ast and was
going to have a new one put in if there was time.

XXVI

THE GOSSIP IN GLOUCESTER

Clancy and I went home by train, reaching Gloucester as the first of
an easterly gale set in. There we found it was nothing but talk of the
race. We had not reached Main Street at all before Clancy was held up.
Clancy, of course, would know. Where was Maurice Blake? What were we
doing in Gloucester and the Johnnie not in? The Duncans--especially
the elder Mr. Duncan--Miss Foster, my cousin Nell, and Will Somers
were boiling over. Where was Maurice Blake? Where was the Johnnie
Duncan? Everybody in town seemed to know that Sam Hollis had given us
a bad beating down Cape shore way, and the news had a mighty
discouraging effect on all Maurice's friends, even on those of them
who knew enough of Sam Hollis not to take his talk just as he wanted
them to take it. Withrow's vessel had beaten the Johnnie Duncan with
Maurice Blake sailing her--they had to believe that part of it, and
that in itself was bad enough. Sam Hollis's stock was booming, you may
be sure--and the race right close to hand, too.

"That little beating the Johnnie got didn't lose any in the telling by
Sam Hollis and his gang, did it, Joe?" said Clancy to me, and then he
went around borrowing all the money he could to bet the Johnnie Duncan
would beat the Withrow in the race. But would Maurice now enter at
all? I asked Clancy about that part--if there was not a chance that
Maurice might not stay down the Cape shore way and let the race go.
But he only laughed and said, "Lord--Joey-boy, you've a lot to learn
yet about Maurice in spite of your season's seining along with him."

It was a Monday morning when Clancy and I reached Gloucester. The race
was to be sailed on Friday of that same week. For several days before
this, we were told, Wesley Marrs, Sam Hollis, Tommie Ohlsen, and the
rest of them had been out in the Bay tuning up their vessels like a
lot of cup defenders. Never before had fishermen given so much
attention to the little details before a race. The same day that we
got home they were up on the ways for a final polishing and primping
up. They were smooth as porcelain when they came off. And coming off
their skippers thought they had better take some of the ballast out of
them. "'Tisn't as if it was winter weather"--it was the middle of
September then--"with big seas and driving gales," was the way Wesley
Marrs put it, and they all agreed that t