A Boy and His Boat
A Christmas Story
By Sandra Sylvester
Every time he walked up
the street Quint stopped a minute to look at his boat. Well it really wasn’t
his boat…yet…but it would be some day.
His boat was a peaked
nose skiff and it had been sitting in his neighbor’s yard set up on some pieces
of wood for a long time now. It had a For
Sale sign on it that was even fading because the boat had been sitting
there so long.
The guy who was selling
it, Frankie Ames, was now stern man for his father and didn’t need the skiff
anymore. He’d once pulled his own traps from it, but he’d outgrown it now that
he went to haul with his father every day. So the boat sat. It’d been there all
summer and now with fall and winter coming on, Quint was afraid the boat would
rot if it sat there much longer.
Quint knew Frankie quite
well because their fathers were good friends. They were both lobstermen and
living in the South End as they did, they looked out for each other even though
they were in competition for the best places to set their pots along the shore.
Frankie wanted $50 for
the skiff and Quint thought that was too much money. It was 1955 and coming by
that much money would be hard even if he did have a newspaper route.
Quint was in the middle
of an all boy family. There were two brothers younger and two older. The Withee
family didn’t have a lot of extra money to throw around so if you wanted
something you pretty much were on your own.
Quint’s whole name was
Quinton Thomas Withee. The Quinton came from a crush his mother had when she
was in summer camp as a teenager. All the girls had a crush on the swimming
supervisor, Quinton. His mother, Evelyn, swore she would name one of her kids
after him when she grew up. Quint was the only one she got to name and she had
to fight for it too. Thomas was the concession as it was a Withee family name,
so she agreed to use it for his middle name.
Even though his mother
doted on him, he often felt lost in the family. His two younger brothers were
too young to play with and besides they were brats. As much as he wanted to tag
along with his two older brothers, that rarely happened. So he ended up hanging
out mostly with his friends down at Sandy Beach which ran along the bottom of
the South End. They’d set up some glass bottles on the rocks that people had
just tossed over the banking, and throw rocks at them. The small beach was
often used as a garbage dump in those days.
If it was summer, they
had to wait till the tide came in and covered the sewer pipes that ran into the
ocean before they could swim in the water. Sometimes the submerged pipes were
used as jumping off places.
It didn’t feel like
summer on this day as Quint trudged through the slush and snow up Mcloud Street
to go pick up his papers at Jack Green’s grocery-type store on the corner of
Pleasant and Main Streets. He’d then walk up Pleasant Street to Broadway to
deliver those papers; then he’d pick up some more papers at Bobil’s Market on
the corner of Pleasant and Broadway and deliver them along Broadway and some of
the side streets along the way. It was a long route and not a very pleasant one
in the wind and cold like it was today. In the summer time he used an old bike
that the boys in the family shared; but in the winter he just slung his
newspaper bag over his shoulder and across his chest.
Every penny Quint earned
from his newspaper job went into a canning jar he kept under the small cot that
was his bed He shared a room with his two younger brothers who had the bunk
beds. He never took the jar out unless they were out of the room. Being the
brats they were he just knew they’d run up to Skim’s store and buy all the
candy and soda pop they could if they found his stash.
Quint’s father, Winny
(short for Winston) knew how much his son wanted to be a lobsterman. When he
was 12-years-old like Quint was now he couldn’t wait to get out on the water in
some kind of boat like his own father, a lobsterman too. It was in the blood he
guessed. He got his own lobstering license when he was barely five and he’d
bought each of his boys a license for their fifth birthdays. Who knew what
would happen in the future? At least his boys would have an occupation if they
wanted it.
Winny wasn’t so sure
about this boat Quint wanted though. It was a lot of money and there was no way
he could help the kid. He about kept food on the table and a roof over their
heads as it was. He talked to Quint one day about his plans and how he thought
he could get aholt of that boat he wanted so much.
“Lobstering is hard
work, son,” he said. “You sure you want to get into it so soon? I’d put you on
as stern man but your brother, Paulie, is with me now. I can’t afford both of
you. Besides, you’d probably be in the way more than anything and you and Paulie
don’t exactly get along very well either.”
“Ah, I know Dad. I
couldn’t stand being on that boat all day with him, that’s for sure. He don’t
like me and he’s always hitting me in the shoulder.”
“Well, you’re a big kid,
Quint, and you probably could handle the skiff all right, but what about
everything else you’d need? That stuff don’t come cheap you know.”
“Like what?” Quint said.
“You gotta have oars for
that boat don’t ya? And what about pots, warp, bait bags and all that stuff?
Then you gotta buy bait too.”
Quint rubbed his face
with both hands like he always did when he was worried about what to do about
something. “I know, Dad. At least if I had the boat I’d have one thing at
least…the most important thing.”
“Well, how much money
you got right now?”
“I got about $25, about
half I guess.”
“How long did it take
you to get that money even?”
“I dunno. Quite a while
I think.”
“I don’t think you’re
going to make enough money on that paper route to get that boat in the water by
spring…not with everything else you’ll need to go with it.”
“Well, Dad…er…I was
hoping that maybe you could help me out with some of the other stuff. Don’t you
have a couple old traps I can repair so I’d have something to start out with?”
“Maybe…we’ll see. First
like you say, you need the boat first. If you can pay Ames for it by Spring,
I’ll see what I can do. OK?”
Quint’s face lit up with
the thought of being a real lobsterman. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll have that boat by
spring, you’ll see.”
“OK, Quint, OK,” Winny
said, not too enthusiastically. He wasn’t so sure about his son’s plans, but
the kid had to learn you can’t always have what you want. He’d just watch and
see what happened.
That winter, Evelyn got
sick. Real sick. She had some kind of blood disease and Quint ended up taking
care of his two little brothers a lot and even helping with the housework. His
mother didn’t have too much energy and she slept a lot. She even ended up in
the hospital a couple times and what money they had in the house soon
disappeared for medicine and hospital and doctor’s bills. Winny couldn’t afford
health insurance so he ended up making payments to the hospital, the doctor,
etc. so that he could at least feed the boys.
It was a rough winter.
By the time Quint got through with his route; helped feed his little brothers;
did his homework and maybe listened to the Lone Ranger on the radio; he was
pooped and some nights he fell into bed with all his clothes on. There was no
one left to even take his clothes off for him or to take care of him at all. He
tried to take the place of his mother while his father was out trying to get
some odd jobs during the off season and his older brothers were doing the same.
Sometimes he was so tired and hungry he’d fall asleep at his desk at school and
the teacher would yell at him.
Along about Christmas
time, his mother took a turn for the worse and they didn’t know if she’d last
till the holiday. She was in the hospital again and in and out of
consciousness. Quint went to the hospital every day and just sat by her bed holding
her hand. He just made the cut off for being old enough to go into the wards.
All the nurses knew him by his first name after a while. They’d bring him a
candy bar or some other treat to cheer him up a little. They didn’t know very
many boys his age who would be so attentive to their sick mother like Quint
was.
It looked to be a very
sparse holiday in the Withee household. No one was even in the mood to go out
and find a tree and put decorations on it. As for Christmas presents, there
probably wouldn’t be any unless some charity or other adopted them for the
holiday. It was a quiet household. They mostly just sat around looking glum and
worried about their mother. She was the glue who held them all together. What
would happen if she never came home again?
A couple weeks before
Christmas, Quint saw a sign in Green’s window when he went to pick up his
papers. There was going to be a raffle for a boat about the size of the skiff
he was saving for. They were also going to raffle off some gear and ten lobster
pots. The proceeds were to benefit the fishermen’s widow and children’s fund.
Quint looked closer and
saw that the tickets were $1 or five for $4. The raffle would be held outside
the Chamber of Commerce office down at the Landing. That office overlooked
Penobscot Bay where the South End’s lobstermen did much of their hauling. The
raffle was only a few days off and Quint didn’t know if he could come up with $4
by then or even $1 but he was going to try. This could be his ticket to being a
real lobsterman and he wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass him by.
The day before the
raffle Quint told his mother he wouldn’t be able to come up and see her the
next day because he had something special he had to do. He hoped she’d
understand. She did of course and whispered, “You go, Quinton. You don’t need
to hang around here so much anyway. Go enjoy yourself for once.”
Just before Quint went
down to the Landing for the raffle drawing he looked in the Ames’ yard and
couldn’t believe his eyes. His boat was gone! Where was it? His heart sank and
he almost gave up the idea of going to the raffle. What was the sense if he
didn’t have a boat? He doubted that his four measly tickets could get him the
boat and all the gear too.
He didn’t have time to
go knock on the Ames door and ask about his boat; so he took his mother’s
advice and with his four precious raffle tickets in hand he ran as fast as he
could before the drawing started without him.
He’d told his Dad about
buying the tickets hoping he wouldn’t be mad at him for doing so when there was
so little money in the house. Surprisingly enough, Winny was proud of him
instead. “Quint, you did the right thing. Even if you don’t win, you might help
out some poor fisherman’s family. Who knows, you could be in a bad situation
like that someday yourself. We fishermen have to take care of each other,
right?”
Winny had even shook his
hand like he was a real man.
Quint spied his father
as he came up to the big crowd in front of the Chamber. His father waved him
over and they stood together as the raffle began. Quint saw quite a few South
End lobstermen in the crowd. In fact every one of them had waved a hand to him
in greeting. It was very strange somehow. Most of the time the lobstermen were
so preoccupied they didn’t even notice if he was around when he went down to
his father’s lobster boat. Everyone was in a holiday mood was Quint’s guess. He
smiled back and waited for the raffle to begin.
The raffle started out
with just a few bait bags. Some girl, of all people, had the ticket for them.
When they got to the ten brand new lobster pots; a whole mess of warp rope, a
set of oars, and more bait bags, he paid more attention. That would sure help
his cause even if he had to find another boat. For sure he couldn’t win the
boat and the gear too.
He looked at his
tickets, keeping a close eye on all the numbers as he listened to the
loudspeaker. “The first number of the winning ticket is 5.” Yes, he had that
one. “2-13-25-6.” As the man read off each number, Quint couldn’t believe his
eyes. He had every one of them.
He was too excited to
speak. He looked up at his father with his mouth open as he pointed at the
winning ticket he held in his hand.
“You got the ticket,
son?” his father said.
Quint just shook his
head yes, still not able to speak.
“Speak up then, quick.
Raise your hand. Hey, over here,” he yelled. “My son has the ticket. He’s got
the ticket,” he said, as he raised Quint’s hand high.
Everyone turned to Quint
and before he knew it he was being pushed forward to receive all the glorious
gear that was piled up by the front door of the Chamber. He ran his hand over
one of the traps like it was a favorite dog or something. Everyone clapped and
patted him on the back with their congratulations.
“Hey, Quint. Now you can
be a lobsterman. How bout that?”
Quint turned and spied
Frankie Ames’ father, Emmet.
“Oh, hi,” said Quint. He
really wanted to ask about his boat that was now gone, but was too embarrassed
to do so since he’d just won all this stuff.”
“Yeah, I guess I can,”
he said lamely.
Then an amazing thing
happened. They took the tarp off the skiff that was also in the raffle. It
looked very familiar. It could even be his boat, but it was all repainted and
in good shape. He doubted it was the same boat, but it sure was pretty though.
The announcer addressed
the crowd again. All the lobstermen looked at each other knowingly and Quint
could see a few make a thumb’s up gesture. Maybe they thought they could all
win it, he thought. He was sure his luck had run out for the day, but was
curious to see who would end up winning the boat. He glanced down at his three
remaining tickets but didn’t hold out much hope.
“6-15-20-2-66” the
announcer said.
“Nope, not mine. Oh
well,” he said to himself.
There was a lot of
rustle and low-key murmuring in the audience as a bunch of lobstermen gathered
in a circle with their heads together and their hands out looking at their
tickets.
“What the heck is going
on, Dad? Who won the boat?”
“I don’t know, son, but
I guess we’ll find out in a minute.”
Quint felt someone at
his left elbow and looked up to see Emmet looking down at him.
“How much money you got
in your pocket, son?” he said.
“Ah… dunno…why?”
“Just tell me how much
money you got in your pocket,” he demanded.
Emmet didn’t crack a
smile, but was very serious. His father poked him and said, “Answer him, son.”
Quint felt down in his
pocket and felt a couple bills. He didn’t know how they got there as he’d just
given all the money he had for the raffle tickets. However he pulled the money
out and it turned out to be $2.
“Two dollars,” he said,
meekly.
“Seems like enough to
me. What do you all think?” he said, as he turned to the crowd of fishermen
behind him.
“Yeah, Yeah,” they all
said in chorus. “That should be just about right,” said another lobsterman.
Emmet held out a raffle
ticket to Quint and said, “Son, I’ll sell you my winning raffle ticket for that
$2. Whadda ya say?”
“What?” Quint said,
flabbergasted. “Don’t you want the boat?”
“That is my boat, Quint,” he said. “It’s the
same boat’s been in my yard that you keep looking at all the time. Since you
didn’t seem to want it, we decided to fix it up and raffle it off for a good
cause. But you know what? I can’t think
of anyone better than you to win it.”
All this time, Emmet is
standing there with a serious straight face. All of a sudden he let out with a
big guffaw and the crowd joined in.
Still flabbergasted,
Quint handed over the money and Emmet gave him the ticket. It never occurred to
him that Emmet actually had a raffle ticket for his own boat. Then all the
lobstermen standing nearby lifted him up on their shoulders and took him over
to see his new boat. He was a real lobsterman now.
That Christmas turned
out to be a good one after all. His mother came home the day before and she said
she was feeling better every day. The new medicine seemed to help a lot.
On Christmas Eve, Quint
and his father were in the kitchen trying to put together some macaroni and
cheese and hotdogs for the family supper that night. Quint was feeling a little
guilty that he had won all that stuff down at the Landing and his brothers had
nothing. He’d put the money he was saving for the boat, $27.50, into the
kitchen money jar where they kept money for day-to-day needs as far as food
went. He would continue to contribute some of his paper route money for the
rest of the winter at least.
His two older brothers,
Paulie and Frankie, got jobs shoveling the businesses out up on Main Street
after the recent storm. His father had lucked out and got two part time jobs;
one as a snow plow driver for the city in which he got paid by the storm; and
helping out part-time down at the ferry terminal. He thought he might get that
job up at the fish market on Park Street that he’d applied for. Between what
the boys put into the jar and what Winny came up with they managed to get two
small chickens to roast for tomorrow and some vegetables to go with it. They
also got a pumpkin pie and an apple pie that were day old at the local bakery.
Evelyn would sit at the
kitchen table and direct her men as to the cooking on Christmas. They were all
looking forward to having their mother around again. She was feeling better and
better every day. Tonight they had set her up on the coach so she could be with
the family but also lie down if she got tired.
Paulie and Frankie were
in the living room seeing to their mother. The younger boys, Butch and Billy,
were supposed to be helping set the table but they were doing more running
around than anything.
As Winny was about to
spoon out dinner on the plates he stopped for a minute.
“Hey, guys, did you hear that?”
The boys stopped what
they were doing and listened. They all heard car doors slamming and a lot of
happy sounding laughter and then there was a loud knock on the front door.
Billie and Butch ran to the front door and opened it wide.
All they could see was a
huge Christmas tree already fixed up on a stand. Then they heard the voice of
Emmet Ames from somewhere behind the tree. “Anyone need a Christmas tree in
here?” he said in his booming voice.
The evening meal was all
but forgotten as in came the tree; bags full of prettily wrapped presents and
about ten people. Quint recognized a couple of nurses from the hospital and
Emmet of course, but wasn’t sure he knew the rest.
Emmet said, “You boys
know where your mother’s tree decorations are?”
Butch spoke up
excitedly. “I do. I do.”
“Well you best go get
them,” Emmet said, “so you can trim this here tree. We have to have something
to put these presents under don’t we?”
The boys ran off in a
whirl as all the welcome intruders were greeted and there were happy handshakes
all around.
“Quint,” Emmet said. “We
brought your boat and gear too. You wanna come out in the driveway and help us
put the tarp over it? We’ll put the traps inside it and maybe you can find a
place in the shed to store the rest of the gear. OK?”
“Sure,” Quint said as he
grabbed his coat and ran out the door with two other lobstermen he thought he
knew.
The lobstermen soon had
the boat and the gear covered up. Then Emmet went back to his truck and pulled
some more stuff out.
“Hey, me and the boys
had some extra stuff laying around and I threw in a couple buoys to get you
started. We’ll put this stuff in the shed, OK?”
Quint was again
flabbergasted in the same way he was the day of the raffle. He managed to tweak
out a “Thank you.”
“Ah, it’s nothing, son.
We lobstermen all got to stick together, right?”
Emmet held out his hand
and shook Quint’s like a real man. Quint felt so grown up and proud.
Emmet said, “Son, your
Dad says you been helping out here a lot; taking care of your brothers; trying
to help with the cooking and stuff and then going up to see your mother every
day besides doing your paper route. Well she’s home now and things are
beginning to look up so your father says. So here’s what I want you to do, OK?”
Quint listened intently.
He thought to himself. How can it get any
better than this?
Emmet continued, “You
know my wife, Mildred don’t ya? She came with us tonight.”
Quint shook his head
“yes.” “Sure I know her. She’s the mitten lady. She makes mittens for us kids
in the neighborhood. She gave me a pair once.”
“Well Mildred is going
to come by as much as she can and look after your mother; try to catch you all
up on the housework, laundry, etc. And…she wants you and the two little buggers
to come over every school day morning and have some breakfast before you go to
school. You think you can handle getting them over to our house OK?”
“Sure I can, but what do
I tell my mother? She’ll be expecting to make it for us.”
“Don’t worry about that,
we’ll take care of that and don’t tell your father anything about it, OK. He
leaves pretty early anyway, right?
Quint shook his head
yes.
“OK, then. If you can
handle that one thing, all you have to worry about is school and your paper
route. Let your father and me worry about the rest of it. Then we’ll get your
boat in the water in the spring. OK?”
Quint shook his head yes
again. How could he argue with that? Suddenly he felt a big weight lifting off
his 12-year-old shoulders.
“Also, do you know Eliza
Steele, the county nurse?”
“Sure. She comes to
school to check us all out once a year.”
“Eliza will also be
coming by to check up on your mother and how she’s doing. That’s her job so
don’t be surprised if you see her coming, OK?”
“OK, Mr. Ames. Thank you
very much…”
“Hey,” someone yelled
from the open door of the house, “c’mon back in and get some pizza before it
gets cold.”
The last man in the door
that night had held out a bunch of pizza boxes to Winny. “Here, take these out
in the kitchen and we can all grab a slice,” he said. Macaroni and cheese and
hot dogs were soon forgotten.
Emmet gave Quint a pat
on the back and they both went back into the house.
The evening turned into
a real party. Paulie got out his guitar and strummed some chords so they could
all sing Christmas carols. He sometimes got to play with the country bands that
came to town. He was quite good at it too. The tree was beautiful even if Billy
and Butch had put all the ornaments mostly in one place. Frankie put the lights
on for them and Evelyn’s eyes glowed with joy when she saw the tree all lit up.
She loved Christmas lights so much.
That Christmas Eve and
the Christmas Day that followed were the happiest Quint and the rest of the
family could ever remember. The people who came that Christmas Eve also brought
Christmas dinner with them, all ready to warm up in the oven. Evelyn’s “boys”
would not have to bungle their way through cooking a big dinner after all. The
menu they’d planned would make another good meal later on.
Quint never forgot his
first lobster boat and how he’d come about it. It was a conspiracy of course,
but he could never figure out how he’d also gotten the gear to go with it. Was
that part of it just luck or would the men have done the same thing if he
hadn’t won the gear? He’d probably never know the answer to that question.
Merry Christmas to all
my friends and family; to everyone in the South End and to everyone up in
Maine.
Note:
I’d like to thank Kendall Merriam, Woody Post, and brother, Ted Sylvester, for
all their help as I was writing this story. Thanks for listening.
