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Updated: June 13, 2025
They labored with the haste of men accustomed to be driven hard, with the shuffling, involuntary speed that has nothing in it of free strength or good-will. The big German four-master had gathered from the boarding-houses of Philadelphia a crew representing all the nationalities which breed sailors, and carried officers skilled in the crude arts of getting the utmost out of it.
Only the sheen of dull gold remained, piercing the single vast mass of purple like the blade of a golden sword. "There's a ship!" said Blix in a low tone. A four-master was dropping quietly through the Golden Gate, swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked with lights red and green. In a few moments her bows were shut from sight by the old fort at the Gate.
Rapidly the four-master gained favor, and then came the five- and six-masted vessels, gigantic ships of their kind. Instead of the hundred-ton schooner of a century ago, Hampton Roads and Boston Harbor saw these great cargo carriers which could stow under hatches four and five thousand tons of coal, and whose masts soared a hundred and fifty feet above the deck.
As they walked back toward the station Ralph and Elsie lingered a little behind the others, and then stopped to watch a big four-master that, under full sail, was spinning along a mile or two from the beach. They watched it for a moment or two without speaking.
Still, even with the Yankee gone, there were others in the running. There was the Rhondda that held the Cup for the year, having won when we were somewhere off the Horn; then the Hedwig Rickmers a Bremen four-master which had not before competed, but whose green-painted gig was out for practice morning and night. Try as we might, we could never pull off a spurt with them.
And as a business venture, with somewhat of the tang of old-fashioned romance, the casual stranger is now and then tempted to purchase a sixty-fourth "piece" of a splendid Yankee four-master and keep in touch with its roving fortunes.
After the wedding the folks was sitting under the palms and bushes that was growing in tubs all over the house, and the stewards there was enough of 'em to man a four-master was carting 'round punch and frozen victuals. Everybody was togged up till Jonadab and me, in our new cutaways, felt like a couple of moulting blackbirds at a blue-jay camp-meeting.
Were I on my schooner and had the same storm blown up so suddenly, we should not have had time to furl a sail. We should have been lost. Thank the Lord, it is better on modern steamers. Nevertheless, I feel more comfortable on my four-master, and the devil knows, I'd like to be on it now." Frederick could not help laughing.
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