Part 10

It would have been worth a sailor’s life to offer a mirror to me and in all the years I was on board I don’t believe it occurred to any of the men forward. Aft, there was only one looking-glass, a small cracked one used by Father when he shaved in port, and even that he kept carefully hidden from me. My only chance to see myself was in the rain barrels on deck. If you think you can get a good idea of your personal appearance by looking into a rain barrel on a swaying, rolling ship, try it. My face used to ripple back at me like a blurred cabbage. As far as I knew I looked exactly like that image reflected in the rain barrel, so of course I believed Father when he told me I was so ugly that women ashore looking at my face would laugh at me.

Since then Father has confessed he made me think myself hopelessly ugly so that I should never be conceited. He said it was one of his dreams for me that I should be unspoiled and be beautiful inside. But, I did not know that then, and I believed all he said about my personal appearance.

How I used to envy the barmaids and the sweethearts about the docks! To me they seemed so beautiful and the sailors were always so glad to see them. No sailor, save old Stitches, ever seemed really glad to see me. The crew all thought I was a nuisance. Father’s warning was unnecessary. I would not have dared to speak to those beautiful land women.

The day after he so put me on my guard I was sitting on the skylight aft, watching the cargo boom dip down in the hold and bring up a rope-net full of copra and swing it over to the dock where the stevedores dumped it into a big dory. McLean and Axel Oleson were on duty at the mizzen hatch where they bellowed orders to the crew below to get the “barnacles off their sterns and load up the nets quicker.” The men below seemed in no mood to hurry, judging by Oleson’s remarks to them, for he traced their ancestors to dubious origins in English and Scandinavian. It was no novelty to me to hear such talk—it wasn’t even varied enough to keep me interested.

I was beginning to get tired of watching when from my perch on the skylight I saw a pretty woman coming down the dock. She walked slowly as if she wasn’t sure of her destination, but when she drew close enough to the ship to be noticed she became all smiles. She pretended she didn’t see McLean and Axel on deck, but I could tell she did see them by the careful way she avoided looking at them. She came up the gangway, which was just forward of the poop deck and spoke to me.

“Hello, little girl,” she said.

I got all goose flesh, I was so thrilled at being noticed. All thought of Father’s warning vanished.

“Hello,” I answered. “Where the hell are you going? Have you got business on this ship?” I was being very nautical, as it was my one chance to show off my authority.

She was so fluffy and soft-looking, surely she couldn’t hurt me. Now she was staring at me—at my overalls and my bare feet sticking out beneath them.

“You know you’re a bloody pretty kid,” she said. I flushed to the roots of my hair. It was the first time I had ever been paid a compliment. I studied her face closely to see if she was just making fun of me, but she seemed sincere.

“Aw, hell, I’m not as pretty as you, Miss!” I replied, taking in her high heel buttoned shoes and her hat with flowers and ribbons on it. “And you smell good, too.” That vision of loveliness was bathed in cheap perfume, but to me it was divine compared to the stink of the rotten copra being hauled out of the hold.

I had no way of judging women except from the conversation among the sailors that I had caught. I thought every woman’s character was measured by her ankles and her hips, for often I had heard the sailors say: “a good pair of hips and little ankles is worth nine months’ pay.” So, using their standard of perfection of womanhood, I measured the woman who stood before me. She was perfect.

“Got any glad rags, Kid?” she asked.

“No, but I’ve got some tapa cloth and two tortoise-shell bracelets with pearl in them,” I answered, hoping to impress her.

“I mean, haven’t you got any pretties to go around with gents? I bet all the sailors aboard here are nuts about you.”

“No, they ain’t,” I answered hastily. “If I ever lay down on the job of pulling on ropes when I’m needed, or get in their way when they unload a cargo, they kick my pants for me.”

She became very much interested in me.

“Say, what do you stick on this bloody barge for? You ought to be down with me and the girls where you’d be appreciated.”

“You mean leave the ship?”

“Sure, I’ll get you a swell job with me and the girls down at the Union Hotel.”

It sounded wonderful to me. I was tired of staying on the ship, day after day in port, with no one to play with. Perhaps I would find companions ashore. I was sure no harm could come from just going with her for a little while. For a moment I hesitated, then one glance at her thin ankles and her broad hips assured me that she must be a good woman. Proudly I followed her down the gangway, and as I passed McLean I told him to tell Father I was going to take a job at the Union Hotel for a few days until the ship was ready to sail.

How set up I was to be walking along the dock with this beautiful woman who thought I was pretty!

The Union Hotel was a small, dingy-looking place about a block from the wharf. I had passed it several times on my walks ashore with Father, and I had heard the sailors speak of it as the “Seamen’s Rest.” They always grinned when they said that and I wondered why.

“Come in and meet my lady friends,” urged my new friend. I accompanied her gladly. The stuffy interior of the cheap waterfront hotel seemed the height of elegance to me. We entered the “pub” (English for saloon).

“Where’s the job?” I asked, for on shipboard the first thing a man did was to get to work. Then I discovered that my guide and her “lady friends” were barmaids.

“Here, sailor-girl, you take this end station, and you’ll get lots of tips. Sometimes the blokes gives as much as sixpence if we smile pretty.”

I was so pleased to be accepted by those women that I put my conscience out of its misery about leaving the ship and went to my station behind the bar. I was having a lot of fun until some sweating stevedores came in.

“Beer for us,” was their order.

One of the group I recognized as the cargo tally man from our dock. He seemed shocked to see me behind the bar drawing foamy mugs of beer.

“Say, does your old man know you’re here?” he asked suspiciously.

“It’s none of your business,” I answered. The girls giggled and encouraged me to go on. “Besides, I can knock your block off if you squeal on me.” Again the barmaids cheered me on. The other stevedores gathered around and began guying him, but the tally man persisted:

“I’ve known your father off and on for fifteen years and I’m going to take you back on board ship for him.” He reached over and pulled me by the arm to hasten my departure.

“I’m warning you to take your hands off me or I’ll knock your block off,” I snarled at him. I was thrilled at being the center of attention. I wanted to show off in front of the barmaids how strong I was and how well I could scrap. The tally man seemed to have but one thought—to get me out of the place in a hurry even if he had to use force to do it. I was equally determined to stand my ground. He tried to pull me to the door. I swung around on him and hit him as hard as I could. The girls cheered me again. I hit the tally man once more, then he took me by the shoulders and shook me like a rag.

That was too humiliating; I saw red. Hitting, kicking, butting with my head, I sailed into him. Taken by surprise he went down. The barmaids let out squeals of delight—the stevedores roared with laughter. We were on the sawdust floor of the pub, rolling over and over, punching and clawing. He didn’t want to hurt me and I wanted to kill him. That made it almost an even fight.

For about three minutes we were at it and then I found myself flat on my face with one of his hands gripping my neck and my own right fist held up between my shoulder blades. It was the hammerlock hold I had seen used in sailor fights and I was completely helpless.

“Now, you little hell-cat, you march back to that ship,” he growled, and lifted me from the floor, pushed me out the door, and walked me down the dock to the vessel. I had a cut lip and a black eye. The tally man called to McLean:

“Say, you better watch this kid until her father gets back. She was hanging around a bar down at the Union Hotel—and that joint’s a bed house.”

I hurried below and washed the blood from my face, ashamed that any of our sailors should see me licked. But no matter how I scrubbed I couldn’t erase my black eye so I decided to get in my bunk and not attract Father’s attention to me. It seemed I always remembered to obey Father after I had forgotten to!

When Father returned to the ship he came in my cabin and asked:

“What are you turning in so early for?”

I took great care to lie face downwards so he couldn’t see my eyes as I told him:

“I don’t feel very well. Guess I don’t want any supper.”

What relief! I could see Father hadn’t heard of my humiliating defeat at the hands of a tally man in the Union Hotel.

“If you’re sick, there’s no use bellyaching about it. I’ll fix you up a dose of salts and that’ll get the kinks out of you.”

He brought me a coffee mug half full of epsom salts. I swallowed the stuff and then I lay there thinking deep and unkind thoughts about women. The laughter of the barmaids as I was marched out of that pub by the tally man still rang in my ears. My soul was bitter within me and I swore to myself that I would never again trust a woman—not even if she smelled of perfume to high heaven and had inch-thin ankles!

But I wasn’t to get off from my latest escapade as easily as I had thought. I was still lying in my bunk, trying to figure out how I was fooled by that barmaid, when I heard a man’s voice in the companionway asking:

“Can I see the Captain? I gotta tell him something he oughta know.”

My heart sank. The voice was that of the tally man and I suspected that he had come to tell on me. I wasn’t left in doubt long, for soon I heard Father’s indignant voice asking:

“Do you mean to tell me that my kid was in a pub with a barmaid?”

“Yes, Captain, and she started a brawl there. It’s pretty dangerous business to leave a girl like her hang around the waterfront. I wouldn’t let a kid of mine do it, no sir!”

Their voices dropped to an indistinguishable mumble of words, but I knew the result would be serious. I’d get even with that tally man before he knew it! I’d teach him to squeal on me after he had given me a black eye. Whatever thoughts I had about the matter left me when Father came into my cabin. He wasn’t angry, as I expected him to be. Rather he seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful. He sat on the edge of my bunk and after a pause, he said:

“Joan.”

“Huh?” I murmured, with my face still hidden in my pillow to hide my telltale black eye.

“Turn over and look at me.”

“I know what you look like,” I countered, still face downwards. “You haven’t changed since I saw you a couple of hours ago.”

“Yes, I have changed. I’ve changed my mind about you.” I didn’t know what to think about his sudden tack, so I stalled for an opening to defend myself:

“Can’t you let a fellow sleep that don’t feel good?”

Father took me by the shoulders and turned me over. He didn’t say a word about my black eye, he seemed to overlook it.

“Joan, we’re going to be here in port about thirty days. I gotta get a new foremast set in, and a general overhaul of the vessel when the cargo is discharged.”

I still couldn’t see where he was heading.

“You’ve disobeyed me for the last time. But I’m partly to blame, so I’m not goin’ to punish you. Only when you get big enough to go with barmaids and fight with men, it’s time to put some thought on your future. I’ve got a lot of thinkin’ to do about you, Joan—a lot of thinkin’.”

And he went away leaving me vastly relieved, only had I known what was to come out of his thinking I would have been more worried than ever before in my life.

Father kept me on board ship all during our stay in port, with only occasional walks along the waterfront in his company. We sailed with a cargo of wool and ballast for the United States. We were going to Frisco to get a load of lumber.

After ninety-three days of uneventful sailing we sighted the Farallone Islands off the Golden Gate. A tugboat steamed out thirty miles to pick us up. How excited I was to see the smoke of that tug coming toward us! When it came within hailing distance the captain called through his megaphone:

“Want a tow?”

“How much?” called back Father.

“Four hundred dollars to inside anchorage.”

“I’ll see you in Hell first,” answered Father.

“Two hundred dollars,” came back the tugboat captain.

“I’ll sail this bloody ship right up to the ferry building under her own canvas,” came Father’s reply.

Cursing, the tugboat captain let out a string of degrading opinions of the kind of master Father was—and Father returned the compliment. My father holds a license as pilot of San Francisco harbor so he didn’t even have to hire a pilot or a tugboat to get inside the Heads. The tugboat steamed alongside us at half-speed, ready to throw us a hawser if the wind died and we were forced to be towed in, but Father entered the Golden Gate, sailed past Mile Rock Light House, dipped the flag in salute to the lighthouse keeper, and came to safe anchorage off Alcatraz Island. He let go the hooks and waved a superior good-bye to the indignant tugboat captain.

There was a brisk breeze blowing over the Bay and hardly a cloud overhead. To the eastward rolled the hills of Berkeley.

“Your mother’s over there, Joan. I’m going to ship you off this trip.”

I stared at Father.

“You mean me leave the ship?”

He didn’t look at me as he replied:

“Yes, it’s high time you had a woman’s care of you.” That was the first he told me of his plan to send me ashore to live.

“Are you going to quit the sea too?” I was filled with terror. Not to be on the ship any more—ever? Never to steer a course under the Southern Cross—reef a sail in a storm, never to set a halyard to the rhythm of Swede’s chantey?

“No. I’m goin’ to stay on this ship as long as she floats. I’ll stand by her until she goes down under me.” He looked away from the hills out towards the sea. Little did Father realize when he spoke those words that they would come true!

I was going to live on shore with my mother and brothers and sister. I didn’t even remember what my mother looked like. She was only a beautiful symbol to me—something far off and not quite real that had been painted for me in words from my father—and not someone real that I could live with. But now I must. Father would make me. It seemed too terrible to endure.

The Quarantine officers and Customs officers passed us. There was nothing then to keep me from going ashore. Father packed my canvas sea bag full of my belongings. It bulged with my sea boots, my oilskins and sou’wester. I wrapped my little boats carefully in burlap and carried them under my arm for they were too precious to trust to careless hands. My other treasures were a jaw of shark teeth and an octopus in a big can of alcohol.

Stitches came aft to help load my things into the dinghy to go ashore.

“Ain’t you ever comin’ back to us, Skipper?” Stitches asked me in a hoarse voice which was barely audible. I hadn’t realized until then that I’d be leaving him behind. I couldn’t leave Stitches, for I loved him.

“Can’t you come to the land with me, Stitches? You can live with me for always,” I said.

Stitches didn’t answer me; he just sort of blew his nose and looked away.

“I’m coming back some time, Stitches,” I promised. I saw his old hands shaking as he tied my bundles up. He seemed to delay the parting by fumbling around. I gave him my ships to hold and I went below to change into my dress and hair ribbon. When I came up on deck the crew had disappeared off the decks. Weren’t they going to say good-bye to me? Even Stitches was nowhere to be seen.

“Come on, cast off now,” Father called.

Bulgar and Oleson were in the dinghy below waiting to row Father and me ashore. I climbed up to the rail and started down the Jacob’s ladder when I suddenly remembered something I had forgotten. I dashed back on deck and made for the cabin.

“Now what the hell?” called Father after me.

I grabbed my four kittens I had forgotten and put them in a flour sack, then I went up on the poop deck to where my pet seagull was in a packing-case cage.

“Come on, Old Man, we’re going ashore,” I told the gull as I put him under one arm. Then I swung the sack of cats over my shoulder, and once more I went to the Jacob’s ladder to disembark.

What a fine bunch of barnacles the crew were, I thought, when I couldn’t see them anywhere. Just as I went over the side I spotted them—Stitches was behind the mizzen mast pretending to be looking the opposite direction from me; Swede and the Jap cook were peeking out at me from the donkey-room forward. Fred Nelson acted the queerest of all of them. He appeared to be absorbed in polishing the brass on the binnacle, but he polished the one spot so steadily I thought he would wear it out.

“Hey Skipper,” he called: “Here’s somethin’ to remember the ship by.” He came down to me and handed me a plug of Star Cut Plug Tobacco. “It ain’t much, but it’s wishin’ you a fair wind for your westin’.” His face seemed white and drawn. He looked at me so hard I thought he was looking right through me.

“Pile down here and quit your dawdling,” Father ordered from his seat in the dinghy.

A funny lump came in my throat. It felt as if I had swallowed too big a hunk of oatmeal and it had stuck in my windpipe. I couldn’t make the feeling go away. I was afraid I would start to blubber at leaving the crew forever and especially my adored Stitches, so I yelled out very loud as I descended the Jacob’s ladder:

“So long, everybody. I won’t ever forget you.”

[Illustration]

14 I find navigating on shore full of shoals

In the small boat Father asked why I had brought the gull and what was in the flour sack.

“My belongings!” I answered.

“Your mother’ll never stand for that junk to clutter up her house. You’re a landsman now, Joan, and things is going to be different.” I couldn’t understand why Father didn’t give me the devil instead of talking so low and quiet-like. I thought he was glad to get rid of me because I was always such a worry to him.

The ride on the ferry boat across San Francisco Bay to get a train to Berkeley was an experience I’ll never forget. A crowd gathered around me on the ferry to look at my seagull and the octopus in the can. The kittens squirmed around in their sack but I didn’t open it because I was afraid they’d get away from me. I didn’t realize then that I was a freak sight. I thought all the people who grouped around me wanted to be friends, so I took them into my confidence freely. They smiled and looked at one another as I talked. I was telling them about the South Seas; how I got the little octopus; what the name of our ship was. No one did any talking except me—the crowd just stared at me and listened.

At the Oakland Pier we got a train. The conductor came along and tried to take the seagull and bag of cats away from me. He wanted to put them in the baggage car, but I protested, and he let me keep them. When we arrived in Berkeley Father took a taxi from the station up to my mother’s house. I was all eyes at the surrounding view, the rolling hills, the houses with neat lawns, trolley cars, groups of laughing boys and girls strolling along the streets. I forgot the ship for an instant. In my transport of joy I could think of nothing but my new life.

We got out of the cab in front of a two-story wooden house. We walked up a path and through a gate that had two tall posts on either side of it. On one of them was a weather vane—a whale on a stick that spun around in the wind. It had been there for years and Mother used it to watch for shore winds to blow my father home. A tangled mass of bright-colored flowers lined the walk. A huge climbing vine with flowers the color of South Sea coral hanging from them half covered the porch. They were roses, the first I had ever seen. The appearance of the house made me think of a contented turtle asleep in seaweeds. I couldn’t get enough of the beauty of the garden. I felt Father’s hand tugging at my arm.

“There’s your mother, Joan.”