June ii, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
479 
hundred feet square, situated in the west part of town, 
which the city acquired at an expense of $lbO and the 
loss of $392 taxes. The only objection that was made 
to the taking of this block was that it would increase the 
value of my property, as it was just across the street in 
front of my residence, but I waived this objection, and 
the Mayor and Council appointed me Park Commissioner. 
A year ago I planted nearly three hundred trees and some 
evergreens in this park, seeded it down in grass, and 
already it is a beautiful little park. 
The third tract was two half blocks in the east part 
of town, which was deeded to the city free from taxes 
for $250. The street between the two half blocks has 
been vacated, and added to the park, which has been well 
set in trees and fenced. The city water has been put into 
each of the three parkg. I had almost forgotten to men- 
tion that the "City Park" (the twenty-six acre tract) 
has two nice little lakes upon it> which are being im- 
proved, and will be stocked with fish. Each little lake 
will have fresh water running into it from the city's 
pipes, and overflow pipes will allow the water to escape, 
thus keeping the water in the lakes always fresh. 
The present City Council, not to be outdone by their 
predecessors, are negotiating for another park, and no 
doubt will get it during the summer at a cost of about 
$500, part of which will be donated. 
The city's total outlay for the three parks is less than 
$2,500, including fencing, which is less than half of the 
actual market value of the properties at the time they were 
taken; and the best part of it is that a splendid and en- 
thusiastic public sentiment in support of these expendi- 
tures, has sprung up in our little city, and a man who 
would oppose the expenditure of money for the care and 
improvement of these parks could not get himself elected 
Dog Pelter in Wyinore. And I may truthfully add that 
property owners are paying up their delinquent taxes and 
getting in out of the wet. A. D. McCandless. 
With the Shoal-Water Ships. 
The fog which had shrouded the harbor had lightened 
and the rain had ceased. The surface of the water was 
glassy. The wind, which had hung in the east for a 
couple of days, had died away, and the damp, cool air 
was motionless. 
We climbed down the ladder aboard the tug, passed 
down grip and camera and numerous bundles, ■ and went 
into the pilot house with the mate. The little tug started 
down the harbor, and we looked ahead to where the Kap- 
lan ought to be. The Stella B. Kaplan, an old friend of 
mine, and as seaworthy and comfortable a craft as there 
was on the coast, had cleared for Savannah, Ga., under 
Capt. Merritt, who had sailed her as mate or master for 
six or seven years, and it was my good fortune to be 
numbered among the after guard. 
The prospect of a cruise is always exhilarating, and I 
was not sorry to think that I could shake free from the 
land and city with its humdrum and enter the world of 
sea and sky, with its rough, rude life and its ever-chang- 
ing scenes. 
"What sort of a gang have they got off there for me?" 
Capt. Merritt asked of the mate of the tug. "Were they 
very drunk?" That they were "drunk" was an accepted 
fact; the degree of intoxication only seemed in doubt. 
"Well, they h'isted 'em over the side in a bowline," re- 
plied the mate, with a judiciously aimed discharge of 
chocolate colored fluid through the open window of the 
pilot house; "they may not have been 'drunk,' but some- 
how they couldn't seem to stand alone very well." 
"And the mate — how was he?" 
"I guess he had a little down, but he seemed to know 
what he was about." 
The captain said nothing, but probably his thoughts 
ran to the life he led, with its toils and dangers, long 
nights of watchfulness in winter's cold and summer's 
heat, and to gales and wrecks and collisions and lee- 
shores and fogs and snow; and its petty trials, its drunk 
and mutinous crews, long delays in port without de- 
murrage, and the lonely, homeless life the sailor enjoys. 
But we were soon alongside, and, climbing over the rail, 
took a look at our home for the next few days. 
The Stella B. Kaplan is a stout four-masted schooner 
of 1,024 tons, and was a big schooner in her day. But 
twelve years have wrought such changes in the size of our 
coasting vessels, that she would look, small alongside the 
recent products of the Maine yards. 
The decks were dripping from the efforts of the mate 
to remove some of the coal dust which had covered every- 
thing; a new mainsail lay on the main deck, rolled up as 
it came from the sailmakers ; fenders still hung over the 
side, and the decks had that appearance of general confu- 
sion which exists where things are not coilM up. The 
sailors stood around half dazed, and tried to interpret 
the orders of the mate with but little success ; their hag- 
gard faces, shuffling gaits, and generally dragged-out ap- 
pearance confirmed the statements of the mate of the tug. 
We went below, and the mate soon came down. "They 
won't work no more, Captain," said he. "They said they 
had done enough, and have gone into the forecastle. I 
wanted 'em to wash her down and haul in the fenders, 
but they said they were tired and wan't going to do no 
more." 
The Captain rose from his chair. " 'em. I wish 
things were the way they were twenty years ago, when 
I first went to sea. You could go down into the foe's tie 
then if a man didn't obey orders and kick his head off: 
but now j'oti can't lay a finger on one of 'em without 
making a lot of trouble for yourself. I wish some of 
those fools that make these foolish laws could have 
charge of a vessel one trip and have to handle a lot of 
sailors; they wouldn't be so free with their laws to pro- 
tect the poor sailor. What do they know about it, any- 
way?" 
The Captain went forward and looked into the fore- 
castle door. I could not hear what was said, but he soon 
returned, and the sailors stayed in their hole. 
"I'll dock 'em three days' pay for this. They think 
they can do as they like. It don't make no difference 
whether they refuse duty for five minutes or a whole 
day; you can dock 'em just the same. They will find 
that out when we get back to New York. Now I am 
going below to write some letters for the tug to take in 
the morning. He said he would be alongside at six 
o'clock," and the Captain disappeared below and left me 
on deck. 
Darkness had come on, and the city lights glistened in 
the distance. The long row of electrics which marked 
the South Boston pier was reflected in the still water; 
two or three vessels at anchor near us lent companion- 
ship by the gleam of their riding-lights. The decks of 
our craft were deserted. In the forward deck-house the 
cook was busy in his galley on the port side; on the star- 
board the open door of the forecastle showed the ditn 
forms of the men moving in the uncertain light. Their 
words could not be distinguished, but one or two gener- 
ally had the floor and emphasized each word by violent 
gestures. It seemed more like a page from Clark Rus- 
sell's endless descriptions than a night in the month of 
September in a coal schooner at anchor on the South 
Boston flats. 
About six o'clock a smart squall of wind and rain came 
out of the west, shifted to north and blew all night, and 
the morning was glorious. At daybreak all hands were 
turned out and we got under way. Sail covers came off, 
were folded up and piled on the hatches ; stops taken off 
the sails, sheets rove fore and aft, fenders hauled in and 
stowed away, and steam having been made by this time, 
the spanker halliards were taken to the winch and the 
heavy sail rose slowly in the air. All signs of sulkiness 
had disappeared, and the men jumped around like lambs. 
The Captain was watching for the boat which was to be 
alongside at six sharp and tow us out if need be; but six 
and seven came and no boat. He glanced at the pier, up 
town, and at the weather. "Suppose you and the mate 
take the boat and pull ashore at the point and mail these 
letters. I would send one of the men, only I ain afraid 
he would never come back." 
I jumped at the chance, and we lowered the little boat 
and pulled the mile and a half in quick time. Just to 
breathe such air is sufficient reward for the three-mile 
pull. We were half way back when the "old man" 
started up the foresail and jibs, and as we pulled under 
the stern and hooked on again the cable was up and 
down, and in a moment she was away. I went to the 
wheel, hove it over, and she began to travel. The sharp 
hiss of foam came up from the wake under the boat on 
the davits; the glistening white froth raced along to lee- 
ward, and wc had begun our little voyage. Out of Broad 
Sovmd with the fresh northerly wind we made quick time, 
and squaring away off the Graves laid the course for 
Cape Cod, and one of jhe men coming kit to the wheel, 
wc went below for ])reak-fast. 
The wind held about N.E., and fresh, and with topsails 
set to the usual chorus of "O ho" and "Now down," we 
ran down to Highland Liglit. The crew had differentiated 
from the drunken conglomerate of the night before into 
Bill and Harry and Tom and Pete. Harry was a dark, 
rather slender, soft-spoken fellow, with a remarkably 
musical voice of a warm southern vibratory quality, had 
been second mate, and seemed a little above the level of 
the average schooner sailor. Bill was a stout, handsome 
Irish lad of twenty-five, with powerful arms and neck, 
white where unexposed to wind and sun, which bespoke a 
strength of body not yet broken by overwork and lack of 
sleep. Tom was a little fair-haired Dutchman of solid 
build and expressionless face, whose wide blue eyes 
seemed innocent as a boy's. He had been the most per- 
sistent in his demands the night before to be put ashore: 
twenty years ago he would have had his "head kicked 
oft"." Pete was the oldest of the lot, and a poor speci- 
men; whiskey and dissipation had done its work and left 
its mark in the weak face and undersized frame. The en- 
gineer looked his part, and was not much on deck. The 
steward and cook was a colored man who had been on 
deep water all his life, and had so firmly acquired the 
habit of making a little go a long way that we nearly 
starved. His leisurely journey aft from the galley with 
his basket about seven bells was a signal for a subdued 
groan from the old man, who would recall numerous 
predecessors of the innocent offender with a gusto that 
was ludicrous. The mate was a vagabond who had been 
all over the world afloat and ashore, and who delighted 
in narrating his experiences in a broken lingo that re- 
quired the closest attention to interpret. Their names 
may or may not have been their own ; one name is 
enough for a sailor; "Here, you" is enough for the 
Captain. 
Capt. Merritt did not love sailors. I never saw a cap- 
tain who did. "If they would only build a vessel you 
could handle without sailors," he used to say, "wouldn't 
it be great? I don't know as I would mind going to sea 
ii it wasn't for sailors, or if I could get home a few days 
every month and not have to look at a sailor." 
At first thought, coasting trips would hardly seem to 
require prolonged absence from home, but on one occa- 
sion it was two years before the Captain saw the home 
he had left for a short trip. 
"It's a lonely life," he said, with a down East drawl. 
"In port I have the agents and what captains may be in, 
but that isn't very gay; I generally stop aboard the ves- 
sel most of the time, and it gets to be terrible lonesome." 
The mate soon gets talked out, and the captain would as 
soon jump overboard as speak to a sailor outside of the 
ordinary routine. And with so few to handle so large a 
vessel, watch and watch is observed at sea, and thus the 
niates are below when the captain is on deck, except dur- 
ing the short dog watch. The old customs of the sea die 
hard; they are still in force to a great extent. Discip- 
line is just as necessary in a coasting schooner to-day as 
it was in one of the famous liners of the 'Sos, and the 
"sir" at the end of an answer to mate or captain, the lee 
side for a man coming aft to the wheel, the hurried shift 
into fairly presentable garments for his trick, and many 
more of the details of marine etiquette are followed about 
as closely as ever. To be sure, the man at the wheel 
doesn't get a clip under the ear that lands him in the 
scuppers for letting the ship fall off of her course a point, 
but he would get a word in the ear if he didn't attend to 
his steering; and the same rule, "obey orders," holds good 
in a coal schooner to-day as in the famous clippers. 
No man can follow the sea for a score of years and 
attain the command of a vessel unless gifted with physical 
powers and grit of a high order ; and the story of any of 
the masters of the coasting fleet would be good reading. 
C'apt. Merritt had been to sea all his life, and was a 
shrewd, hard-headed business man, with a mind of his 
own and the ability to express it, and was afraid of 
nothing. Naturally his thoughts ran to the_ opposite ex- 
treme of the life he followed; and many a time when we 
were rolhng along under a blue, cloudless sky, and I 
v/ould say, "What do you want better than this?" the 
answer would come in slow, drawling tones : "You give 
me my gun and a few days in the woods," with emphasis 
on the woods, "and I wouldn't think of this old hooker 
for a while now, I tell you. I stayed ashore one fall for 
a couple of months .while Captain M. had this vessel, 
and every morning I would take my gun and would go 
into the woods," and then v/ould follow an enthusiastic 
hunting story. I wish I could transcribe tone and 
accent. 
"What do the people do down your way— fish?" 
"Wall, yes. Those along shore fish a little when they 
think they can make a little out of it. They are all poor, 
just make a bare living; never see no money. Down Ad- 
dison way they are all poor except those back in the 
woods and they are poorer yet. You can live cheap down 
there; you have a cow, and there's your milk and butter; 
and a pig, and there's your pork; and a garden, and 
there's your vegetables; and you can raise your corn and 
stuff; but they don't see no money. They have to go to 
sea to make any money. Most every one down there has 
lost some one at sea." 
He gave a look around — we were off Hatteras. "I 
spent five days on a wreck off here when 1 was a boy; 
but it was summer, so we didn't mind. She was a bark 
loaded with lumber. We were bound to the West Indies. 
The thirst was the worst; the last two days my tongue 
was swollen so that I couldn't speak." This was in 
answer to my question as to whether he luad ever been 
wrecked; I had known him ten years or more, and he 
had never mentioned it before. 
On deck things had assumed a normal aspect; gear had 
been coiled up, fenders stowed away, coal dust washed 
oft', the regular watches set, and the usual life of. the 
coaster at sea had begun. One of the crew — the whiskey- 
soaked one — when the mate was not looking, asked me 
v/hether we were going out of the South Channel or oyer 
the shoals. "South Channel," I said, and a momentary 
gJeam of satisfaction lighted up his face. To be clear of 
liandling chains and anchors and canvas in a passage over 
the shoals was a point of considerable importance to 
them. 
Night came on, and about nine o'clock the lightship 
hove in sight on the starboard bow. The wind was 
steady, and the moon, nearly full, spread her pathway 
on the sea, and the schooner, rolling gently in the regu- 
lar swell, swept along in the moonlight, transformed from 
the disorderly, untrim hulk of the coal dock into a sen- 
tient, living thing, mindful of a turn of a spoke of the 
wheel, and reaching, reaching under the swelling sails as 
tliongh eager to cover the course ahead in the shortest 
time. 
The hardships of a sailor's life were not in evidence on 
this trip. Surely no more ideah conditions could be de- 
sired; fair winds, a cloudless sky by day, a bright moon 
by night, a temperature constantly rising, changing the 
brisk, bracing air of Massachusetts Bay for the softer, 
warmer breath of the Gulf Stream, all combined to banish 
thought of danger and exposure. 
On the third morning, off Hatteras, the change in tem- 
perature was sudden and agreeable; the dew-covered 
deck glistened with the rays of the morning sun ; the 
wind had dropped to a light air which barely gave us 
steerageway; the damp, moist air, saturated with the 
salt of the sea, fanned out of the sails. The joy of living 
came with increased power. To be, to breathe, to drink 
the tonic of the ocean, to feel that soft wind on face and 
arms, to tread the cool, wet deck in bare feet, to lay 
aloft and from the crosstrees look on an ocean just 
awakening from a night's rest is a privilege which few- 
can appreciate. The old shellbacks don't care for that 
sort of thing; they are washing the dew from off the 
decks and cursing the luck that they are there at all. It 
is $30 a month to them. The look of amusement which 
came over the face of the man at the wheel when of an 
evening I toOk my little journey into the lazarette by way 
of the after hatch, loaded with camera and red lantern 
and boxes of plates, seemed to shout aloud, "What is a 
big feller like you fooling with them things for? What 
do you want to take pictures of an old coal schooner for, 
anyway?" 
I could reply in kind: "My friend, put in fifty weeks. a 
year housed up in town and you will prize the two or three 
weeks of ocean breeze and tarry hands and the glorious 
pull and haul as the best part of your life; and you will 
look back on it a hundred times as distance softens the 
view with ever-increasing love ; and the snap shot of you 
at the wheel that I took to-day will have to last me many 
months when I feel the itching for a good, hearty, drag 
on something heavy which no gymnasium can fully 
satisfy. You to-night are dreaming of some bum show 
and of the glorious booze you could have were you 
ashore. Look around on that ocean of molten fire, that 
sky of deepest blue, and brilliant stars, feel that life- 
giving wind, and thank fortune you are a deck-hand." 
To one right from the city it is refreshing to cast the 
eyes around and see nothing but ocean ; to have the broad 
decks and towering masts to one's self. There is free- 
dom and unconventionality to the limit. The passenger 
by steam is bound by rules and regulations and social 
restrictions ; he must dress for dinner and for walking 
the deck and for evening. Here the sleeveless jersey is 
worn the day through in the summer sun, and the whole 
ship is mine. 
The wide, sloping canvas cover of the boat at the davits 
is a favorite lounging place. With the sun in one's face, 
to lie back there at a supremely comfortable angle under 
the strongback and take in the whole sweep of decks, 
gently heaving in the following sea; to listen to the soft 
hiss of foam twenty feet below ; to feel the powerful up- 
ward lift, intensified by the extended position aft, as the 
vessel's stern rises to a sea, and to watch the regular 
swing of the topmasts as she rolls along in the afternoon 
sunshine, is to enjoy a side of sea life which might not 
appeal to the busy hustler; but a busy, disagreeable, 
modern hustler has no place here. Dolce far niente is 
the rule under sail, at least for the vacation end of the 
outfit, and a delightfully lazy drift in a summer sun is 
more to me than any record breaking passage under steam 
with poor devils below in a temperature of 120. Here all 
is above board; good, honest canvas and manila, and air 
