All the long winter the “Polly J.” had slept snugly in Gloucester Harbor, rigging unrove and everything snug aloft that the wind could freeze or the ice could chafe. Careful eyes had watched her as she swung at her moorings, and rugged hands had gripped the familiar gear as the skipper or some of the men had made their periodical visits. But however gray and desolate she loomed, with her topmasts housed and the black lines of ratline and stay across the brightening sky, nothing could hide the saucy cut-under of the bow and the long, free sweep of the rail.

The afternoon sun of March melted the snow on the south slopes of the fish-sheds, and great gray-and-green patches came out here and there against the endless white.

A brisk breeze, with a touch of the spring, blew up from the south, and the “Polly,” heedless of the tide, turned her head to it, sniffing and breathing it, bobbing and jerking nervously at her anchor, impatient to be[275] dressed in her cloud of canvas, and away where the wind blows free and the curl dashes high under the forefoot.
WHEN THE SNOW MELTS

Ashore in Gloucester town there are signs a-plenty of the work to come. The sleepy village throws off her white mantle and rises from the lethargy of the winter past. The spring is in the air, and the docks and wharves, white and ice-trussed during the long, bleak winter, are trod by groups of men, rubber-coated and “sou’ westered,” moving briskly from one shed to another.

In the town they gather like the stray birds of spring that flutter under the eaves of the store-houses. By twos and threes they appear. On street corners they meet, pipe-smoking, reminiscent, gloomily hopeful for the future, and grateful that they have helped themselves over “March Hill” without a loan from owner or buyer. And as they lounge from post-office to store, from store to shed, and back again, their talk is of dealings with owners and skippers, of vessels and luck.

For luck is their fortune. It means larger profits by shares, new dresses for the wife and little ones, and perhaps an easy time of it in the winter to follow. It means that there will[276] be no long, hard winter of it at the haddock-fisheries at “George’s,” where trawls are to be set in weather which makes frozen hands and feet, and perhaps a grave in an icy sea, where thousands have gone before.

The skipper of the “Polly,” even before he gets his men, has broken out his gear and reckoned up his necessities for the run up to the Banks. If he ships the same crew he had the year before, they work in well together. The “Polly’s” topmasts are run up with a hearty will and a rush. There is a cheerful clatter of block and tackle, and the joyous “Yeo-ho” echoes from one schooner to another as sail and rigging are fitted and run into place.

The snow yet lingers in little patches on the moors when some of the vessels warp down to an anchorage. Dories are broken from their nests and skim lightly across the harbor, now alive with a fleet in miniature. Jests and greetings fill the air, as old shipmates and dory-mates meet again,—Gloucester men some of them, but more often Swedes, Portuguese, and men from the South.

For to-day the fleet is not owned in the villages, and Gloucester, once the centre of the fishing aristocracy, the capital of the nation of the Banks, is now but a trading- and meeting-place[277] for half the sea-people who come from the North and East.

The skipper of the “Polly J.,” himself perhaps the scion of three generations of fishing captains, may wag his head regretfully, for fishers cannot be choosers; but he knows that his fishing has to be done, and, after all, a “Portygee” is as good a sailor-man and dory-mate as another,—better sometimes,—if he keeps sober.

So long as the ship-owner makes his credit good at the store for the people at home, the fisherman takes life as joyfully as a man may who looks at death with every turn of the glass. If he takes his pleasures seriously, it is because he lives face to face with his Maker. Nature, in the awful moods he knows her, makes trivial the little ills that flesh is heir to.

So when the crews are aboard, and the stores and salt are being hoisted in, there is a hurry to be among the first away. Chains and windlasses creak and clang, nimble feet fly aloft, hoarse voices ring across the rippling water, and many a cheerful song echoes from ship to shore and back again.

Willing hands, strangers for months to hemp and tar, lay on to the tackle, as spar and boom are run into place. The fish-bins below are cleaned and scrubbed to the very quick.[278] Bright-work, if there be any, is polished, and sail-patching and dory-painting and caulking are the order of the day, and most of the night. The black cook, below in the mysterious blackness of the galley, potters with saucepan and kettle, and when the provisions are aboard serves the first meal. There is coffee, steaming hot in the early hours of the morning, and biscuit and meat,—plenty of it. There is not much variety, but, with the work to be done above and below decks, a full-blooded appetite leaves no chance for grumbling.

At last the bag and baggage of the crew are tossed aboard,—packs of tobacco innumerable, new rubber clothes, all yellow and shiny in the morning dampness, boots and woollens to keep out the cold of spring on the Bank Sea,—all bought on credit at the store, to be charged against “settling-day.”
WAVING GODSPEED TO THE FISHER-FOLK

It is morning, just before the dawn. The “Polly J.,” her new paint all silver in the early light, rides proudly at her anchor in the centre of the tideway. The nip of winter lingers in the air, but the snow is gone and the rigging is no longer stiff to the touch.

It is just daylight when the last dory is hoisted aboard into its nest. Three or four[279] figures on the wharves, outlined against the purple sky and hills, stand waving Godspeed to their fisher-folk. Women’s voices ring out between the creakings of the blocks, “Good luck! Good luck! ‘Polly J.’; wet your salt first, ‘Polly J.’” It is the well-wishing from the hearts of women, who go back to weep in silence. Which one of them is to make her sacrifice to the god of winds and storms?

There is a cheerful answer from the “Polly,” drowned in the flapping of the sails and creaking of the windlass. The anchor, rusty and weed-hung, is broken out and comes to the surface with a rush, while sheets are hauled aft, and, catching the morning breeze, the head of the schooner pays off towards Norman’s Woe, the water rippling merrily along her sides.

The figures on the wharves are mere gray patches in the mass of town and hills. The big sails, looming dark in the gray mists of the morning, round out to the freshening wind, and push the light fabric through the opal waves with ever-increasing speed. By the time the first rays of the rising sun have gilded the quivering gaff of the main, Eastern Point is left far astern, and the nose of the vessel ploughs boldly out to sea, rising with her[280] empty bins light as a feather to the big, heavy swell that comes rolling in, to break in a steady roar on the brown rocks to leeward.

There is man’s work and plenty of it during those sailing days past “George’s,” Sable Island, and the St. Lawrence. The provisions and salt are to be stowed and restowed, ballast is to be shifted, sails to be made stronger and more strong, fish-bins to be prepared, old dories to be made seaworthy, rigging to be tautened, and reels and lines to be cleared and hooked. Buoy-lines and dory-roding are to be spliced, and miscellaneous carpenter work takes up the time about the decks. For a skipper unprepared to take advantage of all that luck may throw in his way does an injustice to his owner and his crew. But, busy as the time is, the skipper has his weather-eye open for the “signs.” The feel of the air, the look and color of the cold, gray Bank Sea, tell him in so many words how and where the fish will be running. At last a hand takes the heavy sea-lead and moves forward where the line may run free. Deliberately the line is coiled in great turns around the left hand, and then, like a big pendulum, the weight begins to swing with the strong right arm.

[281]
IN THE EXCITEMENT OF THE FIRST CATCH

There is a swirl of the line as the lead goes all the way over, a splash forward, and, as the skipper luffs her up into it, the line comes upright, and gets a depth of thirty fathoms. As she comes up into the wind, the noisy jib flaps down with a run, and the anchor drops to the sandy bottom. Now the buckets of bait are tossed up from below, and the skipper leaves his helm to take to the lines. Over the sides and stern they go, dragging down to leeward.

There is quiet for a moment, and then a line runs out. There is a tug as the strong arm checks it and hauls it in quickly, hand over hand. There is a gleam of light, a swish at the surface, and the fish flies over the rail, flopping helplessly on to the deck, the first catch of the season,—a big one.

Another tug, and another, and soon the work is fast and furious. It takes honest elbow-muscle, too, to haul ten pounds of floundering cod up five feet of freeboard to the rail and deck. Soon the deck is covered with the long, slim, gleaming bodies, and the boys of the schooner have man’s work in tossing them into the gurry-pen amidships. Before the pen is filled, the fishes stop biting as suddenly[282] as they struck on, and there is a rest for a while to bait-up and clean down.

If the signs hold good, the skipper will order the men out to set trawls, for the smell of the dead fish sometimes drives the school away.
HANDLING THE TRAWLS

The “trawls” are only an elaboration of the hand-lines. They are single lines, several hundred feet in length, with short lines and baited hooks at intervals. They are taken out by members of the crew in their dories, buoyed and anchored. It is the work of tending these trawls that takes the greatest skill and fearlessness. It is in the work of hauling and baiting the lines in all weathers that the greatest losses of life occur. There is no room on the decks of the schooners for heavy boats, and as many such craft are needed, five or six are piled together amidships. A block and purchase from aloft are their hoisting-tackle.

They are handy boats, though light, and two men and a load of fish can weather the rough seas, if your fisherman is an adept with his oars. But they are mere cockle-shells at the best, and are tossed like feathers. The “codders” are reckless fellows, and they will put out to the trawls day after day in any kind of[283] weather, f............