An ocean pilot-boat lay off Tompkinsville of an early spring afternoon, in the stillest water. The sun was bright, and only the lightest wind was stirring. When we reached the end of the old cotton dock, an illustrator and myself, commissioned by a then but now no more popular magazine, there she was, a small, two-masted schooner of about fifty tons burden, rocking gently upon the water. We accepted the services of a hawking urchin, who had a canoe to rent, and who had followed us down the main street in the hope of earning a half-dollar. He led the way through a hole in a fence that enclosed the street at the water end and down a long, stilted plank walk to a mess of craft and rigging, where we found his little tub, and pushed out. In a few minutes we had crossed the quiet stretch of water and were alongside. [Illustration] Like all pilot-boats, the _Hermann Oelrichs_ was built low in the water, so that it was easy to jump aboard. Her sails were furled and, from the quiet prevailing, one might have supposed that the crew had gone into the village. No sound issued until we reached the companionway. Then below we could see the cook scraping cold ashes out of a fireless stove. He was cleaning the cabin and putting things to rights before the pilots arrived. He accepted our intrusion with a friendly glance. “Captain Rierson told us to come aboard,” we said. “All right, sir. Stow your things in any one of them bunks.” We went about this while the ashes were taken out and tossed overboard. When the cook returned it was with a bucket and brush, and he attacked the oilcloth on the floor industriously. “Cozy little cabin, this, eh?” “Yes, she’s a comfortable little boat,” replied the cook. “These pilots take things purty comfortable. She’s not as fast as some of the boats, but she’s all right in rough weather.” “Do you encounter much rough weather?” “Well, now and again,” answered the cook, with the vaguest suggestion of a twinkle in his eye. “It’s purty rough sometimes in winter.” “How long do you stay out?” “Sometimes three, sometimes five days, sometimes we get rid of all seven pilots the first day--there’s no telling. It’s all ’cording to how the steamers come in.” “So we may be out a week?” “About that. Maybe ten days.” We went on deck. It was warm and bright. Some sailors from the fore-hatch were scrubbing down the deck, which dried white and warm as fast as they swabbed off the water. Wide-winged gulls were circling high and low among the ships of the harbor. On Staten Island many a little curl of smoke rose from the chimneys of white cottages. That evening the crew of five men kept quietly to their quarters and slept. The moon shone clear until ten, when the barometer suddenly fell and clouds came out of the east. By cock-crow it was raining, and by morning it was drizzling and cold.