Gradual as was my development as a heavy drinker among the oyster pirates,the real heavy drinking came suddenly,and was the result,not of desire for alcohol,but of an intellectual conviction.
The more I saw of the life,the more I was enamoured of it.I can never forget my thrills the first night I took part in a concerted raid,when we assembled on board the Annie--rough men,big and unafraid,and weazened wharf-rats,some of them ex-convicts,all of them enemies of the law and meriting jail,in sea-boots and sea-gear,talking in gruff low voices,and "Big"George with revolvers strapped about his waist to show that he meant business.
Oh,I know,looking back,that the whole thing was sordid and silly.But I was not looking back in those days when I was rubbing shoulders with John Barleycorn and beginning to accept him.The life was brave and wild,and I was living the adventure I had read so much about.
Nelson,"Young Scratch"they called him,to distinguish him from "Old Scratch,"his father,sailed in the sloop Reindeer,partners with one "Clam."Clam was a dare-devil,but Nelson was a reckless maniac.He was twenty years old,with the body of a Hercules.
When he was shot in Benicia,a couple of years later,the coroner said he was the greatest-shouldered man he had ever seen laid on a slab.
Nelson could not read or write.He had been "dragged"up by his father on San Francisco Bay,and boats were second nature with him.His strength was prodigious,and his reputation along the water-front for violence was anything but savoury.He had Berserker rages and did mad,terrible things.I made his acquaintance the first cruise of the Razzle Dazzle,and saw him sail the Reindeer in a blow and dredge oysters all around the rest of us as we lay at two anchors,troubled with fear of going ashore.
He was some man,this Nelson;and when,passing by the Last Chance saloon,he spoke to me,I felt very proud.But try to imagine my pride when he promptly asked me in to have a drink.I stood at the bar and drank a glass of beer with him,and talked manfully of oysters,and boats,and of the mystery of who had put the load of buckshot through the Annie's mainsail.
We talked and lingered at the bar.It seemed to me strange that we lingered.We had had our beer.But who was I to lead the way outside when great Nelson chose to lean against the bar?After a few minutes,to my surprise,he asked me to have another drink,which I did.And still we talked,and Nelson evinced no intention of leaving the bar.
Bear with me while I explain the way of my reasoning and of my innocence.First of all,I was very proud to be in the company of Nelson,who was the most heroic figure among the oyster pirates and bay adventurers.Unfortunately for my stomach and mucous membranes,Nelson had a strange quirk of nature that made him find happiness in treating me to beer.I had no moral disinclination for beer,and just because I didn't like the taste of it and the weight of it was no reason I should forgo the honour of his company.It was his whim to drink beer,and to have me drink beer with him.Very well,I would put up with the passing discomfort.
So we continued to talk at the bar,and to drink beer ordered and paid for by Nelson.I think,now,when I look back upon it,that Nelson was curious.He wanted to find out just what kind of a gink I was.He wanted to see how many times I'd let him treat without offering to treat in return.
After I had drunk half a dozen glasses,my policy of temperateness in mind,I decided that I had had enough for that time.So Imentioned that I was going aboard the Razzle Dazzle,then lying at the city wharf,a hundred yards away.
I said good-bye to Nelson,and went on down the wharf.But,John Barleycorn,to the extent of six glasses,went with me.My brain tingled and was very much alive.I was uplifted by my sense of manhood.I,a truly-true oyster pirate,was going aboard my own boat after hob-nobbing in the Last Chance with Nelson,the greatest oyster pirate of us all.Strong in my brain was the vision of us leaning against the bar and drinking beer.And curious it was,I decided,this whim of nature that made men happy in spending good money for beer for a fellow like me who didn't want it.
As I pondered this,I recollected that several times other men,in couples,had entered the Last Chance,and first one,then the other,had treated to drinks.I remembered,on the drunk on the Idler,how Scotty and the harpooner and myself had raked and scraped dimes and nickels with which to buy the whisky.Then came my boy code:when on a day a fellow gave another a "cannon-ball"or a chunk of taffy,on some other day he would expect to receive back a cannon-ball or a chunk of taffy.
That was why Nelson had lingered at the bar.Having bought a drink,he had waited for me to buy one.I HAD,LET HIM BUY SIXDRINKS AND NEVER ONCE OFFERED TO TREAT.And he was the great Nelson!I could feel myself blushing with shame.I sat down on the stringer-piece of the wharf and buried my face in my hands.
And the heat of my shame burned up my neck and into my cheeks and forehead.I have blushed many times in my life,but never have Iexperienced so terrible a blush as that one.
And sitting there on the stringer-piece in my shame,I did a great deal of thinking and transvaluing of values.I had been born poor.Poor I had lived.I had gone hungry on occasion.I had never had toys nor playthings like other children.My first memories of life were pinched by poverty.The pinch of poverty had been chronic.I was eight years old when I wore my first little undershirt actually sold in a store across the counter.
And then it had been only one little undershirt.When it was soiled I had to return to the awful home-made things until it was washed.I had been so proud of it that I insisted on wearing it without any outer garment.For the first time I mutinied against my mother--mutinied myself into hysteria,until she let me wear the store undershirt so all the world could see.
