Page 14 - The Ashley Book of Knots

ON KNOTS

be no mere transient fad. Nor was it the relmlt of sentiment or of

suasion. The answer was simple, and far deeper; the return to his

first love was natural and wholly unpremeditated. The sailor's hand

and eye, long slaves to magazine and book, were again free. The one

no longer turned the leaf while the other scanned the printed page.

Magazines and books were tossed aside unopened.

And now while the cheerful radio in the forecastle bleats out the

latest baseball and cricket scores, or prize-fight gossip, from five

hundred or two thousand miles away, the sailor's hands again deftly

fashion a knotted belt or handbag for his lady, or for anyone of

his several ladies, in whatever port his ship is headed for; and if he is

musically inclined he cheerfully whistles an obbligato to the radio

soloist of the moment, while his fingers once more ply the knotted

cords.

This I hold to be real pro ress; and the sailor today is a far happier

mortal than ever he was be ore. Something of course is missing, for

gone are the tall ships of yesterday, but somewhere in the offing

may be something else quite as beautiful.

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Also, just beyond the horizon is the threat of the cinema and tele- ",..

vision, which require only a little popularizing cheapness before they

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too will invade the forecastle; when they do the sailor's hands will I

again be idle. "

My earliest schooling in knots was received from two uncles, who

were whaling captains. One taught me the REEF KNOT when I was

three years old, but a little sailboat model he promised to make

me, when I had learned my lesson, was never completed, for he

crossed the bar soon after. Years later my aunt gave me the model of

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a whaleboat that he had made for her, and which had traveled as far \. I _,
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as the first Paris Exposition; and so the score was settled. My other " . ~... X

uncle taught me to sinnet. He had agreed to make me a whiplash, but L"

as he proved dilatory, or so it seemed to a boy of my age, I secured

material and, with a little coaching, made the lash myself. When

I was seven my father gave me a pony on condition that I master the

HALTER HITCH.

Before I had reached the age of nine I was proprietor and chief

canvasman of a two-ring circus that was widely, even if somewhat

conventionally, advertised as the "Greatest Show on Earth." The

tent was made of carriage covers that had been more or less honorably

acquired, but the center poles had been pilfered from the clothesline.

Besides being canvasman I was also trapeze performer, bearded lady,

ticket seller, and ringmaster. It was in the first of my several capacities

that I required a knowledge of splicing and the use of the sailor's

palm and needle. My uncle at this time being away at sea, I found a

teacher at the wharfside and cut out, seamed, and roped the tent

with the assistance of Daniel Mullins (now Captain Mullins) and

several other boys of the neighborhood. The circus presently took to

the road, but it went into winter quarters abruptly and disbanded be-

cause of a misunderstanding over a piece of borrowed costume which -

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the older generation deemed inappropriate for the street parade. v

Eventually the tent was cut up into haycaps. ~~.I1A \ {

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