. There's Billie Simms
coming behind him. He's given up tryin' to sail his vessel on the side
and tryin' to see how long he c'n carry all he c'n pile on. Billie
says 't'ain't like when a fellow's young and ain't got any family. I
expect it's about the same with George since he got married." The
master of the Ave Maria didn't even glance over as he piloted his
vessel along. He very well knew that we were talking about him.

Pretty soon came one that everybody looked at doubtfully. She sported
a new mainmast and a new fore-gaff. "Who's this old hooker with her
new spars? Looks like a vessel just home from salt fishing, don't she?
Lord, but she needs painting." Nobody seemed to know who she was, and
as she got nearer there was a straining of eyes for her name forward.
"The H-A-R-B-I--oh, the Harbinger. Must be old Marks and the old craft
he bought down East last fall. This the old man, of course--the
Harbinger. How long's she been down here? Came down ahead of the
fleet? Well, she ought to--by the looks of her she needs a good early
start to get anywhere. They ought to be glad to get in. I mind that
September breeze twenty year ago that the old man said blew all the
water off Quero and drove him ashore on Sable Island. He says he ain't
taking any more line storms in his. No, nor anybody else in the old
square-enders he gen'rally sails in. I'll bet he's glad to change
winter trawling for summer seining. I'll bet he put in a few wakeful
nights on the Banks in his time--mind the time he parted his cable and
came bumping over Sable Island No'the-east Bar? Found the only channel
there was, I callate. 'Special little angels was looking out for me,'
he says, when he got home. 'Yes,' says Wesley Marrs--he was telling it
to Wesley--'yes,' says Wesley, 'but I'll bet keepin' the lead goin'
had a hell of a lot to do with it, too.'"

So they came rolling in by the end of the jetty until they could make
one last tack of it. Like tumbling dolphins they were--seiners all,
with a single boat towing astern and a single dory, or sometimes two
dories, lashed in the waist, all gear stowed away, under four lower
sails mostly--jumbo, jib, fore and main, though now and then was one
with a mainsail in stops and a trysail laced to the gaff, and all
laying down to it until their rails were washing under and the sea
hissed over the bows.

Anybody would have to admire them as they came scooting past. When
they thought they were close enough to the