Friend Island

by Francis Stevens

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  All-Story Weekly

  September 7, 1918

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  FRIEND ISLAND

  by Francis Stevens

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  It was upon the waterfront that I first met her, in one of the shabbylittle tea shops frequented by able sailoresses of the poorer type.The uptown, glittering resorts of the Lady Aviators' Union were notfor such as she.

  Stern of feature, bronzed by wind and sun, her age could only beguessed, but I surmised at once that in her I beheld a survivor of theage of turbines and oil engines--a true sea-woman of that elder timewhen woman's superiority to man had not been so long recognized. When,to emphasize their victory, women in all ranks were sterner thantoday's need demands.

  The spruce, smiling young maidens--engine-women and stokers of thegreat aluminum rollers, but despite their profession, very neat ingold-braided blue knickers and boleros--these looked askance at thehard-faced relic of a harsher day, as they passed in and out of theshop.

  I, however, brazenly ignoring similar glances at myself, a mere maleintruding on the haunts of the world's ruling sex, drew a chair upbeside the veteran. I ordered a full pot of tea, two cups and a plateof macaroons, and put on my most ingratiating air. Possibly myunconcealed admiration and interest were wiles not exercised in vain.Or the macaroons and tea, both excellent, may have loosened the oldsea-woman's tongue. At any rate, under cautious questioning, she hadsoon launched upon a series of reminiscences well beyond my hopes forcolor and variety.

  "When I was a lass," quoth the sea-woman, after a time, "there wasnone of this high-flying, gilt-edged, leather-stocking luxury aboutthe sea. We sailed by the power of our oil and gasoline. If theyfailed on us, like as not 'twas the rubber ring and the rolling wavefor ours."

  She referred to the archaic practice of placing a pneumatic affaircalled a life-preserver beneath the arms, in case of that dreadeddisaster, now so unheard of, shipwreck.

  "In them days there was still many a man bold enough to join ourcrews. And I've knowed cases," she added condescendingly, "where justby the muscle and brawn of such men some poor sailor lass has reachedshore alive that would have fed the sharks without 'em. Oh, I ain't sodown on men as you might think. It's the spoiling of them that I don'thold with. There's too much preached nowadays that man is fit fornothing but to fetch and carry and do nurse-work in big child-homes.To my mind, a man who hasn't the nerve of a woman ain't fitted tofather children, let alone raise 'em. But that's not here nor there.My time's past, and I know it, or I wouldn't be setting here gossipin'to you, my lad, over an empty teapot."

  I took the hint, and with our cups replenished, she bit thoughtfullyinto her fourteenth macaroon and continued.

  "There's one voyage I'm not likely to forget, though I live to be asold as Cap'n Mary Barnacle, of the _Shouter_. 'Twas aboard the old_Shouter_ that this here voyage occurred, and it was her last andlikewise Cap'n Mary's. Cap'n Mary, she was then that decrepit, itseemed a mercy that she should go to her rest, and in good salt waterat that.

  "I remember the voyage for Cap'n Mary's sake, but most I remember itbecause 'twas then that I come the nighest in my life to committin'matrimony. For a man, the man had nerve; he was nearer bein'companionable than any other man I ever seed; and if it hadn't beenfor just one little event that showed up the--the _mannishness_ ofhim, in a way I couldn't abide, I reckon he'd be keepin' house for methis minute."

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  "We cleared from Frisco with a cargo of silkateen petticoats forBrisbane. Cap'n Mary was always strong on petticoats. Leather breechesor even half-skirts would ha' paid far better, they being more indemand like, but Cap'n Mary was three-quarters owner, and says she,land women should buy petticoats, and if they didn't it wouldn't bethe Lord's fault nor hers for not providing 'em.

  "We cleared on a fine day, which is an all sign--or was, then when theweather and the seas o' God still counted in the trafficking of thehumankind. Not two days out we met a whirling, mucking bouncer of agale that well nigh threw the old _Shouter_ a full point off hercourse in the first wallop. She was a stout craft, though. None ofyour featherweight, gas-lightened, paper-thin alloy shells, buttoughened aluminum from stern to stern. Her turbine drove her throughthe combers at a forty-five knot clip, which named her a speedy craftfor a freighter in them days.

  "But this night, as we tore along through the creaming green billows,something unknown went 'way wrong down below.

  "I was forward under the shelter of her long over-sloop, looking for ahairpin I'd dropped somewheres about that afternoon. It was a goldhairpin, and gold still being mighty scarce when I was a girl, acourse I valued it. But suddenly I felt the old _Shouter_ give a jumpunder my feet like a plane struck by a shell in full flight. Then shetrembled all over for a full second, frightened like. Then, with thecrash of doomsday ringing in my ears, I felt myself sailing throughthe air right into the teeth o' the shrieking gale, as near as I couldjudge. Down I come in the hollow of a monstrous big wave, and as myears doused under I thought I heard a splash close by. Coming up, sureenough, there close by me was floating a new, patent, hermetic,thermo-ice-chest. Being as it was empty, and being as it was shut upair-tight, that ice-chest made as sweet a life-preserver as a womancould wish in such an hour. About ten foot by twelve, it floated highin the raging sea. Out on its top I scrambled, and hanging on by ahandle I looked expectant for some of my poor fellow-women to comefloating by. Which they never did, for the good reason that the_Shouter_ had blowed up and went below, petticoats, Cap'n Mary andall."

  "What caused the explosion?" I inquired.

  "The Lord and Cap'n Mary Barnacle can explain," she answered piously."Besides the oil for her turbines, she carried a power of gasoline forher alternative engines, and likely 'twas the cause of her ending sosudden like. Anyways, all I ever seen of her again was the emptyice-chest that Providence had well-nigh hove upon my head. On that Isat and floated, and floated and sat some more, till by-and-by thestorm sort of blowed itself out, the sun come shining--this was nextmorning--and I could dry my hair and look about me. I was a younglass, then, and not bad to look upon. I didn't want to die, any morethan you that's sitting there this minute. So I up and prays for land.Sure enough toward evening a speck heaves up low down on the horizon.At first I took it for a gas liner, but later found it was just alittle island, all alone by itself in the great Pacific Ocean.

  "Come, now, here's luck, thinks I, and with that I deserts theice-chest, which being empty, and me having no ice to put in it, notlikely to have in them latitudes, is of no further use to me. Strikingout I swum a mile or so and set foot on dry land for the first time innigh three days.

  "Pretty land it were, too, though bare of human life as an iceberg inthe Arctic.

  "I had landed on a shining white beach that run up to a grove oflovely, waving palm trees. Above them I could see the slopes of a hillso high and green it reminded me of my own old home, up nearCouquomgomoc Lake in Maine. The whole place just seemed to smile andsmile at me. The palms waved and bowed in the sweet breeze, like theywanted to say, 'Just set right down and make yourself to home. We'vebeen waiting a long time for you to come.' I cried, I was that happyto be made welcome. I was a young lass then, and sensitive-like to howfolks treated me. You're laughing now, but wait and see if or notthere was sense to the way I felt.

  "So I up and dries my clothes and my long, soft hair again, which waswell worth drying, for I had far more of it than now. After that Iwalked along a piece, until there was a
sweet little path meanderingaway into the wild woods.

  "Here, thinks I, this looks like inhabitants. Be they civil or wild, Iwonder? But after traveling the path a piece, lo and behold it endedsudden like in a wide circle of green grass, with a little spring ofclear water. And the first thing I noticed was a slab of white boardnailed to a palm tree close to the spring. Right off I took a longdrink, for you better believe I was thirsty, and then I went to lookat this board. It had evidently been tore off the side of a woodenpacking box, and the letters was roughly printed in lead pencil.

  "'Heaven help whoever you be,' I read. 'This island ain't just right.I'm going to swim for it. You better too. Good-by. Nelson