I told him that the
_Aurora_ only cost you twenty-five hundred, but he said, 'No matter, I
have a weakness for the _Aurora_,' this friend of mine. Of course
there'll be a few little extra expenses you'll have to pay for, like the
hawser and the big anchor cut away and the keep of a crew for a week
over in Newfoundland, and so on, but that won't be much--five hundred
dollars ought to cover it all."
And Miller gave back the _Aurora_ and paid over the five hundred, and I
gave him an order on John Rose for the wine. And then I took the little
baby's brooch out of my pocket and handed it back to him.
And then I sailed over to Placentia Bay in the _Aurora_ and took
twenty-one hundred barrels of herring off John Rose and put out, and,
getting the first of a stiff easterly, the _Aurora_ carried it all the
way to Gloucester. And I was home to the wife and baby by New Year's.
And the baby got a good brooch. I could afford it. From the profits of
twenty-one hundred barrels of fine fat herring I could well afford it.
I haven't seen Miller since, but they say he's shyer than he used to be
of simple American fishermen.
>Light-Ship 67
Perrault was the good old Frenchman who kept the general store just
across from the Navy Yard gate, and Baldwin was the chief boson's mate,
U.S.N., who commanded the _Whist_, the little tug which was used as a
general utility boat by the Navy Yard people.
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