accordion and Tom Platt’s fiddle supplied the music of the magic verse you must not sing till all the salt is wet:
“Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound! All our salt is wetted, an’ the anchor’s off the graound! Bend, oh, bend your mains’l, we’re back to Yankeeland— With fifteen hunder’ quintal, An’ fifteen hunder’ quintal, ’Teen hunder’ toppin’ quintal, ’Twix’ old ’Queereau an’ Grand.”
The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and the Gloucester men shouted messages to their wives and womenfolks and owners, while the We’re Here finished the musical ride through the Fleet, her headsails quivering like a man’s hand when he raises it to say goodbye.
Harvey very soon discovered that the We’re Here , with her riding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the We’re Here headed west by south under home canvas, were two very different boats. There was a bite and kick to the wheel even in “boy’s” weather; he could feel the dead weight in the hold flung forward mightily across the surges, and the streaming line of bubbles overside made his eyes dizzy.