“I was going out to Black Rock for cunners myself,” said the cap’n.  “I should be pleased to take ye, if ye’d like to go.”  So we wound up our lines, and took our basket and clams and went round to meet the boat.  I felt like rowing, and took the oars while Kate was mending her sinker and the cap’n was busy with a snarled line.

“It’s pretty hot,” said he, presently, “but I see a breeze coming in, and the clouds seem to be thickening; I guess we shall have it cooler ’long towards noon.  It looked last night as if we were going to have foul weather, but the scud seemed to blow off, and it was as pretty a morning as ever I see.  ‘A growing moon chaws up the clouds,’ my gran’ther used to say.  He was as knowing about the weather as anybody I ever come across; ’most always hit it just about right.  Some folks lay all the weather to the moon, accordin’ to where she quarters, and when she’s in perigee we’re going to have this kind of weather, and when she’s in apogee she’s got to do so and so for sartain; but gran’ther he used to laugh at all them things.  He said it never made no kind of difference, and he went by the looks of the clouds and the feel of the air, and he thought folks couldn’t make no kind of rules that held good, that had to do with the moon.  Well, he did use to depend on the moon some; everybody knows we aren’t so likely to have foul weather in a growing moon as we be when she’s waning.  But some folks I could name, they can’t do nothing without having the moon’s opinion on it.  When I went my second voyage afore the mast we was in port ten days at Cadiz, and the ship she needed salting dreadful.  The mate kept telling the captain how low the salt was in her, and we was going a long voyage from there, but no, he wouldn’t have her salted nohow, because it was the wane of the moon.  He was an amazing set kind of man, the cap’n was, and would have his own way on sea or shore.  The mate was his own brother, and they used to fight like a cat and dog; they owned most of the ship between ’em.  I was slushing the mizzen-mast, and heard ’em a disputin’ about the salt.  The cap’n was a first-rate seaman and died rich, but he was dreadful notional.  I know one time we were a lyin’ out in the stream all ready to weigh anchor, and everything was in trim, the men were up in the rigging and a fresh breeze going out, just what we’d been waiting for, and the word was passed to take in sail and make everything fast.  The men swore, and everybody said the cap’n had had some kind of a warning.  But that night it began to blow, and I tell you afore morning we were glad enough we were in harbor.  The old Victor she dragged her anchor, and the fore-to’gallant sail and r’yal got loose somehow and was blown out of the bolt-ropes.  Most of the canvas and rigging was old, but we had first-rate weather after that, and didn’t bend near all the new sail we had aboard, though the cap’n was most afraid we’d come short when we left Boston.  That was ’most sixty year ago,” said the captain, reflectively.  “How time does slip away!  You young folks haven’t any idea.  She was a first-rate ship, the old Victor was, though I suppose she wouldn’t cut much of a dash now ’longside of some of the new clippers.