“ ‘Bring forth the chart, the doleful chart, See where them mountings meet! The clouds are thick around their heads, The mists around their feet.’ ”
“Full boat,” said Dan, with a chuckle. “If he give us ‘O Captain’ it’s topping’ too!”
The bellow continued:
“ ‘And naow to thee, O Capting, Most earnestly I pray, That they shall never bury me In church or cloister gray.’ ”
“Double game for Tom Platt. He’ll tell you all about the old Ohio tomorrow. ’See that blue dory behind him? He’s my uncle—Dad’s own brother—an’ ef there’s any bad luck loose on the Banks she’ll fetch up agin Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he’s rowin’. I’ll lay my wage and share he’s the only man stung up today—an’ he’s stung up good.”
“What’ll sting him?” said Harvey, getting interested.
“Strawberries, mostly. Pumpkins, sometimes, an’ sometimes lemons an’ cucumbers. Yes, he’s stung up from his elbows down. That man’s luck’s perfectly paralyzin’. Naow we’ll take a-holt o’ the tackles an’ hist ’em in. Is it true what you told me jest now, that you never done a hand’s turn o’ work in all your born life? Must feel kinder awful, don’t it?”
“I’m going to try to work, anyway,” Harvey replied stoutly. “Only it’s all dead new.”
“Lay a-holt o’ that tackle, then. Behind ye!”
Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran from something he called a “topping-lift,” as Manuel drew alongside in his loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey learned