The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [45]
There may have been literature of New England port—factory town also—period of ’70’s and upwards, but if so I have never found same. Shipyards prospering in writer’s early youth. Oak chips three feet deep in yards at foot of River Street. Lumber moved by oxen. Noise of adzes, hammers, heard all summer. Heartening sounds. Noise of seams being calked heard in late August. Soon will come the winter cold. Launching in September. Ships once crewed with flower of native youth, crewed then with lascars, Kanakas and worse. Bad times in offing. Grandfather on deathbed cried: “Shipping is dead!” Prosperous master. Writer raised among souvenirs of salt-water riches. Velvet cushions on deep window seats; now bare. Long garden in rear of house once upon a time. Geometric flower pots. Paths at right angles. Low box hedge. Four inches high. Father’s fancy poultry. Fantails. Homers. Tumblers. No dung-heap stuff. Man to care for garden and birds in times gone by. Local character. Good man. Been to sea. Wonderful stories. Flying fish. Porpoises. Pearls. Sharks. Samoan girls. Beached six months in Samoa. Paradise. Never put his pants on once in six months. Let the pigeons out each afternoon. Each type separately. Tumblers interested writer most.
Sad times sometimes; sometimes gay. Thunderstorms. Christmas. Sounds of fish horn with which writer was called home to supper. Sailed with father on small schooner. Zoe. Moored at river in foot of garden on summer months. High sided; small, counter stern. Short overhang bow. Good cabin with transom and small galley. Thirty-foot water line. Moderate sail plan. Mainsail, foresail, two jibs set on jib-stay. One good-sized. She was dry in rough weather. She moved very well off the wind, quartering it or before it wing and wing, but “on the wind” or “up the wind” as they say today, she moved like real estate. Did not hold at all close going to windward and sagged off badly. Schooner crewed by Daniel Knight. Retired sailor. Old then. About five feet eight. 170 lbs. Broad-beamed and lively. Remembered square-riggers, Calcutta, Bombay, China, Java. Went out to Zoe in tender. First ceremony on getting aboard was meeting in cabin of father and crew. Libation of Barkham’s rum and molasses. I was not in at slicing of mainbrace; but I can smell it now. More savory world then, than today. Smell of ship’s-bread bakery. Green coffee beans roasted once a week. Perfumery of roasted coffee floated miles downriver. Lamp smoke. Smell of cistern water. Lye from privy. Wood fires.
Family consisted of self and brother, ten years my senior. Difference in ages seemed abysmal in early life. Later diminished. Brother named Hamlet after Prince of Denmark. Offshoot of father’s devotion to Shakespeare. Unlike gloomy Prince, however. Very frisky. Played baseball for hose company; also lacrosse. Won many foot races. Much loved by mother. Later the darling of Chardon Street hookers. Familiar figure at the Narragansett House bar. Good fighter both with gloves in gymnasium and bare fisted in street when necessary.
In warm months writer slept in attic, surrounded by boyish museum of minerals and curiosities. Also facsimile of Chinese junk carved in ivory. Two feet long. Three balls of ivory within one another. Large as an apple. Brain corals. Sea shells as big as melons. Others like peas. Held to the human ear there was a sound like surf breaking on shore. Some shells with spikes. Two tame crows among cherished possessions. Taken from nest on Hale’s island in April. Swordfish spur and eye socket. Powerful odor from same. Attic illuminated by skylight, approached by several steps. Fine view of river to the sea.
Sturgeon in river then. About three feet