Samuel Merwin - The Merry Anne

Dear H. K. TV.:

This tale dedicates itself to you as a matter of right. For we grew up together on the bank of Lake Michigan; and you have not forgotten, over there in Paris, the real house on stilts, nor the miles we have tramped along the beach, nor, I am sure, the grim old life-saver on the near Ludington, and his sturdy scorn for our student life-savers at Evanston. And the endless night on Black Lake, with Klondike Andrews at the tiller and never a breath of wind, we shall not forget that. Once we differed: I failed to tempt you into a paddle in the Oki, one fresh spring day three years ago; but then, your instinct of self-preservation always worked better than mine, as the adventure in the Swampscott dory will recall to you.

But, after all, these doings do not make up the reason why the story is partly yours; nor do the changes in the text that sprang from your friendly comment. I will tell you the real reason.

Early, very early, one summer morning, you and I stood on the wheel-house of the P’ere Marquette Steamer No. 4 – or was it the No. 3 – a few hours from Milwaukee. The Lake was still, the thick mist was faintly illuminated by the hidden sun. Of a sudden, while the steamer was throbbing through the silence, a motionless schooner, painted blue, with a man in a red shirt at the wheel, loomed through the mist, stood out for one vivid moment, then faded away.

That schooner was the Merry Anne; and the man at the wheel was Dick Smiley. What if he should some day chance upon this tale and declare it untrue? know better, for we saw it there.

THE Merry Anne was the one lumber schooner on Lake Michigan that always appeared freshly painted; it was Dick Smiley’s wildest extravagance to keep her so. Sky blue she was (Annie’s favorite color), with a broad white line below the rail; and to see her running down on the north wind, her sails white in the sun, her bow laying the waves aside in gentle rolls to port and starboard, her captain balancing easily at the wheel, in red shirt, red and blue neckerchief, and slouch hat, was to feel stirring in one the old spirit of the Lakes.

It was a lowering day off Manistee. Out on the horizon, now and then dipping below it, a tug was struggling to hold two barges up into the wind. Within the harbor, at the wharf of the lumber company, lay the Merry Anne . Two of her crew were below, sleeping off an overdose of Manistee whiskey. The third, a boy of seventeen, got up in slavish imitation of his captain, – red shirt, slouch hat, and all, – was at work lashing down the deck load. Roche, the mate, stood on the wharf, the centre of a little group of stevedores and rivermen. “Hi there, Pink,” he shouted at the red shirt, “what you doin’ there?”

The boy threw a sweeping glance lake-ward before replying, “Makin’ fast.”

“That ‘ll do for you. There won’t be no start this afternoon.”

“But Cap’ Smiley said – ”

“None o’ your lip, or I ‘ll Cap’ Smiley you.

“Pretty ugly, out there, all right enough,” observed a riverman. “Cornin’ up worse, too. Give you a stiff time with all that stuff aboard.”

“I ain’t so sure about that,” said Roche, with a swagger. “If I was cap’n o’ this schooner, she’d start on the minute, but Smiley’s one o’ your fair-weather sort.”

“Sure he is. He done a heap o’ talkin’ about that time he brung the William Jones into Black Lake before the wind, the day the John T. Eversley was lost; but Billy Underdown was sailin’ with him then, and he told me hisself that he had the wheel all the way – Smiley never done a thing but hang on to the companionway and holler at him to look out for the north set o’ the surf outside the piers; and there’s my little Andy that ain’t nine year old till the sixth o’ September, could ha’ told him the surf sets south off Black Lake, with a northwest wind. If it hadn’t been for Billy, the Lord only knows where Dick Smiley’d be to-day.”

A tug hand had joined the group, and now he addressed himself to Roche.

“Cap’n Peters wants to know if you’re a-goin’ to try to make it, Mr. Roche.”

“Not by a dam’ sight.”

“Well – I guess he won’t be sorry to wait till mornin’. What time do you think you ‘ll want us?”

“Six o’clock sharp.”

“Them’s Cap’n Smiley’s orders, is they?”

“Them’s my orders, and they’re good enough for you.”

“Oh, that’s all right, of course, only Cap’n Peters, he said if ‘twas anybody else, he’d just tie up and wait, but there ain’t never any tellin’, he says, what Dick Smiley ‘ll take it into his head to do.”

“You tell your cap’n that Mr. Roche said to come at six in the mornin’.”

“All right. I ‘ll tell him. Say – Cap’n Smiley ain’t anywhere around, is he?”

“ No, Cap’n Smiley ain t anywheres around! ” mimicked Roche, angrily. “If you want to know whereabouts Cap’n Smiley is, he’s uptown skylarkin’, that’s where he is.”

The river hands laughed at this.

“I reckon he’s somethin’ of a hand for the ladies, Dick Smiley is, with them blue eyes o’ his’n,” said one. “I ain’t a-tellin’, you understand, but there’s boys in town here that could let you know a thing or two if they was minded.”

As a matter of fact, Dick was at that moment in an up-town jewellery shop, fingering a necklace of coral.

“I want a longer one,” he was saying, “with something pretty hanging on the end of it – there, that’s the boy – the one with big rough beads and the red rose carved on the end.”

“Must be somebody’s birthday, Captain,” observed the jeweller, with a wink.

And Dick, who could never resist a wink, replied: “That’s what. Day after to-morrow, too, and I haven’t any too much time to make it in.”

“Here’s a nice piece – if she likes the real red.”

Dick took it in his hands and nodded over it. “I think that would please her. She likes bright colors.” He drew a wallet from a hip pocket and disclosed a thick bundle of bills.

“I shouldn’t think you’d like to carry so much money on you, Captain, in your line of work.”

“It isn’t so much. They are most all ones.” But the jeweller, seeing a double X on the top, only smiled and remarked that it was a dark day.

“Yes, too dark. I don’t like it. Makes me think of the cyclone three years ago April, when the Kate Howard went down off Lakeville. I spent three hours roosting on the topmast that day. It was black then, like this. If it keeps up, you ‘ll have to turn on your lights in here.”

“Guess I will. It wouldn’t hurt now. Well, good-by, Captain. Drop in again next time you run in here.”

“All right. But there’s no telling when that will be. I have to go where Captain Stenzenberger sends me, you know.”

“You don’t own your schooner yet, then?”

“No; only a quarter of it. Well, good-by.” And he left the shop with the corals, securely wrapped, stowed in an inside pocket.

The first big drops of rain were falling when he reached the schooner. The deck was deserted, but he found Roche and his wharf acquaintances settled comfortably in the cabin. Their talk stopped abruptly at the sight of his boots coming down the companionway.

“Why isn’t the load lashed down, Pete?” he asked, addressing Roche.

“Why – oh, it was lookin’ so bad, I thought we’d better wait till you come.”

“Where’s the tug? Don’t Peters know we want him?”