Mattie Mitchell (10 page)

ON THE THIRD EVENING
,
WITH THE SUN
down behind the flat
mountains and the gloaming casting long shadows out over the
still fjord, Mattie Mitchell came paddling toward the schooner
where Worcester stood waiting. The Indian was dipping his
paddle into the water on the left side of the shallow canoe. Even
at a distance, Worcester, who knew about canoes, could see the
man was using the J-stroke, a method of paddling that at the end
of each long stroke curved outward, which kept the craft straight
without having to change sides.

The single paddle flashed and sparkled each time it drew
quietly out of the black water. Just as quietly, it plunged back
down to the full extent of the Indian's powerful reach. The
curved bow of the canoe pushed little bubbles ahead of itself as
it came merrily along. The bubbles suddenly fell away from the
small craft when Worcester called to the Indian, “Are you Mattie
Mitchell, sir?”

“Yes,” came the simple reply from the straight-backed man
sitting in the stern of the slowing craft.

“May I have a moment of your time, sir?” Worcester asked,
hoping the man would paddle closer. The Indian neither moved
nor answered for a moment. He and the canoe sat silhouetted like
a painting in the still evening water.

One long pull of his paddle brought Mattie Mitchell within a
few feet of the black schooner's starboard side, where he stopped
and looked up at the man whom he knew to be an American.

“You buy Frank's
Danny B'y
schooner, maybe.” He made it
sound like he already knew the answer.

“Indeed I have. I have made it my home these last few days. I
am quite pleased with the purchase, though I have not sailed her
yet,” replied Worcester.

“She plim up good yet?”

Pleased that he now understood the word, Worcester smiled
down at the Indian. “Yes, the vessel has plimmed very well. I
have pumped her only once in three days and that only took a
few moments to do,” he said, pointing to the homemade wooden
pump on the schooner's deck.

Worcester decided this Indian was different than the ones he
had encountered in Quebec. He changed the subject toward his
reason for being here. “Frank tells me that you are an excellent
hunter and trapper as well as a very knowledgeable person
regarding the country around these parts.”

The canoe bobbed closer to the schooner. Mattie put his left
hand against its sleek sides. Looking up, he said, “Frank is good
man, fer a white feller. He cough too much, I t'ink. His Millie
good woman, too. She bake best bread loaf.”

“Indeed she does. I have never tasted better. As a matter of
fact, I have a loaf of Millie's excellent bread aboard. The kettle is
ready. Would you like a cup of tea?” Worcester asked, noting the
concern for Frank evident in Mattie's voice. He decided to stay
away from that topic for now.

“You have sugar?” asked a hopeful Mattie, who was moving
toward the wharf.

“A big jar of it sitting on the table below, as well as a full bag
stored away in the hold. And you are welcome to as much of it as
you would like.”

Worcester had made Mattie the right offer, especially after
his long paddle up the bay. Two of Mattie's favourite things were
“live” tea, with lots of sugar, and fresh homemade bread.

Worcester had not come by this information by accident.
He had shared a couple of evening meals with Frank and Millie
while waiting for Mattie to show up. They had told him many
things about their “favourite Injun.” They could say nothing bad
about him. Millie had given Mattie many loaves of her bread, she
told Worcester.

“Mind you, I should not 'ave said give. 'Cause many's a
time he has tossed a good meal of trout upon the wharf on his
way back up the arm. And sometimes deer meat, too, though I
never once asked fer anyt'ing fer me loaf of bread.” The kindhearted woman clearly like Mattie Mitchell. Worcester trusted
her judgment of the Indian.

Worcester and Mattie talked about fishing and hunting over
two cups of hot tea in the warm forecastle. The American didn't
mention his desire to find pearls. When Mattie had finished the
last cup of tea, along with several well-buttered slices of Millie's
bread, and mixed the tea dregs with sugar and had eaten that as
well, he agreed to guide Worcester on a trip up the coast.

During his time with Frank over the next few days, Worcester
became convinced the man had tuberculosis. Worcester was not a
doctor, but he was a learned man and had seen many such cases.
He carefully broached the subject to Frank privately one late,
quiet evening while they sat on the bridge leading to his kitchen
door. They were no less than 100 feet beyond the wharf where the
schooner pulled gently at her moorings.

Frank looked around to see if Millie was near before he
answered. They heard her inside the house busily cleaning up
after their delicious evening meal. “You're probably right about
dat, Reveran',” he said quietly. Both Frank and Millie refused to
call him by any other name when they found out he was a man
of the cloth.

Frank was smoking a short-stemmed pipe that he had filled
with the rich-smelling American tobacco Worcester had brought.
The good reverend liked a few draws from his own well-used
briar after a good supper.

Frank had just finished his usual bout of coughing followed by
a round of spitting. He always coughed more after a few lungfuls
of pipe smoke. Worcester mentioned this to him. Frank coughed
again and, when he was able to speak again, said in a low voice,
“The TB is bad 'ere, Reveran', all 'long the coast and 'round the
island too. Dere's hundreds of people dead from it, I 'ear.”

Frank looked toward the kitchen window, fearing Millie
would hear him. “She fears the same as I do, ya know. Not stupid,
is my Millie. We don't talk about it much. We'll be leavin' fer
Canada now in a few days. Goin' up where me son is. 'Twas why
I sold me scunner. Fer the passage money an' a few dollars to
have in me pocket when I gets dere. 'Tis easy fer a man good wit'
his 'ands to get good paying work up dere, me boy sez. 'Ouses
gettin' built up ever'where. I can do dat. Built dis one, I did.” He
pointed to the neat home behind them.

“Dere's more dan dat, too. Good doctors up dere. Our boy
told us dat in a letter we got from 'im. Dey'll fix me up fer sure.
Dere's a big lake where Danny lives, jest as big as the gulf out
dere, he says.”

Here Frank pointed beyond the long, indented bay toward
the hidden Gulf of St. Lawrence and continued. “'Twill break me
'eart to leave me cove, ya know. Millie's nephew is taking over
me 'ouse. Dey jes' got married. Only to live in, ya know. An tek
care of while we're gone. I'm not selling me 'ouse. After I'm
feelin' better I'll be back again. Can't let me 'ouse an' lan' go.
Wot's a man got to come back to wit' nar 'ouse and not even a
piece of lan' lef' to call 'is own?”

As usual, Frank said what he had to say in his usual fast-talking manner without stopping. The hand that held his slow-burning pipe did all of his gesticulating this time. With every
swing of his arm, toward the bay or his home or the white-curtained kitchen window, puffs of blue smoke trailed away from
the bowl of the pipe.

He stopped to cough again. Worcester waited, expecting him
to start talking again. But he didn't continue. He just stared at the
schooner that was no longer his, which kept tugging at her lines
with a soft rubbing sound. Once, Frank's hand brushed along
both his eyes with his usual quick, animated movement.

Worcester knew that Frank and Millie's son, Danny, had
left to find work in Toronto last fall. The boy wanted something
different, a weeping Millie had told him.

“Broke his father's 'eart, Danny B'y did—an' me own, too,
watchin' me only chil' walk down 'longshore and 'eaded away
from us. 'Twas some 'ard, b'y—excuse me, sir . . . Reveran', I
mean to say.”

Danny had left after the summer's fishing was done. His
parents, who loved their only child too much to deny him a
different and likely better future than the one that lay before them,
“scrimped” together enough money for their boy's passage. Now,
with a good paying job and a place of his own, he wanted his
parents to join him. Worcester felt the pain this simple loving
couple relayed to him over their son's leaving. Now, staring
out the bay, Worcester avoided looking at his new friend sitting
beside him and wisely said nothing.

MATTIE MITCHELL AND ELWOOD WORCESTER
left Humber
Arm at daybreak two days later. Standing at the wharf and waving
a tearful farewell—not to the two men, but to the boat that he
would never see again and that he still considered his—stood
Frank. Only when the
Danny Boy
cleared the wharf head and
turned her stern to the land did Worcester see a parted upstairs
curtain where a nightgown-clad Millie watched the leaving
schooner without waving.

They sailed out the long bay under a grey dawning sky.
There was barely enough wind to gather the mainsail, but the
two men were in no hurry. The schooner came out from under
the mountain shadows as she slipped toward the sea, and soon
the flat mountains released the yellow sun until full daylight was
upon the land and the sea.

For Mattie Mitchell it was an awesome first. He loved the
experience of standing on the deck of a free-sailing schooner. His
canoe was secured to the slightly tilted deck of the schooner with
its river-scarred bottom facing up. Many times over the years
he had used a small makeshift sail while canoeing this very bay
or crossing large inland lakes. Usually his jacket or a blanket
served such a purpose. But here on the deck of a huge vessel, he
marvelled at the feeling of gliding effortlessly along. However,
as was his way, he did not volunteer his thoughts to Worcester.

His keen eye and quick mind followed Worcester's every
move as the man brought the vessel under full sail. The American
patiently explained the workings as he did so. Long before they
reached the open Gulf of St. Lawrence, Mattie understood enough
to aid Worcester with the running of the boat.

It was when Worcester asked Mattie to try his hand at steering
the boat that he learned more about the Indian and his people.
This was how the American would find out much more about the
man he would grow to love and respect for the rest of his life.

“How about taking the helm for a while, Mattie?” Worcester
asked, indicating the wheel held firmly in his grip. Without the
slightest hesitation, and not asking the American why he had
called it a helm, Mattie Mitchell grasped the polished dowelled
spokes and with a confident air stood before his first mast.

Standing away from the wheel and giving Mattie full control
of the vessel, Worcester explained to him what Frank had warned
him about. Long after Worcester had paid for the
Danny Boy
, an
apologetic Frank had told Worcester his one complaint about the
little schooner.

“She yaws a bit to port, she does. You must forever kep a
strong 'an' on the starburd spokes, else she'll veer port, she will.
I suspec' 'tis a bit of want in her keel is causin' it. I fergot to tell
'e about it before. Do ya want yer money back?”

Worcester smiled at the memory and told Mattie that Frank
had told him the truth. The schooner did indeed “yaw a bit to
port,” especially if the wheel was left unattended for a moment.
If Frank had not mentioned it, Worcester simply would have
considered it as part of the schooner's handling. He found no
other fault with his schooner.

Standing tall and proud at the wheel and with the open sea
coming into view, Mattie wondered if he would get the seasickness
he had heard so much about. He never did.

Worcester was delighted with his new guide. He immediately
saw the intelligence of the man. The way he grasped the workings
of a sailing vessel with little tutoring impressed him greatly. It
was something many men found difficult to understand, even
after spending months at sea. Yet the Indian became a capable
hand before the first day was done.

Worcester also noticed how Mattie looked him full in the
eyes when he was talking to him. It was as if the man was seeing
into his very thoughts, giving him his full attention. It was the
reason Mattie learned so quickly. Worcester would also come to
know that any time Mattie paid no attention to him, it meant he
wasn't interested in the subject. At such times Mattie listened
quietly but always looked away, his body language showing his
lack of interest.

On this day, standing on the deck of the schooner that carried
them out to the blue sea, a friendship began that would last the
lifetimes of both men. It was the start of years of adventure that
would take them along hundreds of shady woodland trails and
through many secluded inland waterways. With a proud Mattie
at the wheel, they scunned out the long bay, with the schooner's
forefoot disturbing the water along the shadowed edge of the
high, tabletop mountains as they went.

They came up under the lee of Woods Island at the mouth of
the arm with a bright sun beaming on the neat, colourful houses of
the fisher people living there. Small dories filled the water around
the island, most of them a rich vermilion, the single oarsmen
paddling along. With friendly waves to the industrious boats as
they passed, the schooner sailed on across the open mouths of the
middle and then north arms of the Bay of Islands.

Worcester frequently consulted the schooner compass as they
journeyed out the bay. Having no map of the area, he trusted to
Mattie's directions. When Mattie pointed the way they should
take to cross the bay, Worcester pointed the bow of the
Danny
Boy
in that direction. Looking into the wooden binnacle, he told
Mattie they were sailing due north and 290 degrees toward the
west.

Mattie watched the compass spin slowly as the schooner
veered. Showing his trademark disinterest, he turned away. “I
don't know 'bout that stuff, Preacher. I know North Star. My
people always follow drinking gourd. You find North Star, you
find all stars. Din you find your way. It is nuff fer me.”

Worcester nodded thoughtfully at the wisdom of this statement
and grinned at the moniker the Indian had attached to him. On the
very first day of their meeting, Worcester had mentioned that he
was an ordained minister of the Episcopalian faith. Mattie hadn't
heard that term before, and when Worcester tried to explain that
he was like a priest, Mattie shook his head.

“You like no priest I see. No long dress like woman. You
more like preacher man.”

And so it was that Mattie called Worcester “Preacher.” And
after a few failed attempts at telling Mattie he could call him
Elwood or Worcester, or even Reverend if he wanted to, he gave
up and accepted his new name. For the rest of their time together
Mattie would call him nothing else, and always the name was
said with the respect the man had for the clergy. After a while
he became known around the bay as Mattie's preacher, and
Worcester came to like the title.

They had put Woods Island behind them and were well across
the mouth of the bay, which Worcester figured might be ten or so
miles wide, when he saw something that amazed him. They were
passing by one of the small fishing boats. The lone fisherman
standing in the stern of the dory had a long sculling oar in his left
hand. It passed between two vertical thole-pins in the centre of
the craft and entered the water at a jaunty angle.

The fisherman held the other end of the oar in the crook of his
arm and regularly twisted it in a circular motion that appeared to
keep the bow of the boat into the light wind. The man standing
straight and tall with the long oar reminded Worcester of a
Venetian gondolier.

But it was another, more unusual action that fascinated the
American. The fisherman was constantly bending to and fro
from the waist up. In the same determined motion, with his right
hand he kept pulling and releasing nothing. It was only when
they sailed closer that they could see a line running out over the
gunnel of the boat.

The American had never seen such a method of fishing
before. The fisherman's hand came to a sudden, jolting stop on
its upward pull. In an instant the man drew the long oar across
the thwarts of the boat, grasped the line with both hands, and
began pulling in a fluid, vigorous hand-over-hand motion. In the
space of just a couple of minutes he yanked a shiny white codfish
over the side, flicked a large hook from its mouth, threw the hook
over the side again, and, as the line ran back down into the sea,
grabbed the sculling oar and spun the boat—which had turned
broadside—into the gentle wind once more. It was all done
with the speed and dexterity of a man who excelled at his trade.
The fisherman looked toward the passing schooner, waved his
friendly right hand on the upstroke, and quickly bent over again
to pull another glistening fish out of the water.

Worcester asked Mattie if the fish were so plentiful that they
could be caught just anywhere.

“No. Only on good grounds feesh caught. Dat man good
fisherman. Always wave to me. He know
Danny B'y
. He know
grounds ver' well, too.”

Worcester asked if “grounds” were the same as banks, to
which Mattie replied he was pretty sure that they were.

“But how does he know where these underwater grounds
are?” asked Worcester. “Does he use a chart and compass?”

“No compass. 'E use landmarks for feesh grounds. I show you
ver' soon,” answered the ever-patient Mattie, who was carefully
studying the distant land as he spoke.

Soon, at Mattie's request they dropped the sails. The schooner
slowed and finally lost its headway. Mattie produced his own
hook and line like the one they had seen the fisherman using.
They found another one aboard the schooner. The big hooks
were embedded into the heads of a grey moulded lead fish close
to six inches in length. A heavy line was tied to its tail. Mattie
scraped the sides of the fish with his knife until the lure shone
like new.

Unwinding the line from its wooden reel, he threw the jigger
over the side and watched it glint and finally disappear into the
green depths. When the line went slack in his hands, indicating it
had reached bottom, Mattie hurriedly pulled it back several feet.
In less than a minute a large cod lay flopping for life on the deck
of the drifting schooner. Mattie threw the jigger back over the
side. As it sang over the broad bulwark, he grabbed the thrashing
fish, cut its narrow, white throat, grasped the bottomed-out line,
and reset it as before.

Worcester watched it all in stunned silence. Under Mattie's
watchful eye he soon had his own line over the side. After a few
jigs he pulled out of the water a struggling fish of his own.

“You cut feesh throat, maybe. Make better taste wit' blood
gone,” Mattie advised.

Worcester took the knife and, after finally getting a grip on
the slippery, writhing fish, began to cut its throat.

“You don't cut to kill. You cut to bleed. Feesh 'eart keep
pumping till all blood leave. Ver' much better taste. You see
soon,” Mattie said in his usual advisory tone of voice. Worcester
understood the reasoning and did as he was told.

While they fished, Worcester asked Mattie to explain to
him how they had found the fishing shoals by using landmarks.
Mattie illustrated a simple yet clever method of using points of
land aligned with another point—or a mountain, or a sky-lining
tree, or someone's white house—as marks to find good fishing
spots below the sea.

They soon had several fish aboard and promptly cut the throat
of each one. A pool of blood stained the schooner's otherwise
clean deck by the time they had finished. Mattie looked toward
the land at his two sets of landmarks.

“We drif' off mark. Dis boat drif' ver' fas'. Mus' come 'round
to mark again. We 'ave nuff feesh. Maybe we go now.”

Worcester agreed with Mattie, as he always would to his
subtle suggestions. They hauled the sails aloft again, and the
schooner gained way with her bows pointing a little east of
north, tacking its way toward the north arm of Bay of Islands.
Behind them the land closed so that there appeared to be no way
into the deep fjord from which they had just sailed. And high
above it all spread the snow-capped escarpments of the Long
Range Mountains.

They cooked the codfish in the small galley as they sailed,
and ate their fill of the sweet flesh on the open, sun-drenched
deck of the bustling little schooner after they had tied her helm.
And while the two men supped, the fragrant summer wind came
and gently luffed the sails, providing music for the passengers of
the
Danny Boy
.

Ever curious, Worcester asked the names of the islands and
headlands they passed. Mattie gladly replied, calling out the name
of each place of interest. The bay itself seemed to be shielded
from the gulf by a string of islands that ran parallel to the inner
coastline.

When Mattie told Worcester the names of two of the islands
were Guernsey and Tweed, the American pointed out that they
were also island names from the English Channel. They were the
names of sheep's wool found on these far-off islands. In fact, he
had a fine guernsey sweater below in his duffle bag.

But it was the name of another island that really got the
American's full attention: Big Pearl Island. Here was the perfect
opportunity to tell Mattie Mitchell the real reason for his visit to
the west coast of Newfoundland.

Worcester told Mattie the story about the Cabots who had
discovered Newfoundland. Mattie's eyes narrowed and he turned
away from him.