and all the fates are
propitious. But the Banks have other stories to tell--stories of men lost
in the fog, drifting for long days and nights until the little keg of
fresh water and the scanty store of biscuit are exhausted, and then slowly
dying of starvation, alone on the trackless sea; of boats picked up in
winter with frozen bodies curled together on the floor, huddled close in a
vain endeavor to keep warm; of trawlers looking up from their work to see
towering high above them the keen prow of an ocean grayhound, and
thereafter seeing nothing that their dumb lips could tell to mortal ears.
Many a story of suffering and death the men skilled in the lore of the
Banks could tell, but most eloquent of all stories are those told by the
figures of the men lost from the fishing ports of New England. From
Gloucester alone, in 1879, two hundred and fifty fishermen were lost. In
one storm in 1846 Marblehead lost twelve vessels and sixty-six men and
boys. In 1894, and the first month of 1895, one hundred and twenty-two men
sailing out of Gloucester, were drowned. In fifty years this little town
gave to the hungry sea two thousand two hundred men, and vessels valued at
nearly two million, dollars. Full of significance is the fact that every
fishing-boat sets aside part of the proceeds of its catch for the widows'
and orphans' fund before making the final division among the men. One of
the many New England poets who have felt and voiced the pathos of life in
the fishing villages, Mr. Frank H. Sweet, has told the story of the old
and oft-repeated tragedy of the sea in these verses:

"THE WIVES OF THE FISHERS

"The boats of the fishers met the wind
And spread their canvas wide,
And with bows low set and taffrails wet
Skim onward side by side;
The wives of the fishers watch from shore,
And though the sky be blue,
They breathe a prayer into the air
As the boats go from view.

"The wives of the fishers wait on shore
With faces full of fright,
And the waves roll in with deafening din
Through the tempestuous night;
The boats of the fishers meet the wind
Cast up by a scornful sea;
But the fishermen come not again,
Though the wives watch ceaselessly."

**Transcriber's Notes:
Page 317: changed cherry to cheery.

Page 329: page ends "cry of 'Fish"; next page begins with a new paragraph,
punctuation added to read 'Fish!'

Page 330: changed volen