Adventure Magazine, December 10, 1924 — page 60: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

38 had bidden him and his old wife farewell. ‘‘Where’s the boy?” Mrs. Elias had asked, and the owner, smiling, had shaken his head. “You'll probably be in the trades before his ship gets in.”’ Mrs. Elias was short as her husband, and, like him, square of frame; an old sea-wo- man known wherever her husband was known. Her white hair, trimmed shorter than his, stood in wiry curls around an open face. Her eyes, like her husband’s; her voice, though feminine, was not greatly dissimilar to his. Like her man, Mrs. Elias knew sun and star intimately and could guide a ship’s way by them. The lore of the sea as much her own as his, they had all things in common; the life of each made complete by that of the other. They were a childless pair. Recalling the first years of his long cap- taincy Elias brought to mind old sailing days of years ago, and, seeing the owner whom he had served so long, recalled a day, when, a little lad beside him, the owner had come down to bid the ship farewell. He remembered his, and his wife’s, words at parting, and the owner’s answer. “You'd better let us take him,” from Mrs. Elias, and a shake of the head from the owner with the answer— ‘Perhaps, when he’s older.” The child was motherless. He remembered his own question, when he came from sea again, at another voyage’s ending. ‘“‘Where’s the boy?” and, from the owner, “‘He’s at school.” “‘He’ll soon be old enough to go to sea,” from himself and his wife; then a smile upon the owner’s face, neither assenting nor “dissénting. A perplexed look came to the old man’s face; memory of disappointment making his eyes gray, dulling the blue in them. Childless themselves, they had waited patiently for the day to come when the owner’s son should have been old enough to gotosea. Heshould be their charge, theirs the pride of his teaching in the old sea ways. Memory of a later voyage’s ending came to him, bringing the owner’s reply to their old query— ‘“‘Where’s the boy?” The boy was gone to sea—with a ship of a different line, while Elias and his wife were yet homebound. Times had changed at sea since the days Adventure of their first command, and together they had watched the slow change as it came. Of recent years such ships as came from the builders came fitted with donkey engines wherewith to hoist their topsails and to heave their anchors in. Lanyard rigging long ago replaced by screw, seamanship had been abandoned for a blacksmith’s trade, and where in old days block and tackle had been the insignia of a sailor’s calling nothing but a crow bar now was needed. Seamen continually re- placed by navigators, seamanship was fast becoming a lost art, a craft whose fine day was going to the discard. A cloud beneath which the day of old men was fading away had overspread both port and ocean. Elias and his wife had asked no explana- tion, and, no explanation offered them, had hidden their hurt. Bidding the owner a last. good-by ere > he had sailed on this, his last voyage, Elias, his eyes toward the river bar, had said— ‘When we’re settled in Alameda and his ship comes to Frisco, send him to:see us.” They had come, in due course, to San Francisco. A bungalow, purchased upon a previous voyage, awaited them across the bay beside the quiet Alameda water front, flowers on its low pergola, roses on its lat- tice fence. In Alameda, home at length, finding peace in retirement, they would treasure peace together; the ship and sea for ever passed from out of their lives. When they had been four weeks in San Francisco the bungalow was ready for them, and, all their possessions transferred to it, nothing but necessities of life were left aboard. Door mats made of rope by sailors on many idle tropic days were sent ashore. Canvas mops hung in a row upon the kitchen wall. The ship denuded of what ever had been theirs, iris and poppy had taken.on @ eer a chill, deserted look. “We'll take the buoy, when we go,” Elias had said, and her eyes upon the ship’s name on its upper arc, his wife had smil- ingly assented. Upon the very day on which they were to have left the ship a mysterious malady de- scending on the old lady had left her power- less. Without suffering she had lain still, her interest seemingly gone. Fetched by the mate a doctor had come aboard, and had shaken his head. With scant faith in the long-shore doc- tors, great faith in the healing power of CoMmicbhook ) (© =