Initiation
"Why, I gesso," he replied. "What you want?"
"Oh, we're just landlubbers who want to see your ship."
"Well, come ahead," he said.
So we scrambled over the lumber carts, the whole Follett family, still under full sail and laughing heartily. I was the first upon the bulwarks amidships, and I jumped down and landed with a thump upon the deck load. (Quite a long jump it seemed to me then, but before long I jumped from the bulwarks on to the empty deck without thinking anything of it.)
I spoke to the captain first of all, but very vaguely and dreamily, gazing about me—fascinated, enraptured, all the time. I looked at the long, huge booms, with the sails frapped closely round them; at the great, splendid masts; at the many ropes descending over blocks and made fast on belaying pins along the side of the boat; at the double and triple sheet-blocks; and, above all, at the ratlines and shrouds, into which I longed to go up. The next minute I had jumped upon the spanker boom and crawled along to the very end, hanging slightly over the water, where I supported myself by one of the wire lifts.
"Oh," said the captain, "I see you're a girl as likes to climb around."
11
