Petaluma High School - Trojans Yearbook (Petaluma, CA)

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(Prize Story) C AP’N BERT stood on the wharf of a little fishing village with bitter thoughts in his mind, as he watehed the departing fish¬ ing vessel sail from the port. He had worked for a fishing company until the night before, when the manager had come with a younger man, and said that as the fish must be taken to the canneries faster, and as he was too slow, his services would no longer be required by the company. “But I Ml show ’em ’ he muttered as he slowly left the wharf. It had been cloudy and dark all day and all the fishermen ex¬ pected a great storm to break that night; but none of them suspected the ferocity that was coming with the storm. The rain came down in cloudbursts, the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the wind was a great hurricane, lashing the sea into high mountains of water. It was no night for a vessel to venture out to sea and yet the manager of the fishing company must have those fish in the canneries by the next morning. “The company will break up unless those fish are there. They have promised hundreds of orders for the next week, and unless the fish are supplied to the canneries daily, it will mean ruin to the com¬ pany,” he said to a group of fishermen in his office, with Cap’n Bert in one corner of the room, listening to the conversation. “What’s the matter with your cap’n, why don’t he try it?” Cap’n Bert spoke up. “He’s afraid of risking the lives of his men.” “It ain’t their lives, it’s his own; the coward.” If I could only find a man who would carry out the job he would have a permanent position the rest of his life in this company.” A light shone in Cap’n Bert’s eyes, for he loved the sea, and to be thrown from it hurt him more than one would think. “I’m the one to try it!” Cap’n Bert cried out. — 26 —