t the rigging, not a move out
of him--puffing his pipe and looking away.

Nobody spoke till the skipper spoke again.

"Who's to the wheel--you, Steve? How's she heading now?"

"No'the by west."

"No'the by west? Put her east by no'the--ease off your mainsheet. Let
it go to the knot. Call the gang and make sail--stays'l and
balloon--everything--we'll go home, I guess."

Clancy snapped the pipe out of his mouth and hove it over the rail.
Then he went for the forec's'le gangway. In two jumps he was there.

"Up, you loafers--on deck and make sail. 'To the east'ard,' says the
skipper, and over the shoals we'll put her to-night."

"Home! Home--good enough--and hurroo!" we could hear from below.

The skipper said nothing more--only all night long he walked the
quarter.

Next day when we were almost abreast of Cape Cod Clancy began to
instruct me. "Here's a tip for any girl friends you got, Joe. See the
skipper last night? Tell them if they're after a man--a real man--even
if he's a bit shy--tell them--" Oh, the advice that Clancy could
give!

About the time that we left Cape Cod light astern and squared away for
Thatcher's--with Gloucester Harbor almost in sight--with the rocks of
Eastern Point dead ahead--Clancy began to sing again:

"Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue sea
And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me--
Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree--
Who wouldn't a Gloucester seiner be?

Ha, Joey-boy?" and gave me a slap on the shoulder that sent me
half-way to the break.

That was all right, but I went aloft so I could see the rocks of Cape
Ann a mite sooner. I was just beginning to discover that I had been
almost homesick.

XXI

SEINERS' WORK

We were high line of the seining fleet when we got home from the
Southern cruise and we felt pretty proud of ourselves. It was
something to stand on the corner on one of the days when the Johnnie
was fitting out again, and have other fellows come up to you and say,
"What's that they say you fellows shared on the Southern trip?" And
when we'd tell them, and we trying not to throw out our chests too
much, it was fine to hear them say, "That so? Lord, but that's great.
Well, if Maurice only holds out he'll make a great season of it, won't
he?"

"Oh, he'll hold out," we'd say, and lead the way down to the Anchorage
or some other place for a drink or a cigar, for of course, with the
money we'd made, we naturally felt like spending some of it on thos