Fishers -- Fiction; Fishing villages -- Fiction; Immigrants -- Fiction; San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.) -- Fiction; Short stories
We strained our eyes for a glimpse of the town, and the first sight we
caught of it gave us immense relief. The wharves were black with men.
As we came closer, we could see them still arriving, stringing down the
main street, guns in their hands and on the run. Charley glanced astern
at the fishermen with a look of ownership in his eye which till then had
been missing. The Greeks were plainly overawed by the display of armed
strength and were putting their own rifles away.
We took in topsail and staysail, dropped the main peak, and as we got
abreast of the principal wharf jibed the mainsail. The _Mary Rebecca_
shot around into the wind, the captive fishermen describing a great arc
behind her, and forged ahead till she lost way, when lines we’re flung
ashore and she was made fast. This was accomplished under a hurricane of
cheers from the delighted miners.
Ole Ericsen heaved a great sigh. “Ay never tank Ay see my wife never
again,” he confessed.
“Why, we were never in any danger,” said Charley.
Ole looked at him incredulously.
“Sure, I mean it,” Charley went on. “All we had to do, any time, was to
let go our end—as I am going to do now, so that those Greeks can untangle
their nets.”
He went below with a monkey-wrench, unscrewed the nut, and let the hook
drop off. When the Greeks had hauled their nets into their boats and
made everything shipshape, a posse of citizens took them off our hands
and led them away to jail.
“Ay tank Ay ban a great big fool,” said Ole Ericsen. But he changed his
mind when the admiring townspeople crowded aboard to shake hands with
him, and a couple of enterprising newspaper men took photographs of the
_Mary Rebecca_ and her captain.
DEMETRIOS CONTOS
IT must not be thought, from what I have told of the Greek fishermen,
that they were altogether bad. Far from it. But they were rough men,
gathered together in isolated communities and fighting with the elements
for a livelihood. They lived far away from the law and its workings, did
not understand it, and thought it tyranny. Especially did the fish laws
seem tyrannical. And because of this, they looked upon the men of the
fish patrol as their natural enemies.
We menaced their lives, or their living, which is the same thing, in many
ways. We confiscated illegal traps and nets, the materials of which had
cost them considerable sums and the making of which required weeks of
labor. We prevented them from catching fish at many times and seasons,
which was equivalent to preventing them from making as good a living as
they might have made had we not been in existence. And when we captured
them, they were brought into the courts of law, where heavy cash fines
were collected from them. As a result, they hated us vindictively. As
the dog is the natural enemy of the cat, the snake of man, so were we of
the fish patrol the natural enemies of the fishermen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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