Fair Harbor

“ And you are gettin' wages for skipperin' the Fair Harbor. I've heard it said—not by him, oh, creepin', no!—but by others, that he ought to have that skipper's job, if anybody had. Lots of folks seem to cal'late he'd ought to own the Harbor. But instead of that he don't own nothin', they say, and scratches along in two rooms, down to Joe Macomber's, and, underneath all his sufferin', he's just as sweet and uncomplainin' and long-endurin' and—and high-toned and sociable and—and——"
"Yes, yes. I see. Do they say anything more? What about my bein' Elizabeth Berry's trustee?" ”

“ His stay in Bayport was practically ended. Give him a little time and luck enough to find a competent manager for the Fair Harbor, one with whom he believed Judge Knowles would have been satisfied, and he was through for good. He must play fair with the judge and then—then for the shipping offices of Boston or New York 365 and a berth at sea. His health was almost normal; his battered limbs were nearly as sound as ever. He could handle a ship and he could handle men. His fights and sacrifices for others were finished, over and done with. Now he would fight for himself. ”

“ From the Fair Harbor?"
"Yes, and from Bayport. She has a little money left. Thanks to Judge Knowles, I have some of my own. She and I can live on the interest for a time, or until I can find a way to earn more."
"But—but—George?"
"I think George is going away, too. He spoke of Boston. But there is another thing I meant to say to you. I hate to leave you with the entire care of the Fair Harbor on your hands. I shall try and help you to find another matron before we go."
Sears rose from his chair. "That's all right," he said, "that part of it. ”

“ It was a complicated process, but it resulted in the Fair Harbor's getting its own firewood cut, hauled and split for next to nothing, its repair costs cut in half, its coal bills lessened, while Black and Paine seemed to be perfectly satisfied. Altogether it was a good deal of a managerial triumph, as even the manager himself was obliged to admit.
Elizabeth was loud in her praises.
"I don't see how you ever did it, Cap'n Kendrick," she declared. "And Benijah and Mr. Paine are just as contented as we are. It is a miracle."
Sears grinned. "I don't know quite how I did it, myself," he said. ”

“ I want you because I'm going to die and somebody—some man—must take my place.... Look here, Kendrick. I appoint you general manager of the Fair Harbor, take it or leave it. But if you leave it don't do it for a week, and, before you do, promise me you'll go over there some day and look around. Meet Cordelia and talk to her, meet Elizabeth and talk to her. Meet some of the—er—hens and talk to them. But, this is the main thing, look around, listen, see for yourself. Then you can come back and, if you accept, we'll discuss details. Will you do that much?"
Captain Sears looked troubled. ”

“ He spoke of it as casually as he might of Boston or New York. Again his listener could not help but protest.
"Why, Judge," he began, "that's perfectly ridiculous. You——"
The judge interrupted. "Perhaps," he said, drily. "In fact, I agree with you. The graveyard is a ridiculous place for anybody to be, but I shall be there—and soon. But I am not going to let it interfere with my plans concerning the Fair Harbor. Lobelia Seymour I've known since she was a little girl, and whether I'm dead or alive, I'm going to have her wishes carried out. That's why I'm telling you these things, Sears Kendrick. ”

“ Miss Elizabeth here—and her mother, of course—will be captain and mate, same as they've always been, but I'll be—well, commodore or admiral, whichever you like to call it. It's a queer sort of a job for a man like me," he added, with a grim smile, "but it looks as if it was what we'd all have to get used to."
For a moment there was silence, absolute silence, in the best parlor of the Fair Harbor for Mariners' Women. Then that silence was broken.
"What is he sayin'?" wailed Mrs. Aurora Chase. "Elviry Snowden, why don't you tell me what he's a-sayin'?" ”

“ But with the females—ah, there it was different.
"He was one of them kind, they tell me," said Judah. "One of them smooth, slick, buttery kind of fellers that draws womenfolks same as molasses draws flies. Hailed from Philadelphy he did. I used to know a good many Philadelphy folks myself once. Why, one time——"
The captain broke in to head off the Philadelphia reminiscence. Brought back to Bayport and Egbert and Lobelia, Judah went on to tell what more he knew of the Fair Harbor beginnings. ”

“ The afternoon I spent in Fairharbor. From a real estate agent I obtained keys to those cottages on the water-front that were for rent, and I busied myself exploring them. The one I most liked I pretended I had rented, and I imagined myself at work among the flower-beds, or with my telescope scanning the shipping in the harbor, or at night seated in front of the open fire watching the green and blue flames of the driftwood. Later, irresolutely, I wandered across town to Harbor Castle, this time walking entirely around it and coming upon a sign that read, “Visitors Welcome. ”

“ Here, at least, are plenty of memorials of the Pilgrims, and here town and harbor are outspread for perusal. Seen at full tide, the harbor appears a goodly port enough, but it is left as bare by the ebb as if the sea had been commanded to remove and become dry land. Nothing except a broad expanse of sand-bars and mussel shoals, with luxuriant growth of eel-grass, meets the eye. Through these a narrow and devious channel makes its way. The bay, however, could not be called tame with two such landmarks as Captain's Hill on Duxbury side, and the promontory of Manomet on the shoulder of the Cape. ”

“ Bar Harbor lies beneath a mighty mountain, a great, bare, black mountain that sleeps above the town; but as you leave, it rises suddenly, threateningly, until far away on Frenchman's Bay it looms above the town in withering vastness, as if to call all that little world petty save itself. Beneath the cool, wide stare of that great mountain, men cannot live as giddily as in some lesser summer's playground. Before the unveiled face of nature, as it lies naked on the Maine coast, rises a certain human awe. ”

“ In a moment, there is heard in the silent bay a sound of a rush and ripple, different from the lap of the many-tongued waves on the shore; and, silently as a cloud, with white wings spread, a little vessel glides into the harbor.
A little craft is she—not larger than the fishing-smacks that ply their course along our coasts in summer; but her decks are crowded with men, women, and children, looking out with joyous curiosity on the beautiful bay, where, after many dangers and storms, they first have found safe shelter and hopeful harbor. ”

“ A group of men on the wharf had been for some time looking at a ship nearing the harbor. They could not make her out, they said. She was a stranger in those waters, and yet bore the American flag. She seemed a man-of-war, and was evidently signalling for a pilot.
Fairport harbor, smooth and safe as it was, cradled among the overhanging cliffs, had a guard at its entrance which no stranger might defy. Its deep narrow channel went winding among hidden rocks, and woe betide the keel that ventured a dozen yards from its appointed path. ”

“ The mountains surrounding the bay of San Francisco were wild and terrible, with naked brown slopes void of trees or grass. To the northwest they came down to the very edge of the water, tumbling precipitately, seamed with gulleys, forming the wall of the Golden Gate. Southward was smoke and haze; forward the peninsula loomed through murk. The whole aspect of the harbor was barren, chill, desolate. One felt that one was thousands of miles from civilization—in a land unique, grim, isolate, sufficient unto itself, shut off by sea and mountain from the great world. ”

“ It was a commonplace peril of the coast; it was a reasonable endeavor. It was thrilling, to be sure—the conjunction of a living peril with the emergency of the message. Yet the dusk and sweeping drizzle of rain, the vanishing lights of Scalawag Harbor, the interruption of the lane of water, the mounting seas, their declivities flecked with a path of treacherous ice, all were familiar realities to Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl. Moreover, a telegram was not a letter. It was an urgent message. It imposed upon a man's conscience the obligation to speed it. ”

“ The whaling fleet it formerly guided is all gone, but now it is the beacon for an enormous trade in coal, landed here for distribution by railway throughout New England. Another little stone fort is also built on the opposite side of the harbor, on a rock at the lower end of Fairhaven. Outside is the broad surface of the bay, a noble inland sea, with irregular and generally thinly populated shores, but with attractions that have drawn to it, in various localities, a large summer population, with many ornate villas of modern fashion. ”

“ It is a town of summer hotels and boarding-houses, built upon what was a treeless plain, the outskirts being a galaxy of cottages, many of great pretensions. Here will congregate ten to twenty thousand visitors in the season, and Bar Harbor has become one of the most fashionable resorts 272 on the Atlantic coast. Its bane, however, is the fog, a frequent sojourner in the summer, though even fogs, in their way, have charms. ”

“ There is also a channel running north from the main one to the mouth of the Humptulips River, an important stream, and to two other streams flowing into North Bay, besides some cross-channels; and there is an anchorage of fully six thousand acres in the harbor where twenty-five feet at low tide is to be found. Nothing has ever been done to improve Gray’s Harbor. Its commerce has been created by private enterprise alone ”

“ It is a strange city, lost in the midst of busy up-to-date 163 Canada, with French roofs, narrow tilting streets, and ever the smell of fish. There is a good harbor, and there are wharfs where blackfaced men with blue stockings, caps, and gold earrings chatter the patois and smoke their pipes. In the busy time of year there are ten thousand men in the town and it is a scene of constant revelry and wildness. ”

“ One was of the towering sails that my father had told me he had seen on his first day on the harbor, when coming here a crude boy from the inland he had thrilled to the vision of owning such ships with crews to whom his word should be law, and of sending them over the ocean world. Such was the age he had lived in. The other was of the stokers down in the bottom of the ship, and Joe's tired frowning face as he said, "Yes, they look like a lot of bums—and they feed all the fires at sea." What was there in common between these two? To each age a harbor of its own. ”

“ At the landing place at Portland Point, one or two fishing boats are lying on the beach, and out a little from the shore a small square sterned schooner lies at her anchor. The natural lines of the harbor are clearly seen. In many places the forest has crept down nearly to the water’s edge. Wharves and shipping there are none. Ledges of rock, long since removed, crop up here and there along the harbor front. The silence falls as the day’s work is ended at the little settlement, and the sound of the waters rushing through the falls seems, in the absence of other sounds, unnaturally predominant. ”

“ While you stand above the harbor, While you call the fog and west-wind, While you wear your cloak of poppies, Never shall a foeman enter Through the Golden Gate with war-boats. Pluck the petal, let it flutter To the ground. Your wish is granted. Stand forever, native daughters, As Twin Peaks, to guard the harbor.' That was long ago, my children, When the earth was young, and people Heard the voices of the Spirits— Knew the language of the sea-birds. To this day the ancient warriors Flounder on the Sea Rock Islands, Barking, roaring, crowding, fighting, Near the gateway of the harbor. ”

“ The deeply indented harbor opens towards the southwest, being protected from the ocean by the 88 long peninsula of Eastern Point, having a fort and lighthouse on its extremity. Some seventy wharves jut out from the circular head of the bay, with granite hills rising behind, up which the town is terraced. Shipping of all kinds are scattered about, including large salt-laden ships, while fishermen and sailors wander through the streets and assemble around the docks, spinning yarns and preparing for fishing ventures out to the "Banks." ”

“ Behind us, at the tip of Manhattan, the tall buildings had all melted together into one tremendous mass, with only a pin point of light here and there, a place of shadowy turrets and walls, like some mediæval fortress. Out of it, in contrast to its dimness, rose a garish tower of lights that seemed to be keeping a vigilant watch over all the dark waters, the ships and the docks. The harbor of big companies. ”

“ When the conformation of the coast-line is of the nature of an indentation in the land, as in the case of a bay, gulf, or river-mouth, then a portion of it may be utilized, to take the place of one or more of the structures necessary to form an open-coast harbor. For example, the harbor of New York is so inclosed by land that no artificial structures in the shape of piers or breakwaters are needed to secure a tranquil harbor basin. Where the bay or inlet is less perfectly landlocked, piers, breakwaters, or jetties are constructed to supply the necessary protection at the exposed points. ”