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Everything interested Pocahontas on the voyage: the ship herself, the hoisting and furling of sails in calms and tempests, the chanteys of the sailors as they worked, the sight of spouting whales and, as they neared the English coast, the magnificence of a large ship-of-war, a veteran, so declared the captain, of the fleet which went so bravely forth to meet the Spanish Armada.
It was more than a novelty to listen to the sailormen on the schooners talk of the strange happenings in that wonderful land, and to hear them sing their quaint old sea songs and chanteys, or relate marvelous stories of adventure. Sometimes a skipper would drop them a newspaper, many weeks old to be sure, but as fresh and interesting to them as though it had come directly from the press.
The rest was the usual forecastle gibberish, but, and it may have been that our partner being born with the wanderer's spirits could give meaning to the immemorial calling that speaks to the hearts of the English through the rude chanteys of the sea, something stirred me when the refrain rose up exultantly, "Blow, boys, blow, for Californio, for there's shining gold and wealth untold on the sunny Sacramento."
No one on land could understand the absorbing significance of every detail of a ship's life.... Only Gerrit, of all his family, knew the chanteys and watches, the anxiety and beauty of landfalls the blue Falklands or Teneriffe rising above the clouds, the hurried making and taking of sail in the squalls of the Doldrums.
It was curious to watch the action of the holding-down clips all along the frosty river front as the boats cleared or came to rest. A big Hamburger was leaving Pont Levis and her crew, unshipping the platform railings, began to sing "Elsinore" the oldest of our chanteys. You know it of course: Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic Forty couple waltzing on the floor!
I'll look for you back on the evening train?" "Sure," was the confident reply, "if the Rajah doesn't order it to be abandoned on my poor account." Ten minutes later, when the train had gone storming on its way to Carbonate and the Rosemary party was at breakfast, the clank of steel and the chanteys of the hammermen on the other side of the canyon began again with renewed vigor.
Nevertheless, it came about that, without a word said by any one, from the hour of Rosy-Lilly's arrival in camp, all the indecent "chanteys" were dropped, as if into oblivion, from the woodsmen's repertoire. During the songs, the smoking, and the lazy fun, Rosy-Lilly would slip from one big woodsman to another, an inconspicuous little figure in the smoke-gloomed light of the two oil-lamps.
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