Launch at Port Burwell: Schooner Days CMXXXV (935)

by C. H. J. Snider

TO all this r'arin' tearin' devil-may-carin' hurly burly when Port Burwell on Lake Erie, pop. 700, was building as many as seven vessels in one year, came one shy little girl. She was what the country folk call a double orphan, both parents dead, and she was only seven going on eight. She shouldn't have been lonely, for her uncle, William Youell, merchant, mill-owner and yard-master, had taken her into his home and meant to be very kind to her. And his wife and his own children were, too, but she was a sensitive little soul, with pale smooth yellow-gold hair, and eyes like forget-me-nots. She was really very pretty, but couldn't believe that. She thought she was "plain." And she thought she was a burden. Her uncle was a very busy man. He loved her, but was too busy to show it, until--

They were having a launching at Youell and Emery's yard below the mill. Clara, that was her name, was afraid to go. There would be so many people. And she was still in black. And—she wouldn't tell anybody—this very day was her birthday. It wouldn't be right to have a birthday while she was in mourning, or to leave off her black for a year after the funeral. Or so she thought. And she had hated black from the minute she saw a hearse.

Her aunt surprised her by dressing her all in white, with a blue sash tied in a bow.

"Pretty as a picture, Clara," said auntie. "You mustn't wear black anymore. You're lovely in white."

"But—are you sure it is right, auntie? Won't uncle mind? Don't I have to wear black for a year?"

"Of course he won't mind. All that black-wearing year is over for you. Yesterday you were seven. Today you're eight. Another year. This is your birthday—didn't you know?—and this is your birthday present."

"Oh auntie—you are so good—just like mummy—yes, I knew, but I— are you sure uncle won't—"

"Come along, chickadee, or we'll be late," was the answer.

Although Port Burwell launched fifty-four ships in one generation, each launching was a gala event. People, people everywhere—hundreds. No school that day, for the head teacher had to do the christening, Uncle was the chairman of the school trustees. Uncle was the chairman of the school trustees. All the soft soap and tallow on the concession line called Nova Scotia street had been gathered to grease the ways. The ship had to edge into the water down a dozen stout square timbers, inclined to the river.

ALL DRESSED UP

IT was all very exciting. Below the bridge a dozen schooners crowded the harbor. All had their flags whipping in the breeze, some bright and new, some dingy and torn, but William Youell was a great man and all wished to do him honor. Some of the schooners were painted white, with green, grey or red bottoms, some black, similarly relieved, and one was tarred all over like a crow.

"Must those ships wear black till their birthday, auntie?" asked Clara solicitously.

"Ships don't have birthdays," said auntie, realizing with a twinge how much Clara had suffered.

When they got to the yard there stood the new vessel, as big as the mill—well, as long anyway, and looking as high, up there on the bank. And, a funny thing—

"Why, auntie," exclaimed Clara, "the ship is dressed like me!"

That was so. The schooner was all in white, with a blue sash, a slim straight band of blue, going right around her and curling into a painted bow behind. She was strung with flags from stem to scutcheon, but her spars were bare. Long planks covered her name-to-be on either quarter. She had to get that name before showing her colors.

"Uncle wanted to please you," explained auntie.

REVELATION

Clara pondered that, speechless. Uncle wanted to please her? What she couldn't say wouldn't be heard, anyway, for the Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack of wood on wood, and the Burwell Brass Band playing Listen to the Mocking Bird, British Grenadiers, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp and Marching Through Georgia, all without stop like a merry-go-round.

And a million eyes, it seemed, were staring at her. They mounted steps of fresh sawn pine to a railed platform overhung by the great white bulging bows of the ship. Mr. Pontine was there, and uncle—yes, that was uncle, in a long black Prince Albert coat, and a silk hat— and the ministers of all the churches and Warden Suffel and the County Council in frock coats and the school teacher, looking not a bit afraid of uncle—in fact rather although she was going to use a rolling pin on him.

She had a funny thing in her white gloved hands, like a potato masher, but bigger. It resolved itself into a green bottle carefully banded in folds of blue and white ribbons.

Mr. Pontine was saying: "The glass splinters won't cut you, ma'am. When I say 'swing!,' ma'am, you swing, like you wanted to knock her over, and hit right on the bobstays bolts on the stem—and this is the bobstay bolt, solid blacksmith iron."

"I'll swing, George," said the teacher who had taught him his square and cube root, "as I did when I caught you cutting pictures out of the school dictionary."

The din of mauls and hammers redoubled. Staging and scaffolding were knocked away in a racket and clatter of falling plank, sending the Mocking Bird marching through Georgia with the British Grenadiers tramp, tramp, tramping on its tail feathers. The big white blue-ribboned ship rose a little on one side under the sledging of the wedges.

"And in conclusion—" the minister could be heard saying.

"Say your piece, ma'am, and SWING!" shouted George Pontine.

ANN ONYMOUS?

"I christen thee—" began teacher in her best 'Good morning,, class' tone, but the name was lost. She swung her sceptre with magical effect.

As it touched the iron on the stem, it seemed to explode, squirting froth that smelt soury like cider, and the ship jumped as if spurred with a red hot rowell and side slipped like a seal. She struck the creek with an unexpected splash that rose in a quick snowdrift. The wall of white spray leapt as high as her rail. A, tidal wave crossed the creek, soaking cheering sightseers impartially to the tops of their stovepipe, wide awake, or cowbreakfast hats.

The ship, waterborne for the first time, swayed back and forth in lessening curtseys bowing gracefully to port and starboard in acknowledgment of the plaudits, and the other schooners did the same.

Up to her three tall mastheads soared her colors—the Youell houseflag at the fore, at the mizzen the new Red Ensign of Canada with its chequered escutcheon of provinces. At the main truck, highest of all, a long white swallow-tailed burgee, with scalloped blue borders like swallows' wings, and blue letters in between. It straightened out to its full length in the brisk breeze blowing, and Clara deciphered the rippling letters one by one.

C-L-A-R-A Y-O-U-E-L-L

"Why, auntie," said she in slow awe, "that's—my—name. Did uncle—""

"Yes," boomed uncle above the band, "he wanted to please you. Happy, ah, birthday, Clara. How do you like your ship?"

"Oh, uncle," cried Clara, "I—I want to kiss you," and she buried her face in his tickly whiskers.

Mr. Youell gave a resounding smack on her little wet nose and cleared his throat portentously.

"Dammit, sir," said he, right to the minister, "I couldn't do less for my own brother's double-orphan, now could I?"

"God bless you and the Clara Youell, both of them, Mr. Youell," said the minister, serenely.

Clara Youell lived gently for three score years and ten more, and made many happy. She became Mrs. W. H. Eakins of Toronto. One of her nephews, Leonard Youell, construction engineer, is a graduate of the dinghy and C-boat and R-boat sections of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. It is not so long since she told us the old story merrily, here in Toronto,—a bright little old lady, whose pale gold hair gleamed prettily through the powdering of time's snowflakes. She looked charming as she sat in her rocker on the breezy verandah in her white muslin summer frock with blue trimmings.

She still hated black.

The CLARA YOUELL