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Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072)

Page 22

by Spencer, Ann


  17

  “at the scant mercy …”

  — “Rescue of Some Gilbert Islanders,” VJS, p. 387 [Originally published as an appendix to the 1890 edition of Voyage of the Liberdade]

  “When we behold …” — Slocum quoting Sinbad the Sailor

  — Ibid., p. 390

  “slop chest”

  — CJS, p. 164

  “at a loss to know …”

  — VJS, p. 391

  Chapter Four — Ebb and Flow

  1

  Letter from Slocum to Mrs. Walker (Virginia’s mother), TC

  2

  “When she died, father never …”

  — Garfield Slocum in letter to Teller, TC

  3

  “not a martinet …”

  — Boston Sun, August 3, 1894, TC

  “My brother met …”

  — Grace Murray Brown in letter to Teller, December 14, 1952, TC

  4

  “I now see …”

  — Special dispatch to the Boston Herald, New York, June 12, 1884, TC

  “Slater said he came voluntarily …”

  — Ibid.

  5

  “ignominiously towed by the nose …”

  — SAAW, p. 3

  “the nearest in perfection of beauty”

  — Ibid.

  6

  “constant alarms”

  — CJS, p. 180

  “Her heart was not strong …”

  — Jessie Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC

  “the stateroom doors …”

  — Garfield Slocum, memories in letters to Teller, TC

  “The deck house was …”

  — Ibid.

  7

  “as close to a yacht …”

  — Victor Slocum, noted in Teller correspondence, TC

  “She left her needle …”

  — Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC

  8

  “she often fainted …”

  — Ben Aymar Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC

  [Walter Teller advanced a theory regarding Virginia’s death in The Search for Captain Slocum (1956), but not in the revised 1971 edition: “In such sanitation as a sailing ship could spare for a woman in childbirth, would not be unlikely to lead to infection, and to a rheumatic heart.”]

  “Thy will be done …”

  — noted in Teller correspondence, TC

  [According to Ben Aymar Slocum, his father brought down the family bible (Virginia’s), as he had for other shipboard deaths. Ben Aymar wrote Teller that he’d seen “more than once when weighted bodies went sliding along a plank or board over the main deck bulwark.”]

  “Mother’s eyes were a brilliant …”

  — Ben Aymar Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC

  “on many occasions …”

  — Ibid.

  “learned to understand …”

  — Ibid.

  “ill fortunes gathered rapidly …”

  — Ibid.

  9

  Snapping of piano wires …

  — Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC

  “a ship with a broken rudder”

  — Ibid., TC

  10

  “Hettie was no doubt bedazzled …”

  — Grace Murray Brown, TC

  “for out on the Atlantic …”

  — VJS, Voyage of the “Liberdade,” Ch. 1, p. 42

  11

  “Crew were picked up …”

  — Ibid., p. 55

  12

  “A change of rats …”

  — Ibid., p. 58

  “looming up like …”

  — Ibid., p. 58

  “fearfully out of tune”

  — Ibid., p. 59

  “suffering, I should say …”

  — Ibid., p. 59

  13

  “Arming myself, therefore …”

  — Ibid.

  “gang of cut-throats”

  — Ibid.

  “I could not speak …”

  — Ibid.

  “A man will defend …”

  — Ibid.

  14

  “his chills turned to …”

  — Ibid., p. 66

  “wet, and lame and weary …”

  — Ibid., p. 68

  15

  “I listened to the solemn splash …”

  — Ibid., p. 69

  “drifting pest house”

  — Ibid., p. 70

  “what it cost me …”

  — Ibid., p. 71

  “We came to a stand …”

  — Ibid., p. 72

  16

  “Currents and wind caught her foul …”

  — Ibid., p. 74

  “Father lost all of his money …”

  — Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC

  “This was no time …”

  — VSJ, Voyage of the Liberdade, p. 74

  17

  “she should sail well …”

  — Ibid., p. 76

  “a megre kit”

  — PANS Pg. 70

  “But all that …”

  — Ibid., p. 77

  “Madam had made the sails …”

  — Ibid., p. 80

  18

  “The old boating trick …”

  — PANS

  “Father had a lot of nerve …”

  — Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC

  “the thin cedar planks …”

  — VJS, Voyage of the Liberdade, p. 93

  “the most exciting …”

  — PANS

  19

  “Oh, I hope not …”

  — Ibid., TC

  “left those of the south …”

  — Ibid., p. 104

  “A phantom of the stately Aquidneck …”

  — Ibid., p. 104

  Chapter Five — What Was There for an Old Sailor to Do?

  1

  “Mine was not the sort of life …”

  — SAAW, pp. 3, 4

  2

  “With all its vicissitudes …”

  — VJS, Voyage of the Liberdade, p. 122

  “She was canoe-shaped …”

  — Joseph Chase Allen, Directory Edition, Vineyard Gazette, undated clipping 195?, TC

  3

  “full brow, bright hazel eyes …”

  — New York World, May 19, 1889, TC

  “wee cabin on a plank …”

  — Ibid.

  4

  “comfortable apartment ashore”

  — From “An American Family Afloat,” New York Tribune.

  “‘Just there’ …”

  — New York World, May 19, 1889, TC

  “Xmas day was spent …”

  — Hettie Slocum’s letter of January 28, 1889, to Mrs. Alfred McNutt, Masstown, Colchester County, Nova Scotia — PANS

  5

  “We had a big storm …”

  — Ibid.

  “brave enough to face …”

  — VJS, Voyage of the Liberdade, p. 122

  “Hettie found she was not wholly …”

  — Grace Murray Brown, letters to Teller (1952–56), TC

  “Father did not come to the house”

  — Garfield Slocum, correspondence with Teller, TC

  “His love for Hettie …”

  — Grace Murray Brown, letters to Teller (1952–56), TC

  6

  “More than any other event …”

  — Joseph Conrad, Mirror of the Sea, p. 61

  7

  “spent much of his time …”

  — Ben Aymar Slocum, correspondence with Teller, TC

  “a hand alas! …”

  — Title page, Voyage of the Liberdade, 1890, Robinson & Stephenson

  “It is a very interesting narrative …”

  — Yarmouth Herald, July 2, 1895, gleaned from research sent by Leon Fredrich to Walter Teller, TC Pg. 80

  “a record of s
kilful seamanship …”

  — Ibid.

  “The book is written …”

  — Ibid.

  “I would have to get used to steamships …”

  — Garfield Slocum, correspondence to Teller, TC

  “It didn’t seem to suffice …”

  — Slocum, in undated newspaper interview (around 1908), probably Providence Journal, TC

  8

  “the first ship …”

  — PANS

  “Frankly it was with a thrill …”

  — VJS, Voyage of the Destroyer from New York to Brazil, Introduction, p. 171

  9

  “Confidentially: I was burning to get a rake …”

  — Ibid., p. 189

  “Being a man of a peaceful turn …”

  — Ibid., p. 173

  “navigator in command”

  — Ibid., p. 173

  “This Department …”

  — Department of State letter, Washington, D.C., December 9, 1893, TC

  10

  “Alas! for all the hardships …”

  — VJS, Voyage of the Destroyer, p. 194

  “ridiculed and defamed him …”

  — Boston Sun, August 3, 1894, TC

  “anywhere at any time …”

  — Ibid.

  11

  “duellists should …”

  — Ibid.

  “My wife would …”

  — Ibid.

  “she sat on the water …”

  SAAW, p. 6

  “a smart New Hampshire spruce”

  — PANS

  “What was there …”

  — Ibid., p. 4

  12

  “I’m glad you’re quite frank …”

  — Letter from Teller to William Sloane at Rutgers University Press, TC

  “Joshua, I’ve had a v’yage”

  — Slocum’s comments to reporters, Boston Globe, April 16, 1895; also appeared in “The Voyage of the Aquidneck and its Varied Adventures in South American Waters,” Outing, April 1903, TC

  “The object of the trip?”

  — Boston Globe, undated clipping, TC

  13

  “My Syndicade is filling up, …”

  — Letter to Eugene Hardy, Roberts Brothers, TC

  “I can not contract with you …”

  — Letter to Slocum from Alf Ford, managing editor of the Louisville Courier Journal, January 3, 1894, TC

  [Ralph Shoemaker, librarian of the Courier Journal, wrote to Walter Teller that he could find no articles written by Slocum. Teller records in his notes about correspondence with Shoemaker, “Looks as though in Louisville they never bought a line. In fact, the only paper I know that did, is the Boston Globe, and as we shall see they didn’t buy much. I expect part of the trouble may have been that Slocum was too busy and hard-working to write.”

  TC [Travel letters from Slocum’s The Spray appeared as Monday columns in the Boston Globe as follows: October 14, 1895, p. 6; October 21, 1895, p. 5; November 11, 1895, p.4]

  “Mr. Wagnalls of the house …”

  — Undated letter from JS to Eugene Hardy, TC

  14

  “a shop-worn …”

  — Ibid.

  “A thousand thanks”

  — Letter from JS to Eugene Hardy, January 9, 1895, TC

  “Rarely if ever …”

  — H. Rider Haggard’s foreword to A Strange Career, a biography of John Gladwin Jebb by his widow, William Blackwood and Sons, 1895

  “The library of the Spray …”

  — Boston Herald, April 16, 1895, TC

  15

  “I don’t go out …”

  — Ibid.

  “Capt. Josh is a kinky salt …”

  — Undated clipping, (before voyage, probably April 1895), Boston Herald, TC

  “very easily managed …”

  — Ibid.

  “the suicide squad”

  — John Hanna, The Rudder, May 1940, p. 51, TC

  “A big lurching sea …”

  — Ibid.

  16

  “they flop right over …”

  — Ibid.

  “the Spray was a …”

  — Howard Chapelle, Maine Coast Fisherman, June 1965

  17

  “I laid in two barrels …”

  — Clifton Johnson, “The Cook Who Sailed Alone,” Good Housekeeping, February 1903

  18

  “To Sail Around World …”

  — Boston Daily Globe, April 16, 1895, p. 4, TC

  “builder, owner, skipper, …”

  — Ibid.

  “There now lies a little sloop …”

  — Ibid.

  “Her present rig …”

  — Ibid.

  19

  “From New York I shall …”

  — Ibid.

  “sleep in the day time …”

  — Ibid.

  20

  “an adventure …”

  — Ibid.

  “Capt. Slocum …”

  — Ibid.

  “The enterprise the old knight …”

  — Joshua Slocum, Walter Teller, p. 77

  “Do you think …”

  — Letter to Teller from Walter Sloane, TC

  21

  “Waves dancing joyously …”

  — SAAW, Capt. Joshua Slocum, Ch. 2, p. 8

  Chapter Six — All Watches

  1

  “I used to soak …”

  — In Clifton Johnson, “The Cook Who Sailed Alone,” Good Housekeeping, February 1903.

  2

  “Sleeping or waking …”

  — SAAW, p. 31

  “thrilling pulse”

  — Ibid., p. 8

  “weigh the voyage …”

  — Ibid.

  3

  “fisherman’s own”

  — Ibid.

  “I perceived, moreover, …”

  — Ibid.

  “the worst tide-race …”

  — Ibid., p. 11

  “He dodged a sea …”

  — Ibid.

  4

  “fierce sou’west rip”

  — Ibid., pp. 11, 12

  “I think Pernambuco …”

  — Letter from JS in Westport to Eugene Hardy, May 21, 1895, TC

  “In our newfangled notions …”

  — SAAW, p. 9

  5

  “The price of it was …”

  — Ibid., p. 12

  “an attack of malaria at Gloucester …”

  — Letter from JS in Yarmouth to Roberts Brothers, June 20, 1895, TC

  “After all deliberations …”

  — Ibid.

  “let go my last hold on America”

  — PANS Pg. 100

  “[I have] been trying to scribble …”

  — Letter from JS in Horta Faial to Eugene Hardy, July 23, 1895

  “I send one more letter …”

  — Letter from JS in Pernambuco to Eugene Hardy, October 8, 1895.

  [Slocum also sent a personal letter to Hardy from Pernambuco, in which he let off a little steam. The note has prophetic overtones: “The Sun printed trash of mine freely enough on more than one occasion when it came for nothing and I suspect that a case of murder or rape would find space for all the particulars in all of the papers, But I cant [sic] go to war with them. I lived awful hard coming down: But dont say anything about it.”]

  6

  “A navigator husbands the wind”

  — SAAW, p. 140

  7

  “The Spray had barely …”

  — Ibid., p. 87

  8

  “To know the laws that govern …”

  — Ibid., p. 76

  “I saw antitrade clouds …”

  — Ibid., p. 109

  “I wished for no winter gales …”

  — Ibid., p. 104

  9

  “It never took long …”

  — Ibid., Appendi
x, p. 154

  “During those twenty-three days …”

  — Ibid., p. 110

  10

  “I found no fault …”

  — Ibid., p. 23

  “a contrivance of my own …”

  — In Clifton Johnson, “The Cook Who Sailed Alone,” Good Housekeeping, February 1903

  “My way is to cook my victuals …”

  — Ibid.

  “Ground coffee …”

  — Ibid.

  11

  “I had much difficulty …”

  — SAAW, p. 23

  “The only fresh fish …”

  — Ibid., p. 30

  12

  “hermetically sealed the pores”

  — In Johnson, Good Housekeeping

  “butter that will keep …”

  — Ibid.

  “I was determined to rely …”

 

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