And now, my brave boys, comes the best of the fun,
It's hands about ship and reef topsails in one;
So it's lay aloft, topman, as the hellum goes down,
And clew down your topsails as the mainyard goes round.
--La Pique.
At the end of that week the Ethel and May had delivered at market her
first fare of fish and her captains had divided her first shares. Mayo
decided that the results were but of proportion to the modest returns.
He was viewing the regeneration of the tribe of Hue and Cry. In their
case it had been the right touch at the right time. For years their
hopes had been hungry for a chance to make good. Now gratitude inspired
them and an almost insane desire to show that they were not worthless
drove them to supreme effort. The leaven of the psychology of
independence was getting in its work.
The people of Hue and Cry for three generations had been made to feel
that they were pariahs. When they had brought their fish or clams to the
mainland the buyers were both unjust and contemptuous, as if they were
dealing with begging children who must expect only a charitable gift
for their product instead of a real man's price. Prices suited the
fish-buyers' moods of the day. The islanders had never been admitted
to the plane of straight business like other fishermen. They had always
taken meekly what had been offered--whether coin or insults. Therefore,
their labor had never returned them full values.
They who bought made the poor wretches feel that it constituted a
special favor to take their fish at any price.
They seemed to come into their own that first day at market when the
Ethel and May made her bigness in the dock at the city fish-house.
Masterful men represented them in the dealings with the buyers. The crew
hid their delighted grins behind rough palms when Captain Epps Candage
bawled out bidders who were under market quotations; they gazed with awe
on Captain Mayo when he read from printed sheets--print being a
mystery they had never mastered--and figured with ready pencil and even
corrected the buyer, who acknowledged his error and humbly apologized.
No more subservient paltering at the doors of fish-houses!
Back home the women and the children and the old folks had a good roof
over their heads; the fishers had the deck of a tidy schooner under
their feet. Shiftlessness departed from them. After years of oppression
they had found their opportunity. More experienced men would have
found this new fortune only modest; these men grasped it with juvenile
enthusiasm.