We sat in the shade of two wooden piles with the glare of a midsummer sun all around us. The East River had been like a crowded creek compared to this wide expanse of water slapping and gleaming out there in the sun with smoke shadows chasing over it all. There was the rough odor of smoke in the air from craft of all kinds as they skurried about. The high black bow of a Cunarder loomed at the end of the dock next ours. Far across the river the stout German liners lay at their berths--and they did not look like sea hogs. What a change had come over the harbor since I had met that motorboat. How all the hogs had waddled away, and the very smoke and the oil on the waves had taken on deep, vivid hues--as I had seen through Eleanore's eyes. "What a strange wonderful purple," her low voice seemed to murmur at my side.
"She's going away from here," said Ab. I started:
"That Cunarder. Look at the smoke pour out of her stacks. Got a cigarette about you?"
In the slip on our other side a large freight boat was loading, and a herd of scows and barges were pressing close around her. These clumsy craft had cabins, and in some whole families lived. "Harbor Gypsies." A good title. I had paid the butcher, but the grocer was still waiting. So I dismissed my motorboat and grimly turned to scows instead. Children by the dozen were making friends from barge to barge. Dogs were all about us and they too were busy visiting. High up on the roof of a coal lighter's cabin an impudent little skye-terrier kept barking at the sooty men who were shoveling down below. One of these from time to time would lift his black face and good-humoredly call, "Oh, you go to hell"--which would drive the small dog into frenzies. Most of the barges had derrick masts, and all these masts were moving. They rose between me and the sky, bobbing, tossing and criss-crossing, filling the place with the feeling of life, the unending, restless life of the sea.
An ear-shattering roar broke in on it all. Our Cunarder was starting. Smoke belching black from her funnels, the monster was beginning to move.
But what was this woman doing close by us? Out of the cabin of a barge she had dragged a little rocking chair, and now she had brought out a baby, all dressed up in its Sunday best, and was rocking expectantly, watching the ship. Thundering to the harbor, the Cunarder now moved slowly out. As she swept into the river the end of the pier was revealed to our eyes all black with people waving. They waved until she was out in midstream. Then, as they began to turn away, one plump motherly-looking woman happened to glance toward us.