There was much to be done about the main deck, so I busied myself the entire afternoon getting the running gear cleared up and coiled down shipshape.  The skipper stood near the break of the poop much of the time, but gave no orders, and I noticed that Jim the sailor, or landsman, kept away from his vicinity.  Sometimes it seemed as though the captain would follow his movements about the deck forward with his keen eyes.

It was Trunnell’s dog-watch that evening, and by the time the bells struck the vessel was running along to the westward under royals, with the southerly breeze freshening on her beam.  She was a handsome ship.  Her long, tapering spars rose towering into the semi-gloom overhead, and the great fabric of stretched canvas seemed like a huge cloud resting upon a dark, floating object on the surface of the sea, which was carried along rapidly with it, brushing the foam to either side with a roaring, rattling, seething, musical noise.  At least, this is the picture she presented from the forecastle head looking aft.  Her great main yard swung far over the water to leeward, and the huge bellying courses, setting tight as a drumhead with the pressure, sent the roaring of the bow-wave back in a deep booming echo, until the air was full of vibration from the taut fabric.  All around, the horizon was melted into haze, but the stars were glinting overhead in promise of a clear night.

I left the forecastle head and came down on the main deck.  Here the six-foot bulwarks shut off the view to windward, but little of the cool evening breeze.  The men on watch were grouped about the waist, sitting on the combings of the after-hatch, or walking fore and aft in the gangways to keep the blood stirring.  All had pea coats or mufflers over their jumpers, for the air was frosty.  The “doctor” had washed up his pots and coppers for the evening, and had made his way toward the carpenter’s room in the forward house, where a light shone through the crack of the door.

On nearly all American ships the carpenter is rated as an officer, but does not have to stand watch, turning out only during the day-time or when all hands are called in cases of emergency.  The cook, or “doctor,” as he is called, also turns in for the night, as do the steward and cabin boys; the steward, however, generally has a stateroom aft near those of the mates, while the “doctor” bunks next his galley.  The carpenter having permission to burn a light, usually turns his shop or bunk-room into a meeting place for those officers who rate the distinction of being above the ordinary sailor.  Here one can always hear the news aboard ships where the discipline is not too rigid; for the mates, bos’n, “doctor,” steward, and sometimes even the quartermasters, enjoy his hospitality.

Trunnell was on the poop, and the captain was below.  I had a chance to get a little better insight into the natures of my shipmates if I could join in their conversation, or even listen to it for a while.  My position as second mate was not too exalted to prohibit terms of intimacy with the carpenter, or, for that matter, even the bos’n.