobody enough to eat, not
even her old man. She was punished
| for it! 1t blows three days down off
| Newfoundland. Blow? How can | tell
! it The third night by Mack
| mac, we all was glad when it gets
dark that night so we don't have to
look no more at the waves was at
the wheel. The captain. | know not
where that captain was He was all
over. He was good sailor. But his
woman, she sit with the dog in the
cabin. Jupiter, was she scared We'd
of been kind of glad she feel bad, all
of us on schooner, If we was not so
scared ourselves. And then that big
wave come along, two. three times as
big as all the rest. The biggest wave
in the world. 1t smashed In the cabin
skylight, tore right through the tar
paulins push, right inl 1t
took out all the oulkhead on the port
side. The ocean does not love the
captains wife. A big, big hole!
81 see something float past when
have wiped the salt from out my eyes.
Two something's, out that skylight. |
hollered. Hollered loud The captain
came. 1t was all awaSh in the cabin.
Dark. He found no dog. No wife,
at was good dog. We feel sorry
that dog was lost. But the woman?
She give nobody enough to eat |"
Gustaf would light his pipe at this
point, putting contemplate, ely over
the merciless justice of the sea- Eany
nights he repeated the tale In his grim
weary singsong The lake wept on its
beaches. end his son Norman. fleeing
white-faced to bed, lay awake under
the hand-hewn shingles, hour after
pitiless hour. with terror sitting atop
the flannel covers. pressing The breath
out of his lungs. tormenting sleep
from the room
'Tll make that boy a sailor yeti" he
heard old Gustaf storm to his mother.
''Why should an Erickson act SOP"
Gustaf never forgot that nights
scene. any more than Norman did. The
sympathy that grew up between his
faithful, harassed little wife and his
son seemed unfair to him. He watched
suspiciously. He assigned all his
failures with Norman to her. attrib-
uted contemporary to back-hills
al fb1, at In, ic