The Good Samaritan was out of Mad Tom’s Harbor, bound across the bay, after dark, to trade the ports of the shore. It was a quiet night – starlit: the wind light and fair. The clerk and the skipper and I had the forecastle of the schooner to ourselves.
“I ’low,” Tumm mused, “I wouldn’t want t’ grow old.”
The skipper grinned.
“Not,” Tumm added, “on this coast.”
“Ah, well, Tumm,” the skipper jeered, “maybe you won’t!”
“I’d be ashamed,” said Tumm.
“You dunderhead!” snapped the skipper, who was old, “on this coast an old man’s a man! He’ve lived through enough,” he growled, “t’ show it.”
“’Tis accordin’,” said Tumm.
“To what?” I asked.
“T’ how you looks at it. In a mess, now – you take it in a nasty mess, when ’tis every man for hisself an’ the devil take the hindmost – in a mess like that, I ’low, the devil often gets the man o’ the party, an’ the swine goes free. But ’tis all just accordin’ t’ how you looks at it; an’ as for my taste, I’d be ashamed t’ come through fifty year o’ life on this coast alive.”
“Ay, b’y?” the skipper inquired, with a curl of the lip.
“It wouldn’t look right,” drawled Tumm.
The skipper laughed good-naturedly.
“Now,” said Tumm, “you take the case o’ old man Jowl o’ Mad Tom’s Harbor – ”
“Excuse me, Tumm b’y,” the skipper interrupted. “If you’re goin’ t’ crack off, just bide a spell till I gets on deck.”
Presently we heard his footsteps going aft…
“A wonderful long time ago, sir,” Tumm began, “when Jowl was in his prime an’ I was a lad, we was shipped for the Labrador aboard the Wings o’ the Mornin’. She was a thirty-ton fore-an’-after, o’ Tuggleby’s build – Tuggleby o’ Dog Harbor – hailin’ from Witch Cove, an’ bound down t’ the Wayward Tickles, with a fair intention o’ takin’ a look-in at Run-by-Guess an’ Ships’ Graveyard, t’ the nor’ard o’ Mugford, if the Tickles was bare. Two days out from Witch Cove, somewheres off Gull Island, an’ a bit t’ the sou’west, we was cotched in a switch o’ weather. ’Twas a nor’east blow, mixed with rain an’ hail; an’ in the brewin’ it kep’ us guessin’ what ’twould accomplish afore it got tired, it looked so lusty an’ devilish. The skipper ’lowed ’twould trouble some stomachs, whatever else, afore we got out of it, for ’twas the first v’y’ge o’ that season for every man Jack o’ the crew. An’ she blowed, an’ afore mornin’ she’d tear your hair out by the roots if you took off your cap, an’ the sea was white an’ the day was black. The Wings o’ the Mornin’ done well enough for forty-eight hours, an’ then she lost her grit an’ quit. Three seas an’ a gust o’ wind crumpled her up. She come out of it a wreck – topmast gone, spars shivered, gear in a tangle, an’ deck swep’ clean. Still an’ all, she behaved like a lady; she kep’ her head up, so well as she was able, till a big sea snatched her rudder; an’ then she breathed her last, an’ begun t’ roll under our feet, dead as a log. So we went below t’ have a cup o’ tea.
“‘Don’t spare the rations, cook,’ says the skipper. ‘Might as well go with full bellies.’
“The cook got sick t’ oncet.
“‘You lie down, cook,’ says the skipper, ‘an’ leave me do the cookin’. Will you drown where you is, cook,’ says he, ‘or on deck?’
“‘On deck, sir,’ says the cook.
“I’ll call you, b’y,’ says the skipper.
“Afore long the first hand give up an’ got in his berth. He was wonderful sad when he got tucked away. ’Lowed somebody might hear of it.
“‘You want t’ be called, Billy?’ says the skipper.
“‘Ay, sir; please, sir,’ says the first hand.
“‘All right, Billy,’ says the skipper. ‘But you won’t care enough t’ get out.’
“The skipper was next.
“‘You goin’, too!’ says Jowl.
“‘You’ll have t’ eat it raw, lads,’ says the skipper, with a white little grin at hisself. ‘An’ don’t rouse me,’ says he, ‘for I’m as good as dead already.’
“The second hand come down an’ ’lowed we’d better get the pumps goin’.
“‘She’s sprung a leak somewheres aft,’ says he.
Jowl an’ me an’ the second hand went on deck t’ keep her afloat. The second hand ’lowed she’d founder, anyhow, if she was give time, but he’d like t’ see what would come o’ pumpin’, just for devilment. So we lashed ourselves handy an’ pumped away – me an’ the second hand on one side an’ Jowl on the other. The Wings o’ the Mornin’ wobbled an’ dived an’ shook herself like a wet dog; all she wanted was a little more water in her hold an’ then she’d make an end of it, whenever she happened t’ take the notion.
“‘I’m give out,’ says the second hand, afore night.
“‘Them men in the forecastle isn’t treatin’ us right,’ says Jowl. ‘They ought t’ lend a hand.’
“The second hand bawled down t’ the crew; but nar a man would come on deck.
“‘Jowl,’ says he, ‘you have a try.’
“Jowl went down an’ complained; but it didn’t do no good. They was all so sick they wouldn’t answer. So the second hand ’lowed he’d go down an’ argue, which he foolishly done – an’ never come back. An’ when I went below t’ rout un out of it, he was stowed away in his bunk, all out o’ sorts an’ wonderful melancholy. ‘Isn’t no use, Tumm,’ says he. ‘It isn’t no use.’
“‘Get out o’ this!’ says the cook. ‘You woke me up!’
“I ’lowed the forecastle air wouldn’t be long about persuadin’ me to the first hand’s sinful way o’ thinkin’. An’ when I got on deck the gale tasted sweet.
“‘They isn’t treatin’ us right,’ says Jowl.
“‘I ’low you’re right,’ says I, ‘but what you goin’ t’ do?’
“‘What you think?’ says he.
“‘Pump,’ says I.
“‘Might’s well,’ says he. ‘She’s fillin’ up.’
“We kep’ pumpin’ away, steady enough, till dawn, which fagged us wonderful. The way she rolled an’ pitched, an’ the way the big white, sticky, frosty seas broke over us, an’ the way the wind pelted us with rain an’ hail, an’ the blackness o’ the sky, was mean– just almighty careless an’ mean. An’ pumpin’ didn’t seem t’ do no good; for why? we couldn’t save the hulk – not us two. As it turned out, if the crew had been fitted out with men’s stomachs we might have weathered it out, an’ gone down the Labrador, an’ got a load; for every vessel that got there that season come home fished t’ the gunwales. But we didn’t know it then. Jowl growled all night to hisself about the way we was treated. The wind carried most o’ the blasphemy out t’ sea, where they wasn’t no lad t’ corrupt, an’ at scattered times a big sea would make Jowl splutter, but I heared enough t’ make me smell the devil, an’ when I seed Jowl’s face by the first light I ’lowed his angry feelin’s