Without a proper female upbringing, she had been a poor seamstress. In fact, when Bert had first set her to sew some sail, he declared it the worst job he had seen in more than thirty years of sailing the world’s oceans. In disgust, he had sent her to Bull Marston for a lesson. A large bear of a man with scars from head to foot from pirating, privateering, and brawling, Bull had meaty fingers that fairly flew with a needle. He had done his best to teach her, telling her the skill was not all in the fingers, but in the head, too. "You’ve got to want to sit still long enough to do the job right. That’s the problem with you young whelps. You don’t want to take the time," he said. But time was something Cat had in abundance, and so she practiced, surprising herself when she actually began to enjoy it. There was something satisfyingly peaceful about sitting on the deck mending the huge lengths of sail. With a shrug, Bull had tried to explain it. "Sometime I just need to keep to myself, instead of getting in a ruckus." Cat held up the captain’s shirt and surveyed her work critically.
