Glancing at the rigging, he remembered his grandmother. Her billowy hair had been as white and unruly as the very sails that shone overhead. With his mother dying in childbirth, she was the only mother figure he’d ever had. And Grandmother hadn’t liked it one bit when he’d told her at age thirteen that he wanted to go to sea to be like his father. After a year sneaking away to the harbor and finding odd jobs at the port, he’d been allowed to be added to the crew on the same vessel as his father. Since then, it’d been thirteen more years of hard work and moving through the ranks from seaman to where he was now.
Grandmother would be proud of him, wouldn’t she? Mostly, he hoped. He tried to be clean and respectable, both in his deportment and language. But she would surely be disappointed by one thing: the fact was, he didn’t believe in God, plain and simple.
Grandmother hadn’t seen the kinds of death and deprivation that came with his job. He wondered if she’d known the sailor’s lifestyle would turn him away from belief. Perhaps that was why she was hesitant to let him go to sea.
“Hey, sir!” A high-pitched voice rang in concert with a hand tugging on the back of his jacket. “Sir!”
Will turned to see a girl of maybe ten or eleven with two blonde braids. Two boys several years younger than her stood to her left.
“Look here, sir,” the girl continued without a preamble. “These here are me brothers, Levi an’ Rhuben. Would you mind taking them with you while you walk the deck?” She crossed her arms in front of her and looked at her brothers as though they were unwanted barnacles on the underside of a hull. “Mum, and most everyone, really, is down at the bow listening to President Garn. I want to join ’em, but mum said I had to keep my eye on these two sorry-little-ty”—she kicked at the ground and cleared her throat—“on them. They don’t care one ounce for listenin’ to the sermon—”
“But we do want to learn to be sailors!” the older of the two boys called out, who, based on his lack of front teeth, was probably six or seven.
“See?” rejoined the sister, pushing one braid over her shoulder. “I saw you, sir, walk right by the sermon instead o’ listenin’, so I thought you could keep these boys company.”
“Excuse me, Miss—?” Will started.
“Miss Davies. But you can call me Sarah.” She offered a little curtsy as though she were a lady and then thrust out her hand. It was a mite endearing how hard she tried to be grown up. She put one hand on her hip with the other extended, waiting for him to shake it.
Will pursed his lips in surprise and took the hand. “Well, Miss Davies, the first thing you and your brothers ought to learn about sailing is that I am the first mate, and though I do nearly everything on this ship, I donottend children.”
“Yes,” said Sarah undeterred. “But I’ve seen the way you order everyone about, and you do a splendid job! Even Mum says these boys here could learn loads from you, sir!” Both her eyebrows raised high, and she nodded vigorously.
Will couldn’t keep back a laugh. “Those are my men, you see—”
“But we want to learn how to tie knots!” The youngest boy, still equipped with milk teeth and possessing a freckle-strewn nose, lifted the edge of a rope coil Jack had tidied earlier.
Sarah grinned and spoke with a sing-song tone, swaying side to side. “I think you’ll all get along splendidly.”
Will glanced down at the two boys, ready to send them on their way. But the hunger in their eyes made him pause. He knew that feeling. He’d wanted to be a sailor with every part of his being. And he’d loved tying knots since the time he could write his first name. It wouldn’t hurt to show them a thing or two ... and then he’d hurry them along.
Six eyes, two of them expectant and the other four awestruck, stared up at him. Levi, the littlest, tapped his thigh with the rope Rhuben held on to. Will never had any siblings, but he wondered what it would be like to always have a friend, always an advocate.
He hemmed out a breath. “Oh, all right. Miss Sarah, please stay toward the back of the sermon, and I’ll send these boys over after I show them a few tricks with the rope.”
“Oh, thank you, sir! You are a wonder!”
She was gone before Will had time to crouch down to the eye level of the boys.
“Now,” he began, “the first thing a sailor needs to know about is the cleat. You can tie a knot around there, even at your age.”
He demonstrated a knot on the metal cleat near his foot like he’d done thousands of times. At least his grandmother, had she still been alive, would have been proud of his skill with a rope and his soft spot for sea-hungry little boys.
Ann tucked one more blanket around little Addy. “That will do it. Now you come with me,” she said in her voice that was only reserved for babies. “Look at your pretty eyes. You are so alert today. There’s a good girl.”
“Thank you for taking her,” Ann’s mother whispered.
“Of course, Mum. I think the movement might help her calm down. Maybe she’ll sleep.”
Mother nodded and then opened the door to the cabin to let in some fresh air.
Ann glanced down at her sleeping sister once before leaving. Adelaide was exhausted from the long night she’d spent trying to help Addy. Ann had listened to the struggle between them: Adelaide trying to nurse Addy, and little Addy crying and sucking and then pulling off again, congestion in her sick throat and nose. Sometimes, Ann could tell the baby refused to suck at all. Finally, morning had come.
Had Adelaide been awake, she would have fretted too much about the baby to let Ann take her, but she’d finally succumbed to sleep.
Ann held Addy close as she walked. Once they reached the deck, the sun shone on them both, the air surprisingly warm and inviting. Addy’s small whimpers calmed, and the baby fell asleep.
The conditions were the best they’d had for the whole trip. She glanced down to the forecastle. President Garn stood before a crowd, partially through his sermon. His loud, booming voice carried on the wind. “And God protected us. Even when the stove broke loose, was anyone harmed?”
