I was barely turned fifteen,and working long hours in a cannery.
Month in and month out,the shortest day I ever worked was ten hours.When to ten hours of actual work at a machine is added the noon hour;the walking to work and walking home from work;the getting up in the morning,dressing,and eating;the eating at night,undressing,and going to bed,there remains no more than the nine hours out of the twenty-four required by a healthy youngster for sleep.Out of those nine hours,after I was in bed and ere my eyes drowsed shut,I managed to steal a little time for reading.
But many a night I did not knock off work until midnight.On occasion I worked eighteen and twenty hours on a stretch.Once Iworked at my machine for thirty-six consecutive hours.And there were weeks on end when I never knocked off work earlier than eleven o'clock,got home and in bed at half after midnight,and was called at half-past five to dress,eat,walk to work,and be at my machine at seven o'clock whistle blow.
No moments here to be stolen for my beloved books.And what had John Barleycorn to do with such strenuous,Stoic toil of a lad just turned fifteen?He had everything to do with it.Let me show you.I asked myself if this were the meaning of life--to be a work-beast?I knew of no horse in the city of Oakland that worked the hours I worked.If this were living,I was entirely unenamoured of it.I remembered my skiff,lying idle and accumulating barnacles at the boat-wharf;I remembered the wind that blew every day on the bay,the sunrises and sunsets I never saw;the bite of the salt air in my nostrils,the bite of the salt water on my flesh when I plunged overside;I remembered all the beauty and the wonder and the sense-delights of the world denied me.There was only one way to escape my deadening toil.I must get out and away on the water.I must earn my bread on the water.
And the way of the water led inevitably to John Barleycorn.I did not know this.And when I did learn it,I was courageous enough not to retreat back to my bestial life at the machine.
I wanted to be where the winds of adventure blew.And the winds of adventure blew the oyster pirate sloops up and down San Francisco Bay,from raided oyster-beds and fights at night on shoal and flat,to markets in the morning against city wharves,where peddlers and saloon-keepers came down to buy.Every raid on an oyster-bed was a felony.The penalty was State imprisonment,the stripes and the lockstep.And what of that?The men in stripes worked a shorter day than I at my machine.And there was vastly more romance in being an oyster pirate or a convict than in being a machine slave.And behind it all,behind all of me with youth abubble,whispered Romance,Adventure.
So I interviewed my Mammy Jennie,my old nurse at whose black breast I had suckled.She was more prosperous than my folks.She was nursing sick people at a good weekly wage.Would she lend her "white child"the money?WOULD SHE?What she had was mine.
Then I sought out French Frank,the oyster pirate,who wanted to sell,I had heard,his sloop,the Razzle Dazzle.I found him lying at anchor on the Alameda side of the estuary near the Webster Street bridge,with visitors aboard,whom he was entertaining with afternoon wine.He came on deck to talk business.He was willing to sell.But it was Sunday.Besides,he had guests.On the morrow he would make out the bill of sale and I could enter into possession.And in the meantime I must come below and meet his friends.They were two sisters,Mamie and Tess;a Mrs.Hadley,who chaperoned them;"Whisky"Bob,a youthful oyster pirate of sixteen;and "Spider"Healey,a black-whiskered wharf-rat of twenty.Mamie,who was Spider's niece,was called the Queen of the Oyster Pirates,and,on occasion,presided at their revels.French Frank was in love with her,though I did not know it at the time;and she steadfastly refused to marry him.
French Frank poured a tumbler of red wine from a big demijohn to drink to our transaction.I remembered the red wine of the Italian rancho,and shuddered inwardly.Whisky and beer were not quite so repulsive.But the Queen of the Oyster Pirates was looking at me,a part-emptied glass in her own hand.I had my pride.If I was only fifteen,at least I could not show myself any less a man than she.Besides,there were her sister,and Mrs.
