out among the
schooners. In reality, that was his little triumphant procession, and
for the fifth year running it showed what kind of mariner he was. Dan's
accordion and Tom Platt's fiddle supplied the music of the magic verse
you must not sing till all the salt is wet:

"Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound!
All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound!
Bend, oh, bend your mains'l, we're back to Yankeeland--
With fifteen hunder' quintal,
An' fifteen hunder' quintal,
'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal,
'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand."

The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and the
Gloucester men shouted messages to their wives and womenfolks and
owners, while the _We're Here_ finished the musical ride through the
Fleet, her headsails quivering like a man's hand when he raises it to
say good-by.

Harvey very soon discovered that the _We're Here_, with her
riding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the _We're Here_ headed
west by south under home canvas, were two very different boats. There
was a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" weather; he could feel
the dead weight in the hold flung forward mightily across the surges,
and the streaming line of bubbles overside made his eyes dizzy.

Disko kept them busy fiddling with the sails; and when those were
flattened like a racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big topsail,
which was put over by hand every time she went about. In spare moments
they pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine, which does not improve
a cargo. But since there was no fishing, Harvey had time to look at the
sea from another point of view. The low-sided schooner was naturally on
most intimate terms with her surroundings. They saw little of the
horizon save when she topped a swell; and usually she was elbowing,
fidgeting, and coasting her steadfast way through gray, gray-blue, or
black hollows laced across and across with streaks of shivering foam;
or rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of some bigger
water-hill. It was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? I'm
only the little _We're Here_." Then she would slide away chuckling
softly to herself till she was brought up by some fresh obstacle. The
dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing hour after hour through
long days without noticing it; and Harvey, being anything but dull,
began to comprehend and enjoy the dry chorus of wave-tops tur