we were huddled together in the forecastle, wondering about their fate,
while the old fishermen told stories of the fog and its fearful toll of
human life. It seemed a terrible thing for the old man and his boy to be
out there, drifting no one knew where; and though we were accustomed to
danger, there was a gloomy crew and little sleep on our schooner that
night. In the morning the weather cleared and soon our missing boat came
alongside; we received them as men alive from the dead. They had found
shelter on another fishing vessel that happened to be lying at anchor
not more than two or three miles away.

There was reason for our solicitude, for we knew very well that a large
proportion of the men who get adrift in the fog are never found alive.
Shortly before this experience we had spoken a Gloucester vessel and
learned that her crew had picked up, a short time before, one of the
boats of a Provincetown schooner that had been adrift four days. One of
the two men was dead and the other insane. Each day brought its own
dangers, which the fishermen met as part of the day's work, thinking
little of them when they were past, and ready for whatever another day
might bring.

But four months is a long time to be out of sight of land, on a fresh
fish and "salt hoss" diet, with molasses instead of sugar in your tea,
and fresh water too much needed for drinking purposes to waste in
personal ablutions. We all swore that we would never go to sea again;
and when, after gliding into harbor in the night, we looked, one clear
September morning, on the seemingly unnatural green of the grass and
trees of the old North Shore, I said to myself, "This is God's country,
if there ever was one, and I, for one, will never get out of sight of it
again."