The author and Shorty (in hat) making a new fore topmast for the Melrose at Port Angeles, Washington in 1920. Photos this page by ÂŁ. Adermann, from the Martha Petereit Collection, Nationa l Maritime Museum, San Francisco.
Above, Capt. Klebingat making a maple settee on top of the schooner's deckload of lumber. At left, in the cabin of the Melrose, Christmas 1921, Capt. Klebingat (right) shares a Christmas toast with afr;end at Port Angeles.
This was a couple of years after I took charge of the Melrose. About ten years earlier we had a Japanese cook in the fivemasted schooner Crescent where I was sailing before the mast. In Makaweli the cook claimed he was sick and refused duty. Captain "Hungry" Olsen (also called " One-eyed " Olsen) , another hardcase , kept the cook locked up in the lazarette for three days . He just disappeared ; we didn ' t know where he was . When the Old Man let him out the cook looked as if he had one foot in the grave. Olsen had to give in and have the doctor look at him . " He 's not sick ," said the doctor, " but you might as well discharge him anyway. '' Ten years, maybe more than that , went by . I needed a cook for the Melrose and Harry Thornton , who supplied officers and cooks to the schooners in Seattle, sent me a Japanese. 46
SEA HISTORY , WINTER 1985-86