The
stovepipe, guyed by wires to the ceiling, ran back to the chimney behind
Cap'n Abe.
He stood at the one space that was kept cleared on his counter, hairy
fists on the brown, hacked plank--the notches of the yard-stick and
fathom-stick cut with a jackknife on its edge--his pale eyes sparkling as
he talked.
"There she wallered," went on the narrator of maritime disaster, "her
cargo held together by rotting sheathing and straining ribs. She was
wrung by the seas like a dishrag in a woman's hands. She no longer
mounted the waves; she bored through 'em. 'Twas a serious time--to hear
Cap'n Am'zon tell it."
"I guess it must ha' been, Abe," Milt Baker put in hastily. "Gimme a
piece o' that Brown Mule chewin' tobacker."
"I'll _sell_ it to ye, Milt," the storekeeper said gently, with his hand
on the slide of the cigar and tobacco showcase.
"That's what I mean," rejoined Milt boldly, fishing in his pocket for the
required nickel.
"For fourteen days while the _Posy Lass_ was drivin' off shore before an
easterly gale, Cap'n Am'zon an' two others, lashed to the stump o' the
fo'mast, _ex_-isted in a smother of foam an' spume, with the waves
picklin' 'em ev'ry few minutes.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38