A New Acquaintance
begin climbing them, especially when I was starting more than sixty feet above the deck. But I stood out on the crosstrees, and I put my hand to my forehead, and I looked out to sea—feeling a good deal like the lookout man on the fo'c'sle deck.
By this time they had entirely moved the deck load and were working on the hold (though, of course, not on that day), and so the boom of the mainsail had been belayed to the port side of the schooner, to make room for hoisting out the cargo. Now it was loose, and I had a lot of fun pushing it back and forth. Then I scrambled up on to it—and quite a job that was, too—and Daddy pushed it back and forth, until it swung almost out over the water, bringing up hard on the sheet. Afterwards I learned to get up on the boom in one pull of my arms, by means of the downhaul, but of course the sails weren't hoisted then.
That evening we became acquainted with the mate. He is a very nice fellow. Evidently he had been ashore, for he had on his shore togs. We went up forward on the fo'c'sle deck and had a long talk with him. I happened to hint something about the jibboom. I longed to go out on it, but I didn't quite dare to. I hadn't quite got my sailor-familiarity-with-the-ropes on yet. But the mate immediately started to go out on the bowsprit. "See," said he, "this is a nice, easy little walk out here"—as he went along
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