Читать книгу Tales of an Old Sea Port онлайн

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Boyish sports before the introduction of baseball in the “early ’60s” were largely nautical. As a matter of course every boy learned to swim almost as soon as he learned to walk. Before his anxious mother had really begun to worry about him he was diving from a bowsprit or dropping from a yard arm. One man whom I know still regards a forced swim of about half a mile which he took from an overturned skiff, at the age of nine, as the most delightful episode of his career. (He forgot to tell his mother about it until a considerable time, i.e., the swimming season, had elapsed.) One of the amusements of that olden time was unique. When we were about ten years old we were wont, as soon as school was dismissed, to hasten down to the wharves, “swarm” up the rigging of some of the vessels lying there, and having reached the point where the shrouds stopped, to “shin up” the smooth topmast and place our caps upon the caps of the masts. The one who got his cap on a mast first was of course the best boy. Singularly enough, I never remember to have proclaimed to my parents the proud occasions when I was “it.” My great chum in those days was Benjamin F. Tilley, who died quite recently, an Admiral in the United States Navy and one of the best loved officers in the service. When he was in Providence a few years ago, in command of the gunboat Newport, we indulged largely in reminiscences of our boyhood, and among other things “shinned” up those masts again. Very strangely Tilley could not remember that he had ever proclaimed to his parents that he was “it.” Modest always were the Bristol boys in the days of my youth. Looking back upon these episodes with the added knowledge fifty years have brought, I feel sure that if I had told my father of my prowess, he would have said in his quiet way, “Perhaps you would better not say anything to your mother about it,” and would have gone away chuckling. He had been “it” himself. For we boys were simply exemplifying the traditions of our race. We were only doing what our forebears had done for generations.