The northern tribune. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1847-1855, 1848-01-31
From, the Nonpareil.
LOST AND WON HOMESTEAD.
BY S. C. MERRIGATE.
CONCLUDED

CONCLUDED
Uncle Job seemed uneasy that night when
he went to bed the clouds looked threaten
ing, and the breakers were full of hints about
the wild work that must have been going on
| outside. Before midnight the roar OF the
storm, and wind and waves, was filling the air
with one perpetual Handicapped, reused Job
thoroughly from his half sleep. The driving
| sand poured on the window like sleet, and
when the anxious man raised the sash to look
out, it smote in his tough face with a sharp
sting that blinded him. But not more utterly
! black than before, was the scene to his closed
eyes.
"Wife," he said, " this is terrible night
for sailors our rocky shore y
"God save them J" groaned the pious
mother, and her own son, soon expected home,
was present in her thoughts.
cts no use trying to sleep, Nancy, see how
the old hut shakes -
! A terrible gust smote it as he spoke, and
sent the chimney top tumbling over the root,
which seemed itself to be falling on them
The children shrieked with fear, and stout
Job leaped to his feet.
| "Ha what was that sound?" In mo.
ment he was dressed, and light was struck,
and while the anxious mother was quieting
her children, both started at clear shrll cry
| from the shore. which all that nights tempest
could not drown.
Look to the lights, wife, l go; there's a
cry OF distress"
He planted his lamp in the window, where
his wife soon set three more. their whole stock ;
and hurrying on his oil coat and cap, he
snatched the ever ready lantern and rushed
for the shore. Another cry came family in
on the blast as he opened the door, and the
| tbo
volume of the wind that suddenly heaved it.
The lights were quenched, but at once re-
lighted, and in few moments Walter was at
his fathers side equipped for severcst duty.
And need there was, for the cries of human
beings in distress pierced the horrible roar
from every side, and made the darkness agony,
Fragments of wreck, boxes and bales, where
whirling in the SURF each with fellow being
clinging to it desperately. Three Or four
brave tars had reached the land, and seeing a
! light from the hut, in answer to their cry,
sent up shout of cheer to their fellows, and
| though they were nearly spent with struggling,
they would not seek the shelter offered them,
but what they could they did, to drag their
companions from the ruin that howled round
them
:" In the name of God, what fortune ;"
cried Job TO the first man he met.
GA wreck, sir God bless we if We can give
us hand"
"What is she }" eagerly inquired the
fisherman, not delaying, however, his exer-
tons.
"She was the Dancing Belle till she struck
that horrible reef, sir; but now she is
nothing"
Brave Job, too, not used to quail, had struck
a reef, and all his hopes seemed for an instant
totally wrecked.
Don't for the love of God, don't speak it
in the house. I've brave son should be on
her decks, heaven help him. But spare his
mother"
No need of messages sent home to spare
her, for close at his hand the heroic woman
was dragging up the lifeless forms OF the
sufferers to the shore. No boat could live in
that wild surf, and only such help as they
could give with ropes and planks, availed.-
The neghbors came focking down, warned
bv Sammy, who had been dispatched as soon
as his elder brother left; while Jane, and such
assistants as came in, took charge OF the res
cued. When the name of the Inflated vessel
struck on the mothers ears, she half dropped
the coil she was drawing in, with a man on
the end of it, and shrieked:
"My son my son o John John -
In moment she felt the line flag, heard
splash, and a voice that exclaimed;
My mother o, is It possible My mother!
and John Wilson sprang to her aims. But he
staid not an instant, though she seemed ready
to sink to the earth. He had kept the rope
in his hand. drawing in the plank to which
he had chung. To that was dashed the form
of Clara Winthrop, which in moment more
lay pale and dropping at his mothers feet
O, what meeting was that for mother and
son and father when the hurried recognition
was broken short by shrieks of despair, and
the groans of the dying, which called for
work, not words
Fast as any were rescued they were borne
to the house, till it was filled, and then the
strongest were guided to the nelghboring
houses, but no strong hand was spared from