Limekiller!

She had, which was just as important, every bit as, not gone, either, to the other extreme to overpraise. She had accepted. Accepted the rough old boat and all, as simply as she had, simply, accepted him. “I’m just travelling and ravelling,” she’d said. “Travel and ravel along with me,” he’d said, heart leaping. And she? “Yes.” That was all. All? Is there a more joyful syllable in the language? In the tongue of men and of angels?

Felix had learned to balance her long legs in the rudely made skiff, shaped almost like a flat-iron, seatless, so that you had to squat to paddle or stand up to pole. She had learned to share with him the simple way of cooking the few simple foods in the sand-filled scrap metal firebox called the caboose; and as for ropes or lines or sails. well, well, she had learned. And learned well; never having learned any boating before, she had anyway nothing to unlearn now. All of this, and much more, then, she had learned to do for the boat, and so, in no small way, for him: what had he learned to do for her? he found himself asking now, watching her. There were, of course, all the lovely things which they had learned to do for each other: she/he, he/she. They had of course their problems: but they had been nice problems. And it had certainly been nice the way they had learned to solve them. Together. Mostly they had solved them on their first voyage. He recalled that now. He recalled her voice in his ear. He recalled how much he had rejoiced in that: and how much also he had rejoiced in that the bamboo boom — the spar to which the foot of the mainsail fastened — was hollow, and slightly cracked lengthwise — it still was, of course, and never would he fix it now! — this had anyway not at all impaired its usefulness and the hollow and the crack and the wind had turned it into a sort of aeolian harp, and it had sung for them all the day long its long sweet song for “their watery epithalamion. ”

The boom at right angles rode the mast in a wooden yoke; the mast was of local Santa Maria wood, twenty-six years old, and still looked fresh.

The date today was early in December.

Abruptly, Felix asked, “What kind of rope are you using there?”

“What kind of — Why. hemp… of course. Why do you — “

She broke into his perplexity with, “What? Not nylon?”

A moment more he stared; then his blunt and shaggy face relaxed, and he guffawed. Her seriousness now revealed as merely mock-seriousness, she laughed with him: what a delight her laugh was. And what a more-than-delight, her presence.

A day or two before, on Commeal Wharf, a conversation between two Bayfolk wharfside superintendents; the subject: rope.

“Nylon rope very modern.”

“Oh yes. Fah true, fah true.”

“Nylon rope very modem, nah true?”

“Oh yes.”

“Hempen rope, w’old style, nah true?”

“Oh yes. Time of my great-gron-fahder, he hahv sailing-ship go four time ah year fah Cuba, fah Jamaica: use hempen rope. ”

“De Mexicans punishing, so many people buy nylon, not buy hemp. Mexican grow hemp, not nylon.”

“Nylon rope lahst much lahng-ah.”

“Oh yes. Eet sleek, some.”

“What you say?”

“Nylon rope very sleek. Sleep t’rough you hond. Sleep de knots, you know.”

“Well, dot ee's true. Nylon rope very sleepery. Muss use cleats.”

“Cleats cahst mon-ey, mon. Nah true?”

“Fah true, fah true. Nylon rope cahst mah dan hemp, mottah ahv fock.”

“Oh yes. Me no want buy eet.”

“Me no want buy eet. Sleep de knots, cahn’t get greep on eet, requiah cleats, cahst too much.”

“Fah true, fah true.”

“Yes, mon Fah true. ”

So much for nylon rope, then, at Commeal Wharf. And, for that matter, on the sloop Saccharissa, Jno. L. Limekiller, owner and master.

Who sniffed. “Ah, the sweet salt air!”

“A contradiction in terms, surely?”

‘“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself.’”

“Yes, I know. You are vast, you contain multitudes.”

He wondered if he should swagger on this; decided that he would not. Instead, he said, “Sweet to me, anyway. - Gallards Point Caye, ho!”

“Gallzards.”

“Gal-lards.”

“The map —”

“The chart —“

They laughed. They laughed a lot when they were together. She went and got both chart and map. Maps. She looked. She looked triumphant. Then she saluted, pouted. Laughed again. “Both right. Chart says Gal-lards, map says Gallzards — Oh. Well, poot! The big map says Galliards, the little map says Gallants.”

He shrugged. “Can’t spell for sour owl stools, some of them down here.” She said, Look who was talking. He asked, surprised, What was wrong with his spelling. She said, Anyone who would spell Labor Department with a u — He said, quickly, defensively, That was the way all British countries spelled it. She asked, with the u before the o? He thought it best to ignore this cavil, gestured off to starboard. “Can you say what those are?” Those being some greenerv-brownery blurs. ‘I mean, find them on the chart…?”

“I already know. The Duck and Ducklings — oops!”