The Table of Contents was not in the original edition.
CONNOR MAGAN'S LUCK
And Other Stories
by
M.T.W.
Boston:
D. Lothrop & Company,
Franklin St., Corner of Hawley.
1881
[Illustration: CONNOR DREAMS A DAY-DREAM.]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
Connor Magan's Luck
Why Mammy Delphy's Baby Was Named Grief
Sammy Sealskin's Enemy
Nannette's Live Baby
Brothers For Sale
A Story of a Clock
Naughty Zay
The Legend of the Salt Sea
The Man with the Straw Hat
Ruffles and Puffs
Sugar River
A Pioneer "Wide Awake"
Surprised
April Fools and Other Fools
CONNOR MAGAN'S LUCK.
[Illustration: "CONNOR."]
"I'm in luck, hurrah!" cried Connor Magan, as he threw up his brimless
hat into the air - the ringing, jubilant shout he sent after it could
only spring from the reservoir of glee in the heart of a twelve-year-old
boy. Giving a push to the skiff in which his father sat waiting for him,
he jumped from the shore to the boat, and struck out into the Ohio
river.
Tim Magan, father, and Connor Magan, son, were central figures in a very
strange picture.
Let us take in the situation.
It was a Western spring freshet. The Ohio was on a rampage - a turbulent,
coffee-colored stream, it had risen far beyond its usual boundaries,
washed out the familiar land-marks, and, still insolent and greedy, was
licking the banks, as if preparatory to swallowing up the whole country.
Trees torn up by the roots, their green branches waving high above the
flood, timbers from cottages, and wrecks of bridges, were floating down
to the Gulf of Mexico.
It was curious to watch the various things in the water as they sailed
slowly along. Demijohns bobbed about. Empty store boxes mockingly
labelled _dry goods_ elbowed bales of hay. Sometimes a weak
cock-a-doodle-doo from a travelling chicken-coop announced the
whereabouts of a helpless though still irrepressible rooster. Back yards
had been visited, and oyster-cans, ash-barrels and unsightly kitchen
debris brought to light. It was a mighty revolution where the dregs of
society were no longer suppressed, but sailed in state on the top wave.
"It is an idle wind which blows no one good," and amid the general
destruction the drift-wood was a God-send to the poor people, and they
caught enough to supply them with fire-wood for months. Logs, fences,
boards and the contents of steamboat woodyards were swept into the
current. On high points of land near the shore were collected piles
bristling with ragged stumps and limbs of trees. The great gnarled
branches of forest trees sometimes spread over half the river, while
timbers lodging among them formed a sort of raft which kept out of the
water the most wonderful things - pieces of furniture, and kitchen
utensils which shone in the sun like silver.
Cullum's Ripple is a few miles below Cincinnati. Here the deep current
sets close to the shore, making a wild kind of whirlpool or eddy that
brings drift-wood almost to land; the rippling water makes a sudden turn
and scoops out a little cove in the sand. It is a splendid place for
fishermen, but quite dangerous for boats.
Not far above Cullum's Ripple is situated the Magan family mansion, or
shanty. The river is on one side, and two parallel railroads are on the
other. On the top of the bank, and on a level with the railroads, is a
piece of land not much longer or wider than a rope-walk, and on this
only available scrap the Railroad Company have built a few temporary
houses for their workmen. They are all alike, except that a
morning-glory grows over Magan's door.
The colony is called Twinrip possibly the short of "Between Strip." (If
the name does not mean that, will some one skilled in digging up
language roots, please tell me what it does mean?) The atmosphere around
these cabins is as filled with bustling, whistling confusion as a
chimney with smoke.
Besides the water highway, on the other side, just a few feet beyond the
iron roads, a horse-car track and a turnpike offer additional facilities
for locomotion. Birds perch on the numerous telegraph wires amid wrecks
of kites and dingy pennons - once kite-tails - nothing hurts them; and
below the children of Twinrip appear just as free and safe, and seem to
have as much delight in mere living as their feathered friends.
The Magans were a light-hearted Irish family, whose cheerfulness seemed
better than eucalyptus or sunflowers to keep off the fever and ague, and
who made the most of the little bits of sunshine that came to them. Tim,
a strong-armed laborer, was brakeman on the Road. His wife, a hopeful
little body, a woman of expedients, was voted by her neighbors the
"cheeriest, condolingest" woman in Twinrip.
Good luck, according to her, was always coming to the Magans. It was
good luck brought them to America - by good luck Tim became brakeman. It
was good luck that the school for Connor was free of expense, and so
convenient.
Her loyalty to her husband rather modified the expression of her views,
yet she often expatiated to her eldest on his advantages, beginning,
"There's your father, Connor - I hope you'll be as good a man! remember
it wasn't the fashion in the ould country to bother over the little
black letters - people don't _have_ to read there - but you just mind your
books, and some day you may come to be a conductor, and snap a punch of
your own."
No doubt Connor made good resolutions, but when he sat by the window in
the school-room and looked at the dimpling, sparkling river, so
suggestive of fishing, or at the green trees filled with birds, he was
not as devoted to literature as a free-born expectant American citizen
ought to be. The teacher was somewhat strict, and it may have been in
some of her passes with Connor, the "bubblingoverest" of all her
youngsters, that she earned the name of a "daisy lammer."
But the boy knew some things by heart that could not be learned at
school. To his ear, the steam whistle of each boat spoke its name as
plainly as if it could talk. He need not look to tell whether a passing
train was on the O. & M. or on the I.C. & L. He knew the name of every
fiery engine, and felt an admiration - a real friendship for the
resistless creatures.
To climb a tree was as easy for him as if he were a cat; there were
rumors that he had worked himself to the top of the tall
flag-staff - which was as smooth as a greased pole - but I will not vouch
for their truth. He could swim like a duck, and paddled about on a board
in the river till an ill-natured flat-boatman often snarled out that
"that youngster would certain be drowned, if he wasn't born to be
hanged."
But the delight of Connor's life was to "catch the first wave" from a
big steamer. Dennis Maloney was his comrade in this perilous game. They
rowed their egg-shell of a boat close to the wheel. Drenched with
spray - for a moment they felt the wild excitement of danger. Four alert
eyes, four steady hands kept them from being sucked under - then came the
triumph of meeting the first wave that left the steamboat, and the
extatic rocking motion of the skiff as she rode the other waves in the
wake - but to catch the first was the point in the frolic! Connor was
known to many of the pilots as an adept in "catching the first wave."
Sometimes he was "tipped" by an unlooked for motion of the machinery,
but was as certain as an india-rubber ball to rise to the surface, and
a swim to shore was but fun to the young Magan.
In the house, Mother Maggie was happy when little Mike was tied in his
chair, and a bar put in the doorway to keep him from crawling into the
attractive water, if he should break loose; and when the door was bolted
on the railroad side, he was allowed to gaze through the window at the
engines smoking and thundering by all day, and fixing each blazing red
eye on him at night - an entrancing spectacle to the child. And when the
still younger Pat was tucked up in bed sucking a moist rag, with sugar
tied up in it, her world was all right, and at rest.
But it would have taken a person of considerable penetration, or as
Maggie said one who knew all "the ins and the outs" to see the peculiar
good luck of _this_ day. The water was swashing round within a few feet
of the door. Some of the workmen had moved their beds to the space
between the tracks, which was piled up with kitchen utensils, and looked
like a second-hand store.
In these days of devotion to antiques, we hear dealers in such wares say
that things are more valuable for being carefully used. This would not
apply to Twinrip's relics. The poor shabby furniture looked more than
ever dilapidated in the open daylight. The social air of a home that was
lived in, pervaded this temporary baggage-room between the tracks. One
child was asleep in a cradle, others were eating their coarse food off a
board. When a sprinkling of rain fell, an old grandmother under an
umbrella fastened to a bed-post went on knitting, serenely.
Youngsters who needed rubbers and waterproofs about as much as did
Newfoundland dogs, enjoyed the fun. One four-year old, sitting on a tub
turned upside down, was waving a small flag, a relic of the Fourth of
July - and looking as happy and independent as a king.
It took all his wife's hopeful eloquence to comfort Tim. There was no
water in Tim's cellar, because he had no cellar. The cow, their most
valuable piece of property, was taken beyond the tracks up on the
hillside, and fastened to a stake in a deserted vineyard. If the worst
came to the worst, and they were drowned out of house and home, their
neighbors were no better off, and they would all be lively together.
That was the way Maggie put it.
[Illustration: INDEPENDENT AS A KING.]
"Do you moind, Tim," she said, "when Keely O'Burke trated his new wife
to a ride on a hand-car? Soon as your eyes lighted on him you shouted
like a house-a-fire, 'Number Five will be down in three minutes!'
Didn't Keely clane lose his head? But between you, you pushed the car
off the track in a jiffy. And Mrs. O'Burke's new bonnet was all smashed
in the ditch, an' the bloody snort of Number Five knocked you senseless.
Who would have thought that boost of the cow-catcher was jist clear good
luck? And you moped about with a short draw in your chist, and seemed
bound to be a grouty old man in the chimney corner that could niver
lift a stroke for your childer, ah' you didn't see the good luck, you
know, Tim - but when the prisident sent the bran new cow with a card tied
to one horn, an' Connor read it when he came home from school: '_For Tim
Magan, who saved the train. Good luck to him!_' - wasn't it all right
then? Now you are as good as new, and our mocley is quiet as a lamb, and
if I was Queen Victoria hersel, she couldn't give any sweeter milk for
me. She's the born beauty."
Well, Connor was his mother's own boy for making the most and the best
of everything, and _he_ saw several items of good luck this day.
First: The river had risen so near the school-house that the desks and
benches were moved up between the tracks and the school dismissed;
therefore there was perfect freedom to enjoy the excitement of the
occasion. It was as good as a move or a fire.
Second: There was so much danger that the track might be undermined that
all trains were stopped by order of the Railroad Company; therefore his
father was at liberty.
Third, and best of all: Larry O'Flaherty, who lived up Bald Face Creek,
had lent him his skiff for the day. The boys had had an extatic time the
evening before, hauling in drift-wood. Though the coal-barges had
bright red lights at their bows, and the steamboats were ablaze with
green and red signals, and blew their gruff whistles continually, yet it
was hardly safe to go far from the shore at night because the Ripple was
so near. When the river was _rising_ the drift was driven close to land,
while _falling_ it floated near the middle of the river. Connor could
see the flood was still rising, and there were possibilities of a
splendid catch, for it was daylight, and they could go where they
pleased with Larry's boat.
Father and son pushed out into the river. Connor felt as if he owned the
world. Short sticks and staves were put in the bottom of the boat. Both
fishermen had a long pole with a sharp iron hook at the end with which,
when they came close to a log, they harpooned it. Bringing it near, they
drove a nail into one end, and tying a rope round the nail, they
fastened their prize to the stern of the boat. They took turns rowing
and spearing drift-wood; and when the log-fleet swimming after them
became large, they went to shore and secured it.
When the dripping logs were long and heavy, it was the custom to fasten
them with the rope close to a stake in the bank, and leave them
floating. At low water they were left high and dry on the sand.
No other drift-wood gatherers meddled with such logs. They were
considered as much private property as if already burning on the hearth.
"I'm going up the hill to feed the cow, Connor," said his father, after
a great deal of wood of every size and shape had been landed. "Mind what
you are about, and take care of Larry's gim of a boat. It was mighty
neighborly to lind it for the whole day. See now, how much drift you can
pick up by yourself."
Connor felt the responsibility, and worked diligently. He had twice
taken a load to shore, and was quite far again in the stream, when he
saw a strange sight. It was not Moses in the bulrushes, to be sure - but
a child in a wicker wagon, floating down the current amid a lot of
sticks and branches. The hoarse whistle of a steamboat near meant
danger; and to the eye of Connor the baby-craft seemed but a little
above the water, and to be slowly sinking.
Connor's shout rang back from the Kentucky hills as if it came from the
throat of an engine.
No one answered.
There were great logs between his skiff and the child - logs and child
were all moving together. Should he abandon Larry's precious boat?
Connor could not consider this. He plunged into the water and swam round
the logs. He never knew how he did it - he never knew how he cut his
hand - he never felt the pounding of the logs - he only knew that he
caught the wagon, kept those black eyes above the water, and pulled the
precious freight to shore. Then, while the water was streaming from him
in every direction, he sprang up the few steps to his mother's cabin,
and without a word placed the child, still in the wagon, inside the
door!
Running back as swiftly as his feet would carry him, Connor had the good
luck to find the deserted boat close to shore, jammed in a mass of
drift-wood, just in the turn of the Riffle.
Dragging it up and along the shore, he fastened it to a fisherman's
stake just by Twinrip. Then Connor felt he had discharged his
duty - Larry O'Flaherty's boat was safe - high and dry out of reach of
eddying logs.
Now, eager, dripping, and breathless - with eyes like stars, he flew home
again.
"Oh, mother," he said, "she's fast to the post and not a hole knocked
into her, and ain't her eyes black and soft as our mooley cow's and I
found her before the General Little ran her down - and I'm going to keep
her always - _I found her_ - isn't it lucky we have a cow?"
What the boy said was rather mixed - you could not parse it, but you
could understand it.
The baby's big black eyes looked around, and she acknowledged a cup of
milk and her deliverer by a smile. It was a strange group. In the midst
of a puddle of water Mother Maggie was leaning over the new comer and
trying to untie the numerous knots in a shawl which had kept the child
in her wicker nest. Little Mike was staring open-eyed at the beads round
baby's neck, and at the coral horseshoe which hung from them. The pretty
little girl seemed quite contented, and with the happy unconsciousness
of infancy was evidently quite at home.
"Poor baby, where did she come from?" said Mother Maggie. "Won't her
mother cry her eyes out when she can't see her? We must advertise her in
one of those big city papers."
"I found her," said Connor, "she's mine."
"Why, my boy," said his mother, "she's not a squirrel - you can't keep
her as you did the bunny you found in the hickory tree, and not ask any
questions!"
[Illustration]
"I wish there were no newspapers, and that people couldn't read
besides," wrathfully exclaimed Connor.
"Maybe," he added, with hopeful cheerfulness, "both her father and
mother are drowned. May I keep her then? She may have half of my bread
and milk."
Babies were no great rarity in Twinrip, but never was there such a
happy, bright-eyed little maiden as this waif proved to be. Among the
children she glowed like a dandelion in the grass, and reigned like a
queen among her subjects.
Connor was the scholar of the family, and at length his conscience was
sufficiently roused to make him indite an advertisement which did him
much credit. He hoped it might be placed in some obscure corner of the
paper where it would be overlooked.
But next day, in a conspicuous part of the _Cincinnati Commercial_, with
four little hands pointing to it, appeared this rather unusual notice:
"_Found in the Ohio river a baby in white dress with black eyes and
red horseshoe round her neck, now belonging to Connor Magan. If the
father and mother are not drowned they can enquire at the house of
Tim Magan in Twinrip, where all is convenient for her with a cow
given by the President. None others need apply._"
It was but the very next day after the "ad" appeared that a wagon drove
down to Twinrip, with the father and mother of the baby.
Didn't they cry and kiss and hug the lost, the found child! They lived
on a farm in Palestine, a few miles up the river. A little stream ran
into the Ohio close by their door, and the baby was often tied in her
carriage and placed on the bridge under the charge of a faithful dog. It
was a great amusement for her to watch the ducks and geese in the water.
A sudden rise swept bridge and all away. Search had been made
everywhere, but nothing had been heard of little Minnie. It had seemed
like a return from death to read Connor's advertisement.
And was not the brave lad that saved their child a hero! Again and again
they made him tell all about the rescue. Of course they had to take
their daughter home, but they made Connor promise to visit them at
Palestine.
Soon after the happy parents left, a watch came by express to the Magan
homestead, and when Connor opened the hunting-case cover, after changing
its position till he could see something besides his own twisted face
reflected in it, and after wiping away the spray that would come into
his eyes, he read:
_CONNOR MAGAN._
_From the grateful parents of MINNIE RIVERS._
Was not her name a prophecy?
At the sill of the Magan homestead the flood had stopped, hesitated, and
then gone back. Maggie always said she knew it would - they always had
good luck. The little woman was happier than ever when she thought of
the whole train of people that _might_ have been thrown into the
ditch - of the cut-off legs, arms and heads, and the poor creatures
without them that _might_ have been cast bleeding on the track, if it
had not been for her faithful old Tim - and of the home with niver a
baby, and of the darlint that would have been drowned in the bottom of
the Ohio with her ears and eyes full of mud, if it had not been for her
slip of a boy.
As for Connor, he felt as if that bright-eyed girl belonged to him, and
now that he had a watch towards it, he seemed almost a ready-made
Conductor.
When the waters subsided and he went back to school, he studied with a
will. His percentage grew higher.
"Sometime," he said to himself, "I will go to Palestine. I _will_ be
_somebody_ - maybe a Conductor! And a beautiful young woman with soft
black eyes will wave her handkerchief to me as I pass by in my train!
And after I make a lot of money" - how full the world is of money that
young people are so sure of getting - "after I make this money I will
bring Minnie back with me! And she will live in my house with me! And
she will say, 'Conor I am so glad you fished me out of the Ohio with
your drift-wood!' And won't _that_ be good luck for Connor Magan!"
WHY MAMMY DELPHY'S BABY WAS NAMED GRIEF.
Mammy Delphy was sitting out under the vines that climbed over the
kitchen gallery, picking a chicken for dinner, and singing. And such
singing! Some of the words ran this way:
"Aldo you sees me go 'long _so_,
I has my trials here below,
Sometimes I'se up, sometimes I'se down,
Sometimes I'se lebel wid de groun;
Oh, git out, Satan
Halla_lu_!"
And these words sound queer to you as you read them, perhaps, but they
did not sound queer when Mammy Delphy was singing them. I don't believe
that a song out of heaven could be sweeter than this and other songs
like it that dear old Mammy sings, with her turbaned head bobbing up
and down and her foot softly keeping time to the melody. There is a sort
of plaintive - what shall I call it? - _twist_ in her voice that makes you
choke up about the throat, if you are a boy, and sob right out if you
are a girl. And it makes you, somehow, remember, in hearing it, all the
sweet, sad little stories that your mother has told you about your
little baby sister who died before you were born; or, if you have stood
in a darkened room, holding fast to some tender and loving hand, and
looked at a face that was dear to you lying upon its coffin pillow, you
think of that strange and sad time. And with these thoughts come, as you
listen, other thoughts of flying angels and shining crowns, and
wide-opened gates of pearl. A sweetness mixed with pain - that is, the
feeling which Mammy Delphy's singing brings to you, though you could not
describe it, perhaps, if you tried - at least that's the feeling it
brings to me.
"I'll take my shoes from off'n my feet,
And walk into de golden street,
Glory, Halla_lu_!"
sang Mammy. Sam and Jim and Joe came filing in. They had been - well,
where _hadn't_ they been! They had been down to the Bayou, which ran a
good quarter of a mile back of the place, "fishin for cat," and
chunking at an unwary rabbit that had taken refuge in a hollow tree;
they had been out in the field, cutting open two or three half-grown
watermelons to see if they were ripe; they had been across the prairie
to a _mott_ of sweet-gum trees, where they had stuck up the cuffs and
bosoms of their shirts with gum and torn their trousers in climbing a
persimmon tree to peep into a bird's-nest. And they were rushing across
the yard in chase of a horned-frog when they caught sight of Mammy
Delphy under the kitchen shed.
"Let's go and get Mammy Delphy to give us some meat and go a
crawfishin', boys," suggested Sam.
"And I'm hungry, for one," added Joe.
Accordingly they filed in, as I said, and stood for a moment listening
to Mammy Delphy's song.
"Give us somethin' to eat, Mammy, please," said Jim.
"An' some craw-fish bait and a piece of string," put in the other two in
a breath.
"I ain't a gwine to do it, chillun," replied Mammy Delphy, giving them a
gentle push with her elbow, for they were leaning coaxingly against her
shoulders, "I ain't a gwine to _do_ it. Yer ma's got comp'ny for dinner
and dat sassy Marthy-Ann done tuk herself to 'Mancipation-Day, an' Jin,
she totin of Mis' May's baby to sleep, an' I ain't got _no_ time to
_wase_ on yer. _Go_'long!" And as she spoke Mammy arose, chicken in
hand, and went into the kitchen to get whatever the boys wanted, as they
were perfectly aware she would, from the beginning.
"Lawd o' mussy! Jest look at dat lazy nigger! Grief!" she exclaimed as
she entered, "Grief, yer lazy good-for-nuthin' nigger, is yer gwine ter
let dem sweet-taters burn clar up?"
And seizing the collar of a negro man who sat nodding by the stove, she
gave him a sound shaking. He opened his eyes, grinned and got up slowly,
looking a little sheepish as he did so. At that moment the woolly head
of Jin, the baby's little black nurse, was poked in at the door.
"Daddy," she cried, "Miss May say as how she want you to come an' tie up
her Malcasum rose, whar dem boys is done pull down."
And Jin bestowed a withering look upon the culprits, who were already
digging their fingers into the remnants of a meat-pie, and disappeared,
followed by her father.
"Mammy Delphy," said Joe, when they were out under the vines again and
Mammy had recommenced her work, "what made you name Uncle Grief,
_Grief_? That's a mighty funny name, _ain't_ it, boys?"
"Well, chillun," said Mammy, plucking away at the chicken, "dat's so; it
_is_ a curus name like; me'n de ole man - he dead an' gone, chillun, long
fo' you was born; - me'n de ole man 'sulted long time 'bout dat chile's
name an' he war goin' on six months old fo' we name him at all."
"Well, how _did_ you happen to call him Grief?" insisted Joe.
"Yes, honey, yes. 'Twar a long time ago, chile, when Mas' Will - dat's
_yer_ pa (she nodded towards Joe) war a little fellow, heap littler'n
you, heap littler, an' Mas' Charley - dat's _yer_ pappy (to the other
two) war a baby. I war nussen _him_ long o' Grief an' Grief warn't name
yet. Miss May - dat's yer all's Gramma whar died las' year - she use to
come out to de back steps an' watch dem two babies nussen', Grief an'
Mas' Charley bof at de same time in my lap; an' Mas' Will an'
Jerry - dat's my little boy what war jes' 'bout his age - a-playing in de
back-yard, an' sometime she laugh an' cry all at de same time an' she
say: 'We is all one fam'ly, Delphy!' she say. Law's, chillun, dem _was_
times! _You_ don't know nuthin' 'bout dem times. Disher house was full
up all de time wid comp'ny; gran' comp'ny, what dress all de time in
silk an' go walkin' 'bout under de trees an' ridin' 'bout over de
prairie in de day time; and mos' every night dey call my ole man in to
play de fiddle an' den, laws, how dem young folks dance! An' ole Mas'
an' ole Mis' an' all de young ladies an gentlemen use to come down to de
cabins - _dey_ was all burnt up, time o' de war - an' sakes, honey! de
hosses an' de cayages an' de niggers an' disher big plantation, all
shinin' wid corn an' cotton! Dem _was_ times!" And Mammy's old eyes
lighted up as she went back to her youth and the glory of her family,
for she still speaks with pride of her "fam'ly."
"But Grief, Mammy?" said Jim.
"Yes, honey, yes. Yer pappy and Grief war babies, an' Grief warn't
named, an' Mas' Will an' Jerry was little boys, littler'n you. 'N one
day Miss May, she come to the back do' an' call me. I was sittin' in
disher very place dat day, nussin dem two babies, an' my mammy (she de
cook), gittin' dinner in de kitchen. 'Delphy,' Miss May say, 'Delphy,
does you know whar Will an' Jerry is? Dey ain't been seen sence
breakfast dis mornin'.
[Illustration: "YER PAPPY AN' GRIEF WAR BABIES, AN' GRIEF WARN'T
NAMED."]
"I felt curus-like dat minit, an' I jump up an' run all over de place
lookin' for dem boys. 'Rectly all de house gals an' everybody - Mas' and
Mis' an' everybody - commence to hunt for dem chillun. We look
everywhere - in de hay-top, in de cotton gin-house, out on de
prairie - _everywhere_. Den I saw Miss May - dat's yer granma, turn
white-like, an' she say, 'Oh Delphy, oh James' - dat's yer grandpa - 'de
ole well in de field! de ole well in de field!'
"Over in de bayou-field - it done full up now, ole Mas' had a well dug to
water de hosses out in. It war kivered up wid some bodes.
"I don't 'zactly 'member 'bout goin' over to de field, but when I got
dar wid dem two babies in my arms an' stood 'long side o' Miss May - "
Mammy Delphy spoke more and more slowly. She had stopped picking the
chicken, and great tears were rolling down her cheeks. The boys stood
stricken and silent.
- "Stood 'long side o' Miss May, fus thing I hear war Jerry sayin'
weak-like an' way down in de well: 'Don't you cry, Mas' Will! Hol' on to
my neck, Mas' Will! Hol' tight, Mas' Will! I kin hol' you up. Don't you
be feerd Mas' Will, I kin hol' you up! Don't you be feerd Mas' Will; I
kin hol' you up!'
"Ole Mas' lean over de well an' look in. Mas' Will he warn't as high as
Jerry, an' Jerry he war standin in de water up to his neck an' hol'in'
Mas' Will up out'n de water. An' dem chillun had been in dat well all
day, honey, 'all day, an' my Jerry holdin Mas' Will out'n de water; an'
dat water col' as ice! Den ole Mas' let down de rope dey fotch an' tole
Mas' Will to ketch hol'. An Mas' Will - dat yer pappy, honey - he say,
weak-like, 'Take Jerry too, pappy, take Jerry too!'
"'We'll get Jerry next time,' says ole Mas'. An' Jerry help Mas' Will fix
de rope roun' him an' dey pull him up out'n de water. He done fainted
when dey got him out, an' he tuk de fever, an' dat chile war sick mos'
six months, an' all de time he had de fever, he say: 'Take Jerry too,
pappy, take Jerry too!' And when he come to hisself, he say right off:
"'Where's Jerry? I want Jerry.'"
Mammy Delphy stopped.
"And where _was_ Jerry, mammy?" cried the boys, breathless.
"'Where war Jerry?' Ole Mas' let down de rope an' say right loud: 'Ketch
holt, Jerry my boy!' But Jerry couldn't ketch holt, chillen. Jerry war
dead."
"_Oh mammy!_"
"Yes, chillun, yes. Dey rub him an' rub him, an' do everything to fotch
him to life. But, my Jerry war dead. An' when me'n de ole man come home
from de funeral - dey buried him in de white folks' buryin'-groun,' long
side o' Miss May's little gal what died - an' put a tombstone at de
head - when we come home from de funeral dat night, de ole man look at
de baby on my lap an' he say, 'Delphy, honey,' he say, 'I think disher
baby mout be name _Grief_.' An' we name him Grief."
Mammy Delphy wiped her eyes and resumed her work. Then, looking up to
the blue sky which shone between the vines, she began singing again:
"Call me in de mornin' Lord,
Or call me in de night,
I'se always ready Lord,
Glory Halla_lu_!"
And the boys, subdued and silent, and for a moment forgetful of
horned-frogs and crawfish, went away softly, as if leaving a grave.
SAMMY SEALSKIN'S ENEMY.
"Where going, Sammy Sealskin?".
"Down to my kayah, Tommy Fishscales."
"Is there any fish to-day?"
"A few, they say, but there is lots of seals - plenty of 'em on the rocks
in the bay."
"All right; bring home something to your friend, Tommy."
Sammy pushed off his kayah from shore. It was a funny sort of boat,
according to our notions. It was only nine inches deep, and about a foot
and a half wide in the middle, tapering to a point at either end and
curving upward. It was about sixteen feet long. Its frame was of very
light wood, and this was covered with tanned seal-skin. Sammy's mother
was a Greenlander, and she could sew on seal-skin very handily, using
sinews for thread; and she had covered her little boy's boat with
seal-skin, leaving a hole in the centre just large enough to receive
Sammy.
When he had dropped into his place, he then laced the lower border of
his jacket to the rim of the hole, and there he was all snug - not a drop
of water could get in. Grasping his single oar, about six feet long,
with a paddle at either end, and flourishing it in the water right and
left, away swept the young fisherman.
"I should think his craft would be top-heavy, and over he would go,"
says some reader.
One naturally would think his craft would be top-heavy and over he would
go, as the kayah has no keel and carries no ballast, and if we should
try a kayah, it would certainly be on land. But those Greenlanders learn
to handle themselves so well that their kayahs will go dancing over the
big billows and then fly through a ragged, dangerous surf. From their
kayahs, too, they will fight the fierce white bear.
Ah! Sammy, what is the matter?
"Ugh-h-h-h!"
Sammy gives a melancholy groan. He begins to suspect that his boat is
leaking.
_Could_ any one have slit the seal-skin bottom?
The kayah is really settling.
Sammy feels troubled. "I _must_ go home," he says.
He turns his back upon the bright, beautiful sea, tufted with cakes of
ice that seem in the distance like the white, pure lilies on a glassy
pond, and paddles off home with good-by to the fishing, good-by to the
black-headed seals, good-by to the low islands with their gulls and
mollimucks and burgomeisters and tern and kittiwakes and
eider-ducks - good-by to the long day's fun!
"It makes me feel like a mad whale," said Sammy, "to be cheated out of
my fishing. I wonder who cut my kayah!"
Just then he looked off to the shore, and there stood Billy Blubber, an
ancient enemy.
"There's the fellow," said Sammy. "He slit my kayah, I know. If I had
him, I'd eat him quicker than a tern's egg. Just see how he looks!"
Billy did look exasperating. He saw everything and he enjoyed
everything. Plainly he was the miscreant. He was waddling round on his
stout little legs, flourishing a huge jack-knife, and grinning as if he
were going to have a big dish of whale-fat for dinner. He looked comical
enough. He was dressed in seal-skin, and was bobbing up and down in his
mother's seal-skin boots. The women's boots are of tanned seal-skin,
bleached white and then colored. The boots of Billy's mother were very
gay. They were bright red ones. When Billy from his tent-door saw Sammy
coming, he crawled into the huge big boots, and bare-headed rushed - no,
waddled out, to greet the discomfited fisherman.
"Billy, I'll give it to you?"
"Will you, Sammy? Try it, old boy."
Thereupon, he put his thumb to his nose and wriggled his finger as
exasperatingly as any Yankee boy here in this enlightened land. His flat
face, his black little eyes, his stubby little nose, his hair black as
coal and long behind, but fashionably "banged" in front, the seal-skin
suit, mother's big red boots, and the nasal gesture made a very
interesting picture, and a most provoking one also.
"Billy, you _will_ catch it!"
"I should rather think you had caught it already. Did you bring any
seal-fat, Sammy?"
Sammy felt mad enough and hot enough to set the water to boiling between
his kayah and the shore.
"You had better run, Billy."
"Plenty of time, Sammy."
Sammy's kayah was now ashore. Sammy unlaced his jacket and let himself
out of jail. Pulling his kayah high up the shore, he turned it over and
let the water escape. There were two ugly gashes in the seal-skin
bottom - just as he expected.
"Now where's that Billy?" asked Sammy at last. But mother's red boots
had prudently withdrawn.
"I _will_ give it to him," said Sammy; "but I will mend this first."
He took up his beloved kayah and walked to the little village. It was
not very large. There were half a dozen seal-skin tents, a few houses of
stone and turf, and one or two wooden buildings, besides the
government-house that proudly supported the flag of Denmark.
"What do you want, Sammy?" said his mother, as he appeared at the door
of one of the seal-skin tents. She was sitting on a bed of reindeer
skins.
"I want needle and thread, mother. That Billy Blubber cut some holes in
my kayah."
"Billy Blubber did?"
"Yes," said Sammy, "and I would like to sew him up in a seal-skin and
drop him from the top of an iceberg into the sea."
"Tut, tut, Sammy. It's a boy's trick. Let it go."
"There," thought Sammy, shouldering his kayah and moving off, "that is
what mother always says when Billy harms me."
"Where are you going, Sammy?"
"Off to mend my kayah, mother."
"Nonsense! Only women can mend kayahs. I will fix it. You go off and
take a walk, and then come to dinner. We are going to have a young
seal."
A seal! Wasn't that nice? Who wouldn't be a young Greenlander, own a
kayah, and have seal for dinner? The prospect before Sammy made him feel
better. The world, too, looked different.
"What a nice place we live in!" thought Sammy. "I wouldn't live in
Denmark for anything, old Denmark, where our rulers come from."
The scenery about the Greenland village was indeed interesting. There
was the blue sea before it, dotted with "pond-lilies." Off the mouth of
the harbor, the icebergs went sailing by, so white, so stately, so slow,
like a fleet almost becalmed. Back of the village swelled the rocky
cliffs bare of snow now, and many rivulets went flashing down their
sides from ponds and pools nestling in granite recesses. Away off,
towered the mountains, their still snowy tops suggesting the powdered
heads of grand old Titans sitting there in state.
"Who wouldn't live in Greenland?" thought Sammy, entirely forgetting the
long, cold, dark winter.
However, it was summer then. He went back of his mother's seal-skin
tent. There he could see a beautiful valley in the shadow of the
cliffs. Moss and grasses thickly carpeted it. Little brooks went
sparkling through it. There were flowers in bloom, poppies of gold,
dandelions and buttercups, saxifrages of purple, white and yellow. "And
trees were there?" asks a reader. Do you see that shrub just before
Sammy? That is the nearest thing to a tree. It is pine. If the fat for
cooking the dinner should give out, young Miss Seal may be warmed up by
the help of this giant pine. As a rule, we are inclined to think that
Sammy takes his seal same as folks who like "oysters on the shell" - raw.
"Ky-ey! Ky-ey!"
"My!" exclaimed Sammy. "What is that noise? It must be a dog
somewhere - hurt!"
Sammy started to the rescue.
"Ky-ey! Ky-ey!"
"It must be a dog," declared Sammy, and he expected to see one of those
large Greenland dogs, wolf-like, with sharp, pointed nose, and ears held
up stiff as if to catch every sound of danger in their dangerous
travels.
Sammy rushed up a little hill before him, and rushed in such a hurry
that he did not think how steep the other side was. He lost his balance,
and over he went, head down, seal-skin boots up, turning over like a
cart-wheel.
"Ky-ey! Ky-ey! Ah, Sammy! Ky-ey! Ky-ey! Catch him!"
It was that old enemy, Billy Blubber, ky-eying in part, and laughing
also as if he would split. He only expected to get Sammy to the top of
the hill and there tell him he was fooled.
"This though is better than a sea-lion hunt," thought Billy, and he
roared again and shook till he threatened to come in pieces like a
barrel when the hoops are off.
"I will catch you and pay you," said Sammy.
"Try it," defiantly shouted Billy, wearing now his own boots, having
dropped his mother's red casings.
Off went Billy. Right ahead, was a great gray ledge. There was a crack
in the ledge big enough for a boy's foot. Billy was the boy to have his
foot caught in it! He tried to pull it out, but the sudden wrench was
not good for his foot, and there he stood yelling - he was ky-eying now
in good earnest.
"I have a great mind," thought Sammy, "to let you stay there. I wonder
how you would like to stay and have a duck come along and nip off your
nose."
It would have been a nice little nip, for Billy's nose was quite plump.
It looked like a fat plum stuck on to the side of a pumpkin.
Well, how long should Sammy have kept him there?
"Till the sun went down," says some one.
The idea! Why, the sun in summer goes round and round and round, never