not averse, under the stimulus of good listeners, to telling all they
knew about it and sometimes a little more.

Scattered through the Cove were many little shoemakers' shops, into
which, especially in the long winter evenings, these old salts would
drift. There around the little cylinder stove, with its leather-chip
fire, leaking a fragrance the memory of which makes me homesick as I
write about it, they would swap their stories of the sea, many of which
had originally been based on fact.

These old derelicts--and some of the younger seafaring men--were better
than dime novels to us boys, for we could always question them and draw
out another story. Some of them were unconscious heroes who had often
risked their lives for their comrades and the vessel owners; and for the
support and comfort of their families no dangers or hardships had seemed
too great to be undertaken or endured. We boys held these old salts in
high esteem, and never forgot to give to each his appropriate title of
"Captain" or "Skipper," as the case might be. We also occasionally had
some fun with them.

We never thought of any of them as bad men, though some of them, by
their own testimony, had lived wild and reckless lives. One or two,
according to persistent rumor, had carried out cargoes of New England
rum and brought back shiploads of "black ivory" from the West coast of
Africa. Not a few of them were picturesquely profane. Old Skipper Tom
Bowman had a very original oath, "tender-eyed Satan!" which he must have
had copyrighted, as he was the only one that I ever heard use it. We
boys would sometimes bait him, provoking him to exasperation, that we
might hear it in all its original force and fervor.