The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1868-11-05
From the Atlantic Monthly. J
KENTUCKY'S GHOST.
True7 Every syaIIabIe.

True7 Every syallable.
That was a very fair yarn of yours,
Tom Brown, very fair for a landsman,
but I'll bet you doughnut | can. beat
it; and all on the square too, as say
which is more, if | don't mistake, than
you could take oath too Not to say
that l never stretched my yarn a little
on the fo'castle in my younger days,
like the rest of 'em; but what with liv-
ing under roofs so long past, and a call
from the parson regular in strawberry
time, and having to do the fiogging
consequent on the inakkeracies of state
ment folleling on the growing up of six
boys,a man learns to trim his words lit
tie, Tom, and no mistake. It's very much
as it is with the talk of the sea growing
strange to you from hearing nothing
but lubbers who don't know a mizzen-
mast from church-steeple.
1t was somewhere about twenty years
ago last October, If | recolect fair, that
we were laying in for that particular
trip to Madagascar. I've done that
little voyage to Madagascar when the
sea was like so much burning oil, and
the sky like so much burning brass, and
the fo'castle as nigh hell as ever 70 o'cas.
tie was in calm; Eve done it when
we came sneaking into port with nigh
about every spar gone and pumps going
night and day and I've done It with a
drunken captain, on starvation rations,
duff that a dog on land wouldn't have
touched and two teaspoonsful of water
to the day,-but someways or other, of
all the times we headed for the East
Shore don't seem to remember any
quite as distinct as this
We cleared from Long Wharf in the
ship Madonna, Which they tell me
means, My Lady, and pretty name it
was; it was apt to give me that gentle
kind of feeling when | spoke it, which
is surprising when you consider what a
dull old hull she was, never logging
over ten knots, and Uncertain at that.
1t may have been because of MolPs
coming down once in while in the
days that we lay at dock, bringing the
boy with her. and sitting up on deck in
little white apron, knitting. She was
very good-looking woman, was my
wife in those days, and felt proud of
her,-naturaI, with the lads looking on.
"Molly," | used to say, sometimes,
-"Molly Madonna"
"Nonsense!" said she giving clack
to her needles, pleased enough though,
| warrant you, and turning very pret-
ty pink about the cheeks for four
years wife. Seeing as how she was
always a lady to me, and true one,
and gentle, though she was MT much
stmanners or ok-learning, and though
! | never gave her silk gown in her life,
she was quite content, you see, and SO
was |. JOB .aaa gE ea yHr
/ | used to speak my thought about
the name sometimes, when the lads
were emit particularly noisy, but they
laughed at me mostly. | was rough
enough and bad enough in those days;
as rough as the rest, and as bad as the
rest | suppose, but yet | seemed to
have my notions q little different from
the others. stakes poetry" they
called 'em. ,ia
| We were loading for the East Shore
trade, as | said, did, II THERE'S MT
much of the genuine, old-fashioned
trade left in these days, except the
whisky branch, which will be brisk, |
take If, till the Malagasy carry the pro-
hibitory law by Q large majority in both
houses. We had little whisky in the
hold, I remember, that trip, with a
good stock of knives, red flannel, hand
saws, nails, and cotton. I'VE were hop
inc I'd be At home again within the year!