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Updated: May 24, 2025
Tunis had spoken quite boldly. But, to tell the truth, he did not know where or how he was to sign another crew and a cook if the Portygees deserted the schooner. Not at Big Wreck Cove. He had heard too many whispers about the curse upon his schooner from people of all classes in the port.
There's only one thing I ask of 'em, and that is that when they come here to live to stay under our laws and takin' advantage of the privileges we offer 'em they'll stop bein' Portygees or Russians or Polacks or whatever they used to be or their folks were, and just be Americans like you, Al." "That's what we must work for now, Grandfather. It's a big job, but it must be done."
Troubled as he had been at Boston, and delayed, Tunis wished now that he had remained there even longer while he made search for and engaged a proper crew for the schooner. He had better, perhaps, have paid the fare of the Portygees back to Big Wreck Cove and so saved quarreling with them.
P'r'aps I ain't got it, after bein' on shore among clodhoppers for two years. But, by Judas Iscarrot, I'm goin' to start in and find out! Portygees! There's Portygees! Here's me that has handled 'em batted brains into 'em as they've come over the side, one by one, and started 'em goin' like I'd wind up a watch! And a belayin'-pin is the key!"
Why these new men should be more troubled by the silly tattle of the hoodoo than even the Portygees had been was a problem Tunis could not solve. And seamen were so scarce just then in Boston that he had been obliged to risk another voyage without engaging strangers to man the Seamew. Besides, being a true Cape Codder, he disliked hiring other than Cape men to work the schooner.
Get away on her so we can cast loose as soon as possible from that smoky scuttle butt." He referred to the tug. He stepped aft to take the wheel himself. The mainsail was going up smartly. The old boatswain and the Portygees swung upon the lines with vehemence. There was not more than a capful of wind; but once let the canvas fill, and the schooner would get steerageway.
Tunis Latham was speaking of the latter fact to Aunt Lucretia in the warm and homelike kitchen of Latham's Folly. "Zeb is a good fellow. He has got together a bunch of hands that aren't afraid of ghosts or bogies. You couldn't make those Portygees or some of the other hands we had see the ridiculousness of their fear of the Seamew bless her!
Forward, Horace Newbegin served as boatswain and Orion Latham was a sort of supercargo and general handy man. He was Tunis' cousin, several times removed. There were four Portygees to make up the company, a full crew for a sailing vessel of the tonnage of the Seamew. Yet every man was needed in handling her lofty canvas and in loading and unloading freight.
The Portygees remaining with him even Johnny Lark, the cook had been in a most unhappy temper all the way back from Boston on the last trip. Tunis could depend upon Mate Chapin, Boatswain Newbegin, and 'Rion Latham himself to stick by the schooner.
But a year later he had so far relented as to give reluctant consent for Jane and the child to come, provided her condemned husband did not accompany them. "If that low-lived Portygee sets foot on my premises, so help me God, I'll kill him!" declared the captain. In his vernacular all foreigners were "Portygees." But Jane was as proud and stubborn as he.
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