226 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



and decked over, but saved from destruction by Dr. 

 Holmes's poem. What thrilling visions it awoke to 

 climb aboard her and tread her decks! Acres of spin- 

 naker and topgallants broke out aloft, cannon boomed, 

 smoke rolled, "grape and cannister" flew through the 

 air, chain shot came hurtling, and the Stars and Stripes 

 waved through it all, triumphant. The white iron- 

 clads out in the channel (for in those days they were 

 white) evoked no such visions. Another memory is of 

 a childhood trip to New Bedford and a long walk for 

 hours by the water front, out on green and rotting 

 piers where chunky, square-rigged whalers, green and 

 rotting, too, were moored alongside. The life of the 

 whaler was in those days something infinitely fascinat- 

 ing to us boys. We read of the chase, the hurling of 

 the harpoon, the mad ride over the waves towed by 

 the plunging monster. And here were the very ships 

 which had taken the brave whalers to the- hunting 

 grounds, here on their decks were some of the whale 

 boats which had been towed over the churned and 

 blood-flecked sea! Why should they be green and 

 rotting now? They produced upon me an impression 

 of infinite sadness. It seemed as if a great hand had 

 suddenly wiped a romantic bloom off my vision of the 

 world. 



But it was not long after that I knew the romance 

 of a launching. It was at Kennebunkport in Maine. 

 All summer the ship yards on either side of the river. 



