Free Timothy of the Cay by Theodore Taylor Page B

"Heave away!" The upper tops'ls were soon set; then the lower tops'ls were sheeted home. After that the headsails went up.
    Timothy was too busy taking orders to do more than glance back at the figure of Tante Hannah. She was still on the wharf.
    Abeam of Water Island, the
Glory
said good-bye and soon the topgallants and royals and all the fore-and-aft canvases were bellying out in the light easterly breeze.
    The
Gertrude Theismann
was underway for Rio.
    ***
    Her master, Captain Donald Roberts, of Maine, wrote in his journal, which was kept separate from the terse official log:
    Â 
JUNE 8,1886, 7:30
A.M .—Departed St. Thomas without incident. I'm always quite ready to leave port though Mr. Tanner reported only one fight here amongst the crew. The usual reason, Demon Rum.
While in port I added a West Indian apprentice seaman to replace the boy who fell out of the mizzen crosstrees, 160 feet above deck. (He landed like a bag of beans, and I buried him sewed in canvas off Florida, as noted in the log.)
This new apprentice is named Timothy. He said he would work from St. Thomas to Rio and back for the price of a pair of shoes, a bargain I could not pass up. Though polite, he is a bold black boy. When I called him "Tim," he said, "Sirrah Coptin, I 'ave but one name, 'tis Timothy." I almost bashed his mouth but then laughed inwardly. After watching him on deck the past three days I believe he may turn out to be a good seaman. He knows what happened to the last boy and will likely be careful aloft.
For obvious reasons I did not tell him we won't be returning to Philadelphia via St. Thomas. I will take on additional stores and make the run from Rio to the Delaware capes in one long voyage, God willing. Unless my schedule is changed, this vessel will proceed to Le Havre, France, after we reload in Philadelphia. The boy will have to make his own way back to the Caribbean unless he wants to cross the Atlantic with me, and I with him. I've ordered Luther to train him well.
    Â 
    Four o'clock in the afternoon: all gear had been stowed away long ago, the decks hosed to wash down shore dust, and countless other ship-keeping chores performed.
    Not until that time—work done for the day and night, unless there was a shift of sails—could Timothy fully take it all in, the sights and sounds. Then he realized he was indeed at sea; that the life he'd always wanted had finally begun. He would not awaken in Back o' All tomorrow.
    The sea had turned deep blue as the hours passed, and the white thunderheads had reached higher in the western sky. There was a rhythmic creaking and wearing as the
Theismann
gently rose and fell, a hiss of water under her bow.
    He went forward and straddled the bowsprit for a long while, looking ahead, almost hypnotized. Then he turned and looked up at the bellied sails—the skysails, the royals, the topgallants.
    He walked along the tar-seamed warm deck aft to stand at the starboard rail near the big steering wheel, watching Horace Simpson move the spokes, wondering how long it would be before the captain and mate trusted him at the helm. Mr. Tanner had the watch.
    The captain was still in the whites he'd worn on departure—white shirt, white pants, white shoes—and a blue cap, from which peeked curls of white hair. He was smoking a pipe and had a faraway look on his face.
    Timothy knew, for many reasons, that he'd never look so fancy as this captain. When he got his own schooner, whenever that would be, he'd have bare feet and his pants might be tattered, his shirt worn and stained. But how he dressed would not matter. What would matter was being master of the
Hannah Gumbs.
    For three days he'd thought about the
bukra
boy he'd replaced, the one who'd fallen off the mizzen crosstrees. They were so high up the mast his breath squeezed just thinking about them. The crosstrees were a pair of horizontal timbers that supported the tiny highest platform on the mizzenmast. From the deck they looked