Adventure Magazine Cover — page 173: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Fenceless Meadows The mates, passing Nance, touching their hats, crying— ‘“‘A fine breeze you’ve brought us, Miss Dowser.”’ The helmsman, 2 tow-headed man with broken teeth and a tobacco-stained mus- tache, stared at her, letting the ship, luffing to the wind, swamp her fore-deck with green water. “Watch your course there,” shouted the mate. The helmsman, muttering, ‘‘aye, aye, sir,” scowled at the girl, as the mate went forward. The sun dipped under the sea-rim, leaving a sky aflame, shining with ribbons of scarlet and draperies of gold; a darkening sea, green along the ridges, shadowy black in the hollows; stars twinkling, hiding their lights beyond frayed curtains of cloud. Old Moses, on the quarter-deck, button- ing his coat across his chest, shutting the wind out, watched the shore-line fade. In the fo’csle they talked of Nance; jesting, speaking of the women they had known ashore. ‘“She’s the owner’s daughter,” said one. sal ae with her—a ship ain’t no place for a woman,” said another. A little narrow-faced man named Billings, a fellow with a penetrating voice, shouted— “T wisht I was the mate.”’ A large man, sitting half-naked, sewing buttons on his jumper, threw a sea-boot athim. It struck him full, and falling back- ward against the bunk, he swore at the sewer. “You thinks you are smart,” he yelled; the sailors about him rocking to and fro with laughter; men from the watch on deck peering through the open ports, asking — ““What’s the joke?” A voice called along the decks, and the watch ran to haul on the braces, checking the yards in; brace blocks rattling, and spars groaning high in the darkness, the sailors’ voices mingling with the drum of the wet wind through the spray-dripping rigging — ‘““Y0-0-0-0-0-0- oh-oh-oh-oh- ho-ho-ho-ho- haul-away-oh.”’ Nance watched the yards _ swinging against the stars; the ship taking the wind on her quarter, running as a hound runs toward the hunting-meadows. At mid- night she went below, to dream of old Nelson talking under the cottonwoods. 9 165 Day broke over a blue sea; the hands scrubbing the decks down by first dawn, scouring away the harbor grime, talking amongst themselves of the ship. ‘Too much brass work, all soo-jee moo- jee,” said one. “These Yank clippers ain’t no good for a man to go to sea in,” said another. “No, you looks like you was raised in a starving limejuicer,”’ muttered a third scowl- _ ing in remembrance. ‘‘A man what follows the sea is a —— fool, any way you takes it,” said an old man, a@ murmur of assent arising as he spoke. “Get those rails swabbed off—look alive there!’ said the mate, coming among them. Bending to their work they were silent, rising to scowl after he had passed. Toward afternoon it blew up, and they took the topgallants off, snugging her down. At sunset, the wind falling, they set them again, singing as they sent them to the mast-heads, ‘As I was walkin’ down the street, oh! roll the cotton down, A dainty lass I chanced to meet, oh! roll the cotton down. I hoisted up my numbers high, oh! roll the cotton down, Says I ‘I likes your rovin’ eye,’ oh! roll the cotton down.”’ Day fading, night swept over the sea- roads; a boundless glory of starshine. The weeks passed by, the Fancy Nan holding to her course day by day, with a trade on her heel. Moses, below in the cabin, unbuttoned his coat as she sailed through the tropics; gazing through the cabin ports, watching the white horses racing the clipper; thinking of the farm and of Nelson and of the cotton- woods beside the gate; wishing he were there, home again from the windy meadows. The bark made a fast run out, and Nance wrote to her father: DEAR PA: Captain Tattersall says I brought him luck. We kept a leading wind all the way to port from the Golden Gate. We’ll be home soon. Coming home we will drive her, pa. Moses is well, and so am I. When we get back the leaves will be breaking on the cottonwoods. You must have the ship’s numbers flying, or I shall get lonesome for her again. Perhaps we shall over- haul the May Flint on the way home, and leave Mr. Lowrie shaking his fists at us. Won’t that be fun, pa? C@ Clooolkks (©