Tooner Schooner
Tooner Schooner
Mary Lasswell
Contents
Books by Mary Lasswell
SUDS IN YOUR EYE
HIGH TIME
ONE ON THE HOUSE
WAIT FOR THE WAGON
TOONER SCHOONER
LET’S GO FOR BROKE
The characters in this book are fictitious;any resemblance to real persons is wholly accidental and unintentional
For
LASS
M
RS
.
FEELEY
sat on the concrete doorstep of the trailer and looked at the ruins of her once florid garden. Mrs. Rasmussen was mending a pair of dungarees. Old-Timer had a pail of whitewash marking off oblongs in the parking lot. Miss Tinkham sat on a campstool near Mrs. Feeley reading a secondhand copy of
Holiday.
“Wisht I could lose myself in them ol’ books, the way you do,” Mrs. Feeley said.
Miss Tinkham smiled and showed Mrs. Feeley the colored pictures of Acapulco. “‘There is no frigate like a book to bear our spirits far away.’”
“Frigate!” Mrs. Feeley cheered up. “Let’s go down to the waterfront an’ see what we can stir up. I’m gettin’ cabin fever sittin’ here like a bump on a log. Hand me my shoes, Mrs. Rasmussen, dear.” Mrs. Feeley hitched up the elastic waistband of her pants. “Let’s move around a bit. Settle our minds. They ain’t no use layin’ out the garden till we decide where ’zackly we’re gonna put the Ark.”
“We’ll all be happier when we decide on the location of the Ark and whether or not to rebuild it exactly as it was,” Miss Tinkham said. “The cost of materials is frightful. We must come up with a really ingenious idea! Something worthy of our high moments; using materials that are common, and suited to our purpose, yet costing little…”
Mrs. Feeley nodded. “Somethin’ free. Somethin’ people throw away.”
Mrs. Rasmussen’s dark blue orlon dress was trim and neat. She took up her old string shopping bag. “Never can tell what donation might come our way an’ it’d be a shame not to have no way to carry it.”
“Darleen was a dear to give us these lovely frocks,” Miss Tinkham said, smoothing out the pleats of her nylon skirt. Enormous red hibiscus blossoms were strewn over a spidery black and white print. Her pink nylon blouse was frothy with ruffles. “Practical, these synthetics, but totally lacking in the elegance of some of my Bendels from the Thrift Shoppes.”
“I’ll stick to my vorl.” Mrs. Feeley smoothed the black voile with little pink springs in it. “Don’t let nobody sell you a wooden nutmeg,” she shouted to Old-Timer. “We’re goin’ down street.”
Old-Timer had his head down between his legs, painting In and Out signs with the whitewash. He waved the brush like a tail at them.
“Down towards the foot o’ Broadway?” Mrs. Rasmussen nodded and the three fell into step down Island Avenue.
“It’s so changed that scarcely any boats tie up alongside any more,” Miss Tinkham said.
“They’s a few boats alongside today. Don’t see no sailors.” Mrs. Feeley contemplated the bay, the docks and wharfs. “’Tain’t hardly the same at all. Glad we’re through with all that gallivantin’.” Miss Tinkham eyed her obliquely.
“Let us cultivate our gardens,” Miss Tinkham said. “I could have, by renewing my library card, gone right through the whole of Racine in the same time.”
“That’s in Wisconsin,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.
Their slow steps came to a dead stop. There she lay, riding sweetly and gently with the tide. Her tall varnished spars gleamed gold in the sun. Her satiny white sides dazzled the eye. The insides of the portholes were painted a rich red. A thin streak of gold leaf marked her sheer line. Like a pretty filly she tossed her small elliptical stern.
“Cast your eye over that.” A great shaft of a man in khaki shirt and trousers was coiling a line into a perfect and ornamental circle on the deck of the boat at the dock. His topsiders were immaculate and his yachting cap snowy. His open shirt displayed a hairy chest.
“Bet he sings bass,” Mrs. Feeley muttered.
“But look at his hands,” Miss Tinkham said, “and observe the delicacy of his mouth.”
“’Bout forty and his ears sticks out like the handles on my mother’s sugar bowl,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. Just then the man looked up at the trio. He looked straight into Mrs. Rasmussen’s face until she slid into one of her rare smiles. “Nice boat you got there.”
“Come aboard,” he boomed.
Mrs. Feeley looked at Mrs. Rasmussen, then at Miss Tinkham. They stared first at the scrubbed teak decks of the schooner and then at the man who issued the invitation. Mrs. Feeley placed one foot gingerly on the gleaming mahogany rail.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Miss Tinkham said gently. “Mustn’t touch the rail!”
“I always put my foot on the rail, first thing,” Mrs. Feeley announced.
“That’s all right, long’s it’s made of brass,” the man bellowed.
“That’s the kind we stands on mostly.” Mrs. Feeley grinned, showing her toothless gums.
“Come aboard! Step smattly, now!” A well-shaped hand took Mrs. Feeley’s hand in a firm grip.
“We apologize for not having worn sneakers, Captain,” Miss Tinkham said. Mrs. Rasmussen and Mrs. Feeley looked at her quizzically. “If we step on the cocoa matting, perhaps we won’t mar the deck too much.”
“Hell…’scuse me! That’s all right! Take ’em off, if you’ve a mind!”
“That’s for me!” Mrs. Feeley sat down on the deck and took them off. Mrs. Rasmussen sat in one of the low deck chairs to remove her oxfords.
“You the Captain, for real?” she said.
“Ayah. I’m the Captain, all right.”
“Sure big,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.
“Fifty-two six. Sleeps eight. I chatter.”
“You seem extremely laconic to me.” Miss Tinkham fished out her lorgnette.
“Haul passengers for hire.”
“He charters,” Miss Tinkham said.
“Is that bad?” Mrs. Feeley said.
“Sometimes ’tis. Sometimes ’tain’t. Not doin’ so much lately. Had a passel o’ fools aboard last trip. Drove us daffy. The cook took to his hammick with a bottle a rum an’ lay there guzzlin’ for ten days, kickin’ it down with his heels.”
“You cook?” Mrs. Rasmussen’s topaz eyes looked into the captain’s.
“Ayah. Have to bear a hand at everything in this racket.”
“Them’s sails,” Mrs. Feeley said, “but what kinda sailboat is it?”
“It’s a schooner…gaff rig.”
“Schooner!” Mrs. Feeley shouted. “Wouldn’t you know it?” The captain looked puzzled.
“Mrs. Feeley is referring to our fondness for schooners,” Miss Tinkham said.
“Best boat there is,” the captain said.
“She means beer schooners.” Mrs. Rasmussen came to his aid, then blushed. It sounded like hinting.
“Come below!” The captain slid the hatch cover back and stood by.
“You go first, Mrs. Rasmussen.” Miss Tinkham took charge as she clamped her flaring skirt firmly between her knees. “Then Mrs. Feeley, and I’ll go down ahead of the captain; my costume is not quite…They choke me.”
The captain’s face was red as he went down the ladder backwards. “Make yourselves to home.”
“Gawd!” Mrs. Feeley exhaled reverently.
“Ain’t it bewruhful?” Mrs. Rasmussen sank down with a sigh on one of the foam rubber mattresses of a bunk that served as a sofa. “Carpets all over.”
“Nothing short of palatial.” Miss Tinkham leaned against the back of the bunk in supreme content. There were downy cushions under her elbows, soft shaded lights on the bulkheads, and a polished mahogany table against the wall at her right. Over the bunk facing her was a set of bookracks filled with books still in their gaudy dust jackets. Opposite the table, a mahogany cabinet held a silver ice bucket and the complete paraphernalia of a bar.
“Care for a snort?” the captain said.
“Beer?” Mrs. Feeley said.
“Comin’ up.”
“Funny how you can tell your own from far.” Mrs. Rasmussen looked smug. The captain fished three pewter beer mugs from an ice chest filled with crushed ice. He poured the beer into them deftly.
“Here’s how,” he said.
“We know how.” Mrs. Feeley smiled and raised her mug.
“Mrs. Feeley, Mrs. Rasmussen, and Miss Tinkham.” Miss Tinkham indicated each of them with a wave of the hand. “And now, if you please…whose beer have we the pleasure of drinking?”
“Elisha Dowdy, Bawth, Maine.” The captain took hold of his cap brim and ducked his head shyly from under it. “Welcome aboard.”
“What’s its name?” Mrs. Feeley said.
“South Wind.
But when I have to run her on engine I call her
Gassy Lena.”
“You said she sleeps eight?” Miss Tinkham said.
“Four in the main cabin,” the captain said. “These lift up.” He took hold of the back part of one of the sofas and lifted it up, showing the ladies how it fastened with hooks to a chain.
“Like an upper berth,” Miss Tinkham said.
“Two in here.” He stepped through a passageway and the ladies followed into a neat cabin with a single bunk on either side. “Two more in here, in the chat room.”
“That’s eight. Where do you sleep?” Mrs. Rasmussen asked.
Mrs. Feeley winked at Miss Tinkham.
“Two pipe bunks in the galley, for me an’ the cook, an’ the crew forrard in hammicks in the engine room.”
“That’s more’n eight,” Mrs. Feeley said.