John Barleycorn

llow, as well as no coward. And somehow, from the day I achieved that concept sitting on the stringer-piece of the Oakland City Wharf, I have never ca

oys of the neighbourhood and give to them all my collections. I never even cared to learn what boys got

s something in me despite my youth. And I continued to show what was in me. There were the times I brought the Razzle Dazzle in with a bigger load of oysters than any other two-man craft; there was the time when we raided far down in Lower Bay, and mine was the only craft back at daylight to the anchorage off Asparagus Island; there was the Thursday night we raced for mar

ster Beds," was that I was a good fellow ashore with my money, buying drinks like a man. I little dreamed that the time would c

aloons are congregating places. We engaged to meet one another in saloons. We cele

enough. But there was more in it than that. He was owner and master of the scow-schooner Annie Mine, and some day I might ship as a sailor with him. Still more, he was romance. H

he saloon to bring us together. Even so, our acquaintance might have been no more tha

was incumbent on him to listen to me and to talk to me. And Johnny, like a true host, made the tactful remarks that enabled us to find mutual topics of conversation. And

knew much about the sea-life he had lived. So he drifted back to his wild young days, and spun many a rare yarn for me, while we downed beer, tre

pride forbade anything else than large beers. And not until the skipper ordered his first small beer did I order one for myself. Oh, when we came to a lingering fond farewell,

because he was known as a savage, cantankerous old cuss who never liked anybody. (His very nickname, "Scratch," arose from a Berserker trick of his, in fighting, of tearing off his opponent's face.) And that