Out of the Fog | Page 3

old sea dogs who had
sailed every sea, in every clime--had seen the world, in fact, and were
not averse, under the stimulus of good listeners, to telling all they knew
about it and sometimes a little more.
Scattered through the Cove were many little shoemakers' shops, into
which, especially in the long winter evenings, these old salts would
drift. There around the little cylinder stove, with its leather-chip fire,
leaking a fragrance the memory of which makes me homesick as I
write about it, they would swap their stories of the sea, many of which
had originally been based on fact.
These old derelicts--and some of the younger seafaring men--were
better than dime novels to us boys, for we could always question them
and draw out another story. Some of them were unconscious heroes
who had often risked their lives for their comrades and the vessel
owners; and for the support and comfort of their families no dangers or
hardships had seemed too great to be undertaken or endured. We boys
held these old salts in high esteem, and never forgot to give to each his
appropriate title of "Captain" or "Skipper," as the case might be. We

also occasionally had some fun with them.
We never thought of any of them as bad men, though some of them, by
their own testimony, had lived wild and reckless lives. One or two,
according to persistent rumor, had carried out cargoes of New England
rum and brought back shiploads of "black ivory" from the West coast
of Africa. Not a few of them were picturesquely profane. Old Skipper
Tom Bowman had a very original oath, "tender-eyed Satan!" which he
must have had copyrighted, as he was the only one that I ever heard use
it. We boys would sometimes bait him, provoking him to exasperation,
that we might hear it in all its original force and fervor.
[Illustration: Old Salts Are More Picturesque and Companionable
Spinning Yarns about the Stove in a Shoemaker's Shop than when One
Is Obliged to Live, Eat and Sleep with Them]
We knew his habits well. He eked out a scanty sustenance by fishing
off the shore and would frequently come in on the ebb tide and leave
his boat half way up the beach, going home to dinner and returning
when the flood tide had about reached his boat, to bring it up to its
moorings.
So one day we dug a "honey pot" by the side of his boat, at the very
spot where we knew he would approach it, covered it over with dry
seaweed and about the time he was due we were lying out of sight, but
within earshot, behind the rocks. He drifted down, at peace with all the
world, went in over the tops of his rubber boots, and then, for one
blissful moment, we had our reward.
Some of these old salts were so thoroughly salted, being drenched with
the brine of many stormy voyages, that they kept in good condition
well beyond their allotted time of three score years and ten. Some were
of uncertain age, but were evidently well beyond the century mark, as
proved by the aggregate time consumed on their many voyages, the
stories of which they had reiterated with such convincing detail.
One of these, Captain Sam Morris, was patiently stalked by the boys
through a long season of yarn spinning, careful tally being kept. When
the tale was complete, the boys closed in on him.
"How old are you, Captain Sam?"
"Oh, I dunno, I ain't kep' count."
"Are you seventy?"
"I swan! I dunno."

"Well, you were on the Old Dove with Skipper Jimmie Stone, weren't
you?"
"Sartin."
"You were on the Constitution, when she fought the Guerriere, weren't
you?"
How could he deny it?
"Well, weren't you with Captain Lovett on four of his three-year
trading voyages to Australia and China?"
"Course I was."
"How about those trips 'round the Horn, on the clipper ship 'Mary Jane'
from '49 to '55?"
"I was thar." They kept relentlessly on down the list, and then showed
him the tally. Allowing for infancy, an abbreviated boyhood on land,
and the time they had known him since he had quit the sea, he was one
hundred and thirty-five years old. The showing did not disconcert him,
however. He was interested, but he had told those stories so often and
had come to believe each of them so implicitly that he could not doubt
them in the aggregate. He simply exclaimed: "Well, I'll be darned! I
feel like a young chap o' sixty."
But while some of these old sailors liked to "spin yarns" and some had
their frailties, they were, as a rule, strong characters, rugged, honest,
courageous, unselfish--real men, in fact, whose sterling qualities