I shall so appear. But I shall drink no more than is unavoidable.
And the Queen began to make love to me, the latest recruit to the
oyster pirate fleet, and no mere hand, but a master and owner.
She went upon deck to take the air, and took me with her. She
knew, of course, but I never dreamed, how French Frank was raging
down below. Then Tess joined us, sitting on the cabin; and
Spider, and Bob; and at the last, Mrs. Hadley and French Frank.
And we sat there, glasses in hand, and sang, while the big
demijohn went around; and I was the only strictly sober one.
And I enjoyed it as no one of them was able to enjoy it. Here, in
this atmosphere of bohemianism, I could not but contrast the scene
with my scene of the day before, sitting at my machine, in the
stifling, shut-in air, repeating, endlessly repeating, at top
speed, my series of mechanical motions. And here I sat now, glass
in hand, in warm-glowing camaraderie, with the oyster pirates,
adventurers who refused to be slaves to petty routine, who flouted
restrictions and the law, who carried their lives and their
liberty in their hands. And it was through John Barleycorn that I
came to join this glorious company of free souls, unashamed and
unafraid.
And the afternoon seabreeze blew its tang into my lungs, and
curled the waves in mid-channel. Before it came the scow
schooners, wing-and-wing, blowing their horns for the drawbridges
to open. Red-stacked tugs tore by, rocking the Razzle Dazzle in
the waves of their wake. A sugar barque towed from the “boneyard”
to sea. The sun-wash was on the crisping water, and life was big.
And Spider sang:
“Oh, it’s Lulu, black Lulu, my darling,
Oh, it’s where have you been so long?
Been layin’ in jail,
A-waitin’ for bail,
Till my bully comes rollin’ along.”
John Barleycorn
24
There it was, the smack and slap of the spirit of revolt, of
adventure, of romance, of the things forbidden and done defiantly
and grandly. And I knew that on the morrow I would not go back to
my machine at the cannery. To-morrow I would be an oyster pirate,
as free a freebooter as the century and the waters of San
Francisco Bay would permit. Spider had already agreed to sail
with me as my crew of one, and, also, as cook while I did the deck
work. We would outfit our grub and water in the morning, hoist
the big mainsail (which was a bigger piece of canvas than any I
had ever sailed under), and beat our way out the estuary on the
first of the seabreeze and the last of the ebb. Then we would
slack sheets, and on the first of the flood run down the bay to
the Asparagus Islands, where we would anchor miles off shore. And
at last my dream would be realised: I would sleep upon the water.
And next morning I would wake upon the water; and thereafter all
my days and nights would be on the water.
And the Queen asked me to row her ashore in my skiff, when at
sunset French Frank prepared to take his guests ashore. Nor did I
catch the significance of his abrupt change of plan when he turned
the task of rowing his skiff over to Whisky Bob, himself remaining
on board the sloop. Nor did I understand Spider’s grinning side-
remark to me: “Gee! There’s nothin’ slow about YOU.” How could it
possibly enter my boy’s head that a grizzled man of fifty should
be jealous of me?
CHAPTER VIII
We met by appointment, early Monday morning, to complete the deal,
in Johnny Heinhold’s “Last Chance “–a saloon, of course, for the
transactions of men. I paid the money over, received the bill of
sale, and French Frank treated. This struck me as an evident
custom, and a logical one–the seller, who receives, the money, to
wet a piece of it in the establishment where the trade was
consummated. But, to my surprise, French Frank treated the house.
He and I drank, which seemed just; but why should Johnny Heinhold,
who owned the saloon and waited behind the bar, be invited to
drink? I figured it immediately that he made a profit on the very
drink he drank. I could, in a way, considering that they were
friends and shipmates, understand Spider and Whisky Bob being
asked to drink; but why should the longshoremen, Bill Kelley and
Soup Kennedy, be asked?
Then there was Pat, the Queen’s brother, making a total of eight
of us. It was early morning, and all ordered whisky. What could
I do, here in this company of big men, all drinking whisky?
“Whisky,” I said, with the careless air of one who had said it a
thousand times. And such whisky! I tossed it down. A-r-r-r-gh! I
can taste it yet.
And I was appalled at the price French Frank had paid–eighty
cents. EIGHTY CENTS! It was an outrage to my thrifty soul.
John Barleycorn
25
Eighty cents–the equivalent of eight long hours of my toil at the
machine, gone down our throats, and gone like that, in a
twinkling, leaving only a bad taste in the mouth. There was no
discussion that French Frank was a waster.
I was anxious to be gone, out into the sunshine, out over the
water to my glorious boat. But all hands lingered. Even Spider,
my crew, lingered. No hint broke through my obtuseness of why
they lingered. I have often thought since of how they must have
regarded me, the newcomer being welcomed into their company
standing at bar with them, and not standing for a single round of
drinks.
French Frank, who, unknown to me, had swallowed his chagrin since
the day before, now that the money for the Razzle Dazzle was in
his pocket, began to behave curiously toward me. I sensed the
change in his attitude, saw the forbidding glitter in his eyes,
and wondered. The more I saw of men, the queerer they became.
Johnny Heinhold leaned across the bar and whispered in my ear s
“He’s got it in for you. Watch out.”
I nodded comprehension of his statement, and acquiescence in it,
as a man should nod who knows all about men. But secretly I was
perplexed. Heavens! How was I, who had worked hard and read books
of adventure, and who was only fifteen years old, who had not
dreamed of giving the Queen of the Oyster Pirates a second
thought, and who did not know that French Frank was madly and
Latinly in love with her–how was I to guess that I had done him
shame? And how was I to guess that the story of how the Queen had
thrown him down on his own boat, the moment I hove in sight, was
already the gleeful gossip of the water-front? And by the same
token, how was I to guess that her brother Pat’s offishness with
me was anything else than temperamental gloominess of spirit?
Whisky Bob got me aside a moment. “Keep your eyes open,” he
muttered. “Take my tip. French Frank’s ugly. I’m going up river
with him to get a schooner for oystering. When he gets down on
the beds, watch out. He says he’ll run you down. After dark, any
time he’s around, change your anchorage and douse your riding
light. Savve?”
Oh, certainly, I savve’d. I nodded my head, and, as one man to
another, thanked him for his tip; and drifted back to the group at
the bar. No; I did not treat. I never dreamed that I was
expected to treat. I left with Spider, and my ears burn now as I
try to surmise the things they must have said about me.
I asked Spider, in an off-hand way, what was eating French Frank.
“He’s crazy jealous of you,” was the answer. “Do you think so?” I
said, and dismissed the matter as not worth thinking about.
But I leave it to any one–the swell of my fifteen-years-old
manhood at learning that French Frank, the adventurer of fifty,
the sailor of all the seas of all the world, was jealous of me–
and jealous over a girl most romantically named the Queen of the
Oyster Pirates. I had read of such things in books, and regarded
them as personal probabilities of a distant maturity. Oh, I felt
John Barleycorn
26
a rare young devil, as we hoisted the big mainsail that morning,
broke out anchor, and filled away close-hauled on the three-mile
beat to windward out into the bay.
Such was my escape from the killing machine-toil, and my
introduction to the oyster pirates. True, the introduction had
begun with drink, and the life promised to continue with drink.
But was I to stay away from it for such reason? Wherever life ran
free and great, there men drank. Romance and Adventure seemed