“And are you goin’ to stay on her and she like that?”
“And she that way? And why not? He’s going to put four-inch joists in her fore and aft this time on the railway, and then she’ll be all right. She’ll leak a little maybe, but what’s a little leak? And anyway I’d rather be lost in her with Tom O’Donnell than live a thousand years with some. And so here’s to her, Peter-boy. One thing, you know you’re alive on her--and here’s to the _Colleen Bawn_.”
“To the _Colleen Bawn_, Tommie, and I don’t know but what you’re right.”
When Peter came out of the Anchorage again, the atmosphere had cleared. The blush of the sky was a marvellous thing for March. Peter could not remember when he had ever seen so rosy a morning for that time of year. And it was a fair wind, too--so fair that Peter could not but remark it. “If we was comin’ home in the _Colleen Bawn_, or the _Nannie O_, in this breeze, our wake’d be fair boilin’. The _Colleen Bawn_ with the Irishman aboard, or the _Nannie O_ with Tommie Ohlsen--they’d be loggin’ fifteen knots--yes, and sixteen maybe.” He looked over his shoulder, and for twenty fathoms back he could see the smooth, white log-line and the brass-bound log whirling like mad. It was a rosy morning, and Peter rolled along for Crow’s Nest.
Along the road he overhauled Dexter Warren, who seemed to be out taking the air.
“Seen Jimmie Johnson yet, Dexter?” asked Peter.
Dexter took a hand out of one pocket to gesture. “Jimmie? Yes, and he’s crazy. He came up the wharf like a ghost. ‘Hulloh, what kind of a trip’d you have, Jimmie?’ I asked, ‘and how do you like Captain O’Donnell?’
“‘Yah,’ he says, ‘your oil-skins is too loose.’ ‘What?’ I hollers after him--he goin’ up the dock like a streak. ‘Take to the weather-rail--it’s only a mile to shore,’ he waves his hand and hollers back to me. And then his wife popped around the corner. ‘Jimmie!’ says she. ‘Jennie!’ says he, and in a second it was all off. The pair of them flew up the dock like a pair of gulls before a no’the-easter and I picked up my pots and brushes and went up to the office and told the old man that I guessed I’d quit.”
“Did I? And why wouldn’t I? Jimmie’s job is waitin’ for him if he ain’t too crazy to take it, and if he is it don’t matter to me. There’s my glue-factory job the first of the month. ‘Your oil-skins is too loose,’ says he. He must be crazy, Peter--plumb crazy.”