SAILOR FISHERMEN OF NEW ENGLAND. 



65 



thein. There is now in preparation, in connection with the work of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission, a dictionary of words and phrases in use among the fishermen of the United States, 

 which, when published, will afford much material deserving of the attention of philologists. There 

 arc many expressive words and phrases in use among the fishermen — the technical language of 

 their handicraft applied to the operations of daily life — which are full of meaning to those who 

 know enough of fishing to understand them. Various names for tools and operations connected with 

 their trade have been coined by them which are peculiar and have never found place in diction- 

 aries. Slang is, as might be expected, very popular, and the slang phrases invented by the news- 

 paper paragrapher, the negro minstrel, and the actor in the variety theater are as current among 

 them as in the streets of our towns and villages. The ordinary professional slang of seamen is 

 also prevalent among them, its vocabulary being greatly increased by slang used only by the 

 fisbermen themselves. 



Mr. Charles Nordhoff, in a collection of short stories published under the title "Cape Cod and 

 All Along Shore," has given excellent illustrations of the Cape Cod dialect, particularly that of 

 Chatham, Harwich, and the neighboring towns, the truthfulness of which is all the more apparent 

 when compared with the dialect in Miss McLean's "Cape Cod Folks." "Peter Gott, the Cape Ann 

 Fisherman," a story by Dr. Joseph Eeynolds, is also a treasury of good old Cape Ann language. 

 The "Fisherman's Owu Book," the "Fisherman's Memorial and Record Book," and "The Fisher- 

 man's Song Book," three little volumes published by Procter Brothers of Gloucester, contain many 

 verses in dialect. 



The following lines by Hiram Rich, of Gloucester, represent a fairly satisfactory attempt — per- 

 haps the most successful yet made — to record the dialect of the fishermen of the olden time: 



THE SKIPPER-HERMIT. 



For thirty year, come herriu'-time, 



Through many kind o' weather, 

 The "Wren" an' me have come an' gone, 



An' held our own together. 

 Do' know as she is good as new, 



Do' know as I am, uuther; 

 But she is truer'n kit' an' kin, 



Or any but a mother. 



They're at me now to stay ashore, 



But while we've hand an' tiller, 

 She'll stick to me an' I to her, — 



To leave the "Wren" would kill her. 

 My feet have worn the deck; ye see 



How watches leave their traces, 

 An' write on oak an' pine as plain 



As winters on our faces! 



But arter all is said an' done, 

 There's somethin' sort o' human 



About a boat that takes at last 

 The place o' child and woman; 



SEO iv 5 



An' yet when I have seen some things — 

 Their mothers let me toss 'em — 



My boat, she seemed a barnacle 

 'Longside a bran-new blossom. 



Sometimes to me the breeze off-shore 



Comes out upon the water, 

 As if it left the grave of her — 



No wife to me nor daughter. 

 Lor! if I knowed where green or no 



The turf is sweet above her, 

 I'd buy a bit o' ground there, — wide 



As a gull's wings would cover. 



We know the tricks o' wind an' tide 



That mean an' make disaster, 

 An' balk 'era, too — the "Wren" an' me — 



Off on the Ol' Man's Pastur'. 

 Day out an' in the blackfish there 



Go wabblin' out au' under, 

 An' nights we watch the coasters creep 



From light to light in yonder. 



