The “Kid” happened to be next me when “stopping” his clothes on the line, and remarked, as he tied the last knot on his last jumper, “I like to be clean as the next chap, but this scrubbing clothes on your knees is no snap.”

He stopped to feel them.

“Why, I can feel the corns growing on them already.  How often do we have to do this scrubbing job, anyhow?” he asked.

“You can do it every morning, if you really feel inclined,” I replied, smiling at his rueful countenance; “clothes can only be washed during the morning watch (four to eight), I understand, and, as the starboard men are on duty one day during that time and the port watch the next, each is supposed to ‘scrub and wash clothes’ in his own watch.  See?”

The “Kid” looked up at the dripping line of rather dingy clothes, then down at his red and soapy knees, and said, as he turned to go aft, “Well, when we get back to New York, I am going to have a suit of whites made of celluloid that can be washed with a sponge.”

At 6:30 the order “knock off scrubbing clothes” was given, and then all hands of the watch “turned to” and scrubbed decks, scoured the gratings and companion-way ladders with sand and canvas, brass work was polished, paint work wiped down, and everything on board made as spick and span as a new dollar.

A vast quantity of water is brought from over the side through the ship’s pump, and the men work in their bare feet.  In fact, the usual costume during this period of the day consists of a pair of duck trousers and a thin shirt.  On special occasions even the shirt is dispensed with.  During warm weather it is delightful to splash around a water-soaked deck, but there are mornings when a biting wind comes from the north, and the keenness of winter is in the air, and then Jackie, compelled to labor up to his knees in water, casts longing glances toward the glow of the galley fire, and makes his semi-yearly vow that he will leave the “blooming” service for good and go on a farm.

This scrubbing of decks and scouring of ladders put an extra edge on our appetites, so we agreed with “Stump” when he said, “I feel as if I could put a whole bumboat load of stuff out of commission all by my lonely.”  “Stump’s” appetite was out of proportion to his size.

When the boatswain’s mate gave his peculiar long, quavering pipe and the order “spread mess gear for the watch below,” at 7:20, we of the watch on deck realized that there was still forty minutes to wait.  Every man’s hunger seemed to increase tenfold, so that even the odor of boiling “salt-horse” from the galley did not trouble us.

Finally the order came, “on deck all the starboard watch”; followed by the boatswain’s mess call for the watch on deck.  The scramble to get below and to work with knife, fork, and spoon resembled a fire panic at a theatre.  It is first come first served aboard ship, and the man who lingers often gets left.