At Sea. 
• 
One night old Jim lay peacefully sleeping on 
his mattress under the long boat on top of the 
fo’castle and I was standing by the carpenter- 
shop door just beneath him. It was about nine 
o’clock, and our watch had the deck. The bark 
was sweeping along with her deck at a slight 
angle with all sail set to a favorable slant of 
wind. The cook had not yet closed his galley, 
but was probably mixing his dough for the next 
day’s bread; a bright bar of light shown out of 
the galley window onto the lee rail and off over 
the water to leeward. I was standing close to 
the house to keep out of the wind, when I heard 
Jim let out a fearful curse. Stepping out so I 
could look up at him, I saw him feeling about for 
something. When he found it, he flung it down 
on deck, saying, “There, Davis, there’s another 
■ one of your d-flying fish.” It had sailed up 
toward the galley light and hit Jim squarely in 
the face, waking him up. 
Nearly every morning when we washed down 
the decks, we found three or four flying fish 
lying about. I had taken two of the largest I 
could find and cut their wings off and dried 
them. One pair I had opened, and held so bv 
putting them into a split stick, and hung them 
way up under the fo’castle head on the heel of 
: the bowsprit to dry. The next day, when I 
went to look at them, I found nothing but the 
stick there. When I examined this out in the 
light, I saw where the wings had gone—the 
rats had gnawed them off as close to the stick 
as it could have been cut with a knife—so I 
never hung any more up there. I managed to 
save one pair that measured from tip to tip on 
the fish about fourteen inches and preserved 
them by giving them a good coat of varnish. 
One morning, when it was my trick at the 
wheel and we had only been out of port a few 
days, I was standing alongside of it on the 
gratings, giving it a lazy turn once in a while 
to keep the bark on her course, for she was 
just creeping through it about two knots an 
hour. I was watching the flying fish shoot like 
showers of silver darts away from the side of 
the bark, or the little pink Portugese man-o’- 
'war, little jelly-like masses with two uplifted 
arms, on each a pinkish gauze-like circular fan 
acting as sails, going slowly floating past. But 
getting tired after awhile, I did what I always 
did when I was steering a yacht—I sat down. 
The watch was busy on some job up forward 
and the captain had come up on deck and gone 
forward with the mate to see about something, 
leaving me in sole possession of the poop deck. 
I made myself comfortable on the wheel-box 
and just cast a glance once in a while at the 
compass, to see she kept on her course. My 
thoughts were back home in Brooklyn then, 
and I- was living over again in imagination some 
of the good days I used to have there. I was 
just thinking to myself as I looked over the 
rail at the smooth expanse of ocean how the 
Freyja, my father’s yacht, would walk ahead of 
the bark in this breeze. And I saw her, in my 
imaginations, with all her light canvas set, 
March 241393. 
A SHIP OUT OF RIO. 
wrinkling the water as she cut through it, when, 
all of a sudden, the captain and mate, who had 
come aft unobserved by me, turned the corner 
of the house and looked at me in amazement. 
My day-dreams vanished like smoke, and I real¬ 
ized I was not doing right. 
As soon as Captain Freeman recovered from 
his surprise, he exclaimed, “Well! By God! 
you get down off of there P. D. Q. before I 
help you, and don’t you ever let me catch you 
in that position again.” 
I knew he was not as mad as he tried to 
appear, and Mr. FI., the mate, was nearly chok¬ 
ing with laughter behind him. “You stand on 
both feet,” he added, “and don’t you take your 
hands off that wheel. “Where do you think you 
are, off a-yachting?” 
I didn’t dare open my mouth while he was 
looking at me, but as soon as he went down 
into his Pabin, the mate went below by the cabin 
stairway, and I could hear them both roaring 
with laughter. They liked a little amusement 
once in a while, and more than once they got it 
at my expense. 
One morning the captain stuck his head up 
the after companionway to take a look at the 
weather, and seeing me standing at the wheel, 
sleepy and tired after a squally night’s work, 
clewing up royals and topgallantsails, he made a 
wry face at me. and, imitating a sea-sick person, 
said, “Oh! don’t I wish I was home with some 
of my mother’s hot pies,” and smacking his 
lips, he went below again, leaving me to medi¬ 
tate on the memories his words brought up. 
Another time, when we were only a few days 
out and the second mate was allotting us each 
some job to keep us busy, he left me until the 
last, and then said, “Davis, you go make foxes.” 
“Make foxes,” I thought, “what the dickens 
are foxes doing on a ship. I had never heard 
of such a thing.” 
He noticed me standing looking at him and 
asked, “What’s the matter, why don’t you aro 
make foxes?” 
“What do you mean by foxes?” I asked. 
“What!” he exclaimed, “you mean to say you 
don’t know what foxes are, and here you shipped 
as an able seaman? Well, you are a beauty.” 
So he showed me how to unstrand an old rope, 
taking out the good heart strands and twist 
THE “BLUE-NOSE” BARK. 
them up three at a time with something that 
looked like what we used to call a “cricket.” when 
I was a boy, only it made no noise. He hooked 
the rope yarns into a bent nail in this affair, 
which was called a “fox reel,” and then whirled 
it round and round, and so twisted the three 
strands into a small, stout cord. This was then 
rubbed down hard with a piece of old canvas 
and rolled up into a ball to be used about the 
rigging for lashings or servings. 
Day by day the bark slowly crawled toward 
the equator. We had been steering nearly east 
for a couple of weeks and then gradually headed 
away to the southward, so as to cross the line 
far enough to the eastward as to enable us to 
fetch across the equatorial current clear of the 
Brazil coast, for if a vesel fell short, she would 
have a hard time beating eastward against the 
current and strong southeast trade winds. 
Our bark was taken far enough to the east¬ 
ward anyway. Some of the fellows jokingly said 
if we held on much longer we would see Africa. 
Then we ran into squally, showery weather and 
knew we had left the northeast trades astern. 
Nearly every night we had to clew up our 
light sails for some squall that would come up 
black and threatening enough to make me stand 
in awe of what was coming. Once or twice we. 
had to up helm and run before it; but, as a 
rule, it was clew up royals and haul down the 
light staysails, then we’d get a drowning down¬ 
pour of rain, and up went the sails again. Yards 
were boxed about continually; sometimes when 
we were hauling the main yards for a new slant 
of wind, it would shift again before we had the 
braces belayed. 
It was hot work running back and forth under 
such a sun as was now shining down on us 
each day, heating the deck planks so hot we 
could not stand on them with our bare feet 
and causing the pitch to run and lay in soft 
pools like molasses. 
All I wore in such weather was a' low-necked 
undershirt, dungaree breeches and low shoes. 
For a head covering we had each bought a wide- 
brimmed straw hat from the slop chest, as the 
supply carried by the ship is called. 
I put on my hat one day, when it was my 
turn to relieve Peter at the wheel, and started 
aft. Just as I cleared the galley the current of 
wind sweeping down out of the large mainsail 
picked my hat off my head and gently set it 
down on the water to leeward. I followed it 
as far as the rail and saw it floating astern with 
an inquisitive seagull having a novel ride on its 
broad brim. The captain had seen my mishap, 
and as I passed him with another cap on, he 
said, “Did you mark the rail where it went over 
so you can find it again?” 
