what do you think happened?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said, seeing that he expected an answer.
“She rared up and down, like we was outside in a force-six gale, and whistled!” Abernathy broke off and glared at me belligerently, as if he half expected me to laugh at him. Of course, I did no such thing. It was not a laughing matter, as the world was to find out a little later.
“And that was stranger than ever,” he continued, after a pause, “cause I’d let ‘er fires die out when I tied ‘er up. Somehow she had steam up. I called to Joe Binks, my fireman, and bawled him out for havin’ lit ‘er off without me tellin’ him to. But he swore up and down that he hadn’t touched ‘er. But to get back to the gourd thing — as soon as I let it go, she quieted down. I ran under those vines to see where they come from. I keep callin’ ‘em vines, but maybe you’d call ‘em wires. They were hard and shiny, like wires, and tough — only they branched every whichaway like vines, or the veins in a maple leaf. There was two sets of ‘em, one set runnin’ out of the gourd thing on the binnacle was all mixed up with the other set comin’ out of the bottom between the boiler and the engine.
“She didn’t mind my foolin’ with the vines, and didn’t cut up except whenever I’d touch the gourd arrangement up for’ard. The vines stuck too close to whatever they lay on to pick up, but I got a pinch- bar and pried. I got some of ‘em up about a inch and slipped a wedge under. I worked on ‘em with a chisel, and then a hacksaw. I cut a couple of ‘em and by the Lord Harry — if they didn’t grow back together again whilst I was cuttin’ on the third one. I gave up! I just let it go, I was that dogtired.
“Before I left, I took a look into the firebox and saw she had the burner on slow. I turned it off, and saw the water was out of the glass. I secured the boiler, thinkin’ how I’d like to get my hands on whoever lit it off.
“Next day, I had a fishin’ party to take out in my schooner, and altogether, what with one thing and another, it was a week before I got back to look at the Betsy B. Now, over at my place, I have a boathouse and a dock, and behind the boathouse is a fuel oil tank, as you can see. This day, when I went down to the dock, what should I see but a pair of those durned vines runnin’ up the dock like electric cables. And the smoke was pourin’ out of ‘er funnel like everything. I ran on down to ‘er and tried to shut off the oil, ‘cause I knew the water was low, but the valve was all jammed with the vine wires, and I couldn’t do a thing with it.
“I found out those vines led out of ‘er bunkers, and mister, believe it or not, but she was a-suckin’ oil right out of my big storage tank! Those vines on the dock led straight from the Betsy Binto the oil tank. When I found out I couldn’t shut off the oil, I jumped quick to have a squint at the water gauge, and my eyes nearly run out on stems when I saw it smack at the right level. Do you know, that dog-gone steam launch had thrown a bunch of them vines around the injector and was a-feedin’ herself? Fact! And sproutin’ from the gun’le was another bunch of ‘em, suckin’ water from overside.
“But wouldn’t she salt herself?” I asked of him, knowing that salt water is not helpful to marine boilers.
“No, sir-ree! That just goes to show you how smart she was gettin’ to be. Between the tank and the injector, durned if she hadn’t grown another fruity thing, kinda like a watermelon. It had a hole in one side, and there was a pile of salt by it and more spillin’ out. She had rigged ‘erself some sorta filter — or distiller. I drew off a little water from a gauge cock, and let it cool down and tasted it. Sweet as you’d want!
“I was kinda up against it. If she was dead set and determined to keep steam up all the time, and had dug right into the big tank, I knew it’d run into money. I might as well be usin’ ‘er. These vines I’ve been tellin’ you about weren’t in the way to speak of; they hung close to the planks like the veins on the back of your hand. Seein’ ‘er bunkers was full to the brim, I got out the hacksaw and cut the vines to the oil tank, watchin’ ‘er close all the time to see whether she’d buck again.
“From what I saw of ‘er afterward, I think she had a hunch she was gettin’ ready to get under way, and she was r’arin’ to go. I heard a churnin’ commotion in the water, and durned if she wasn’t already kicking her screw over! just as I got the second vine cut away, she snaps her lines, and if I hadn’t made a flyin’ leap, she’d a gone off without me.
“I’m tellin’ you, mister, that first ride was a whole lot like gettin’ aboard a unbroken colt. At first she wouldn’t answer her helm. I mean, I just couldn’t put the rudder over, hardly, without lyin’ down and pushin’ with everything I had on the wheel. And Joe Binks, my fireman, couldn’t do nuthin’ with ‘er neither — said the throttled fly wide open every time he let go of it.
“Comin’ outa my place takes careful doin’ — there’s a lot of sunken ledges and one sandbar to dodge. I says to myself, I’ve been humorin’ this baby too much. I remembered she was tender about that gourd thing, so the next time I puts the wheel over and she resists, I cracks down on the gourd with a big fid I’d been splicin’ some five-inch line with. She blurted ‘er whistle, and nearly stuck her nose under, but she let go the rudder. Seein’ that I was in for something not much diffrunt from bronco bustin’, I cruised ‘er up and down outside the island, puttin’ ‘er through all sorts a turns and at various speeds. I only had to hit ‘er four or five times. After that, all I had to do was to raise the fid like I was a-goin’ to, and she’d behave. She musta had eyes or something in that gourd contraption. I still think that’s where her brains were. It had got some bigger, too.
“I didn’t have much trouble after that, for a while. I strung some live wires across the dock — I found she wouldn’t cross that with ‘er feelers — and managed to put ‘er on some sort of rations about the oil. But I went down one night, ‘round two in the mornin’, and found ‘er with a full head of steam. I shut everything down, leavin’ just enough to keep ‘er warm, and went for’ard and whacked ‘er on the head, just for luck. It worked, and as soon as we had come to some sorta understanding, as you might say, I was glad she had got the way she was.
“What I mean is, after she was broke, she was a joy. She learned her way over to Dockport, and, after a coupla, trips, I never had to touch wheel or throttle. She’d go back and forth, never makin’ a mistake. When you think of the fogs we get around here, that’s something. And, o’ course, she learned the Rules of the Road in no time. She knew which side of a buoy to take — and when it came to passin’ other boats, she had a lot better judgment than I have.
“Keepin’ ‘er warm all the time took some oil, but it didn’t really cost me any more, ‘cause I was able to let Joe go. She didn’t need a regular engineer, nohow — in fact, her and Joe fought so, I figured it’d be better without him. Then I took ‘er out and taught ‘er how to use charts.”
Abernathy stopped and looked at me cautiously. I think this must be the place that some of his other auditors walked out on him, or started joshing, because he had the slightly embarrassed look of a man who feels that perhaps he had gone a little too far. Remembering the uncanny way in which the Wild Ships had stalked the world’s main steamer lanes, my mood was one of intense interest.
“Yes,” I said, “go on.”
“I’d mark the courses in pencil on the chart, without any figures, and prop it up in front of the binnacle. Well, that’s all there was to it. She’d shove off, and follow them courses, rain, fog, or shine. In a week or so, it got so I’d just stick a chart up there and go on back and loll in the stern sheets, like any payin’ passenger.
“If that’d been all, I’d a felt pretty well off, havin’ a trained steam launch that’d fetch and carry like a dog. I didn’t trust ‘er enough to send ‘er off anywhere by herself, but she coulda done it. All my real troubles started when I figured I’d paint ‘er. She was pretty rusty — lookin’, still had the old navy-gray paint on — what was left of it.
“I dragged ‘er up on the marine railway I got over there, scraped