The second mate turned out the watch below at four bells--six in the
morning. The schooner was in the stream and all hands were needed to
work hose and brooms and clear off the coal-dust. Mayo toiled in the
wallow of black water till his muscles ached.
There was one happy respite--they knocked off long enough to eat
breakfast. It was sent out to them from the cook-house in one huge,
metal pan without dishes or knives or forks.
A white cook wash dishes for negroes?
Mayo knew the custom which prevailed on board the schooners between the
coal ports and the New England cities, and he fished for food with his
fingers and cut meat with his jack-knife with proper meekness.
When he was back at his scrubbing again the cook passed aft, bearing
the zinc-lined hamper which contained the breakfast for the cabin table.
That this cook had the complete vocabulary of others of his ilk was
revealed when the man with the hose narrowly missed drenching the
hamper.
"That's right, cook!" roared Captain Downs, climbing ponderously on
board from his yawl. "Talk up to the loafing, cock-eyed, pot-colored
sons of a coal-scuttle when I ain't here to do it. Turn away that hose,
you mule-eared Fiji!" He turned on Mayo, who stood at one side and was
poising his scrubbing-broom to allow the master to pass. "Get to work,
there, yellow pup! Get to work!"
Ordinarily the skipper addresses one of his sailors only through the
mate. But there was no mate handy just then.
"One hand for the owners and one hand for yourself when you're aloft,
but on deck it's both hands for the owners," he stated, as he plodded
aft, giving forth the aphorism for the benefit of all within hearing.
The passenger was still on deck, and Mayo heard Captain Downs greet him
rather brusquely.
Then the cook's hand-bell announced breakfast, and before the captain
and his guest reappeared on deck a tug had the Alden's hawser and was
towing her down the dredged channel on the way to Hampton Roads and to
sea.
Mayo went at his new tasks so handily that he passed muster as an
able seaman. If a sailor aboard a big schooner of these days is quick,
willing, and strong he does not need the qualities and the knowledge
which made a man an "A. B." in the old times.
While the schooner was on her way behind the tug they hoisted her sails,
a long cable called "the messenger" enabling the steam-winch forward to
do all the work. Mayo was assigned to the jigger-mast, and went aloft
to shake out the topsail. It was a dizzy height, and the task tried his
spirit, for the sail was heavy, and he found it difficult to keep his
balance while he was tugging at the folds of the canvas. He was obliged
to work alone--there was only one man to a mast, and very tiny insects
did his mates appear when Mayo glanced forward along the range of the
masts.