Seeking a 'Site': Schooner Days DCCLI (751)

by C. H. J. Snider

Mistaken for a Barber's Clerk Our Hero Finds a Man's Berth in a Man's Ship by Politeness, and His Timber Droghing Horseboy Days are Over

LITTLE JIM BABY, eighteen now and still resolved to be a sailor, pondered well Pat Canary's words about getting some beef on his ribs before attempting to graduate into the Ph.D. course of lake life in the 1870s—that long haul traffic in the big three-masters of the Upper Lakes which demanded iron men for the wooden ships and paid wages accordingly.

Pat had told him they didn't send boys to do men's work in these big-leaguers, and Pat knew what he was talking about. Young Jim, slight and nimble, could beat anyone going aloft or to the jiboom end, but he hadn't the weight yet to ride down a rebellious jibtopsail thundering in its tracks, or to heave in a towline single-handed against the ten-knot drag of a big schooner's wake. He knew he was fit for better things, though, than holding slack and drawing water and valeting a drogher's horses at the timber capstan or the towpath. So this spring he sought a man's berth.

NO DICE

In the first threemaster he found at Port Huron there was a crabbed old mate who told him the captain was not aboard, and what did he want?

"A site," said Jim, as deeply as he could. "Site" was current sailor slang for situation, since replaced by "job," or is it now "industrial relations"?

"You call yourself a sailor?" growled the mate. "You look more like a barber's clerk to me."

Jim turned away without arguing. He had left his sailor's bag at the ferry wharf, and was neatly arrayed in the good shore suit he had worn away from home. This, it seemed, was his undoing. He wondered if he should go back and tousle his hair and change into overalls before trying again.

A smaller vessel was lying just ahead. Otonabee of Port Hope was on her stern.

THE OTONABEE

Jim Baby liked her instinctively. She was painted green, a color he liked. She had two masts, like that black wooden workhouse from which he had escaped, the timber drogher Albatross, but her sails were of less weight than hers and if she had no horses to help heave them up, he could see that she was well rigged with plenty of purchases, bespeaking a master who knew his business. She was "well kept up," as the saying is. A long orange-and-blue fly or windfinder floated easily from her main topmost truck. Protestant colors, thought Jim, but none the worse for that, although he himself was a devout young Catholic. There was a shore ladder over the side. He climbed it briskly, and stepped down the steps within the rail, mentally noting that the vessel was as well kept inboard as outside, and found himself looking into the blue eyes of a young matron with muscular arms and a crown of shining red-gold hair, braided in a knob at the back of her head. She was in a fresh print dress, with a clean white apron, and her sleeves were rolled up. In her hand she had a small brass bell.

POLITENESS PAYS

"Is the captain aboard, ma'am?" asked young Jim, raising his hat and wondering whether this was the cook of the owner's wife, and keeping his tongue well to windward of both possibilities.

"He is not, young sir," said the lady in a crisp Highland lilt, "but if it's him ye want to see it's not long ye'll be waiting after I ring this bell, for my Eleck is no man to let his victuals gae could, I'll say that for him."

She rang a vigorous jingle on the little brass bell, producing an immediate response from down in the hold, where some carpentry work had been going on, and from alongside, whence a bushy head with blue eyes and a square red beard on the chin appeared above the rail, followed by a burly body with arms full of parcels.

"'Tis himself himself," said the lady with dignity. "Eleck, the young man is waiting for ye, but denner's on the table now, and a good one, so ask him to sit down to a bite, for it's ill talking business fasting."

"HIMSELF"

"Welcome sirrr," said the Alexander so addressed, going his spouse at least one better in the matter of R's, "ye'll hae sup an' bite wi' us whate'er the business."

"I'm afraid you're mistaking me, sir and ma'am," said Jim, Gallic with matching Gaelic hospitality. "The business I'm on you may not care to discuss at table. I want to say 'sir' to you, not you to say it to me. I'm only a sailor looking for a site."

"I thocht ye might be the insurance adjuster," roared Alexander, "but sit ye doon a' the same. Hoo much dye weigh?"

"Not too much to get puffed reeving off a gantline," said Jim, cocking an eye at the orange-and-blue a hundred and twenty feet overhead "and I can hand reef and steer and work a timber-capstan."

"Ye're owre polite and owre light for a drogherman," said Alexander, "and I canna pay mair nor twanty a month."

"Eleck, the denner's getting cauld," reminded his better half.

"Sit doon young man, and tak' yer meat," said Alex, concluding his bargain with no more words.

They all trooped into the dining room of the cabin, a compartment dropped some three feet below the quarter deck and rising three feet above it with small staterooms and the galley running off from it. Two little children were already at the table. Alexander took his place at the head. The mate and two men who had been at work in the hold, their hair wet from the comb, sat on one side, Jim was motioned to a place beside the children.

The lady, who was addressed as "Maggie" by her husband, when he did not call her "Annavann," took her place at the table foot, nearest the galley door, bowed her head while her Eleck asked a Gaelic grace "for the guid o' the weans," and darted up to serve a boiled dinner with lightning rapidity.

HAPPY DAYS

This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with the Birnie family of Collingwood, and of a pleasant phase of schooner life, quite different from the drudgery of the timber drogher where Jimmy had begun.

The schooner which had such a happy effect upon many lives deserves description in some detail, for which we would ask you to wait till next week.

NOT "OTONABEE" BUT "ONTARIO," a Georgian Bay lumber carrier somewhat similar to horseboy's new home.