56 FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



Open as the highway to all farers, many kinds of craft share its favor. The 

 deeply laden collier with its sober mien ; the lumber-coaster with her deck- 

 load suggesting the heart of pine forests in Maine ; the stranger ship with 

 salt from Spain ; the sloop or schooner yacht with every grace a marvel and 

 every line a picture, — those lilies of the sea, which toil not, neither do they 

 spin ; the tug-boat eying every sail for a summons ; the fisherman with her 

 seine-boat ready for action, idle after toil ; the ferry-boat going her way so 

 often as to have it by heart ; the light, clumsy wood-coaster from the prov- 

 inces, sturdily maintaining her look of indifiference to the finer company 

 around her ; a single skiff shooting among the dories and boats ; all point- 

 ing different ways ; some with sails partly set, expectant ; some with minds 

 made up, their anchors resolutely down, and all either grieving or sulking 

 over the uncertain weather. One hint of farewell from the setting sun, and 

 what a change ! The somber collier and coaster look careless and happy, 

 and the yachts share the gold that falls upon them with every homely sister, 

 till twilight creeps and creeps up every mast, like a miser, for every glint 

 of it. The woods along the western shore grow like a deepening mystery. 

 The tide is down, and the weed-hung rocks seem darkly to desire the night. 

 One gleam is in the western sky, the light of which little pools of tide among 

 the rocks sue for and obtain, by some bridge unseen. 



To see the summer day come into the harbor, one must rise early. The 

 early evening most men know ; but the early morning— what is it? How 

 many of us know it ? How many love it ? One star is skipper and crew 

 of the whole heavens, and, weary with its watch, "turns in," not curious to 

 see what the day is like. The wind is sleeping. A boat here and there 

 puts off to some vessel. "Schooner ahoy!" says a voice from the shore, 

 and she ahoys. Sail and hull and rope and block are duplicated in the tide 

 below. That was a yawn of the awaking wind. Notes of preparation 

 deepen. Sail after sail is swayed up. Anchors break their hold ; then 

 comes the quickened clink, clink, of the windlass ; the jib is hoisted, and 

 the southwest wind, no longer napping, fills it and a hundred other sails 

 that make their way out of the harbor in the morning sunlight, to and fro. 



The first schooner-rigged craft that ever swam, it is claimed, was built by 

 Andrew Robinson, in 17 13, and named the Schooner. It was a handy craft 

 for rig, but, even down to fifty years ago, a clumsy body. Cape Ann vessels 

 are mostly built at Essex, a few miles from Gloucester ; up a river or crooked 

 creek, the builders construct and launch their faithful work for all sorts 

 of weather to try. So they were building thirty years ago, when one, more 

 venturesome, suddenly departed from the models of the day, sharpening the 

 bow and hollowing the run. What talk among the fishermen! Who would 

 go in her? What a of a rake! What a sheer! She was manned, 



