Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1873-07-05
"Well. Billy. as I told Won. was Al.

ahNA AAt anu hAAObllN1 bOl eAAbAN w
send down the fore royal yard. He takes
the end of a topmast stunsail tack, and
goes up and stops his ballard to the
backstay abaft, casts off the end from
the yard and lets it unreave, shinns up
and reeves his yard rope through the
sheave at the masthead, slides down
again, gets his bunt CAST clear and his
sail secured, bends on his yard ropeand
puts on his quarter stop, and the other
boy having got the tripping-line on and
the clew-lines and sheets cast of, Billy
cuts the parral lashing and sings out
Sway away the fore-royal yard as
proud as q peacock, for neither of the
other masts was ready yet, and he was
tickled at beating 'em.4 ....-. ...-r
"Well, he gets off his lift and brace
and sings out, Lower away, still ahead
of the other masts; got his other lift
and brace off, and was a putting on his
yard-arm STOP when the chap that
was tending the yard rope on deck
surged it suddenly, and the ship giving
a heavy lurch just then, Billy lost his
balance and away he went Well, the
ship lurching so sent him well out to
leeward, and the wind caught him and
whirled him round like a feather and
blew him far to leeward, and the chap
that told me this said he fell onto the
curl of sea abou5 a ships length to
leeward as softly and easily as if he had
had a parachute over him all the way
down. The ship, of course, under that
short canvas, was laying right dead in
the water and making clean drift to
leeward, and so she soon drifted right
atop of Billy, who was striking out
like Sandwich Islander. When the
chaps on board seen she was agoin' to
fetch him, half dozen of 'em was over
the side in bowlines ready for to grab
him as soon as they got near enough,
and one of 'em got Billy by the scruff of
the neck and he was pulled aboard agin.
He weren't bit daunted, weren't that
boy for as they was pullin' of him up,
he sings out to the rest of the chaps
that was over the side to look out for
his hat, which had blowed off his head
and was foatin some distance to lee
ward
"That was a tight squeak, though,
wasn't it? 'Taint everybody that can
tumble from a ships to'gallan' masthead
and get off with only wetting but,
you see, twas the wind as done it, and
he wern't much heavier than good
sized chaw of terbacker. ,...
Certainly, I was glad to hear that
Billy was safe, but if he had been
drowned it would only have served him
right, for the trick he played on me be-
fore leaving New York. which was to
write letter to Polly and sign my name
to -"Thomas Peters "a tellin Polly
as how intended to speak to her afore
leavin' Liverpool, and was willin' to
splice her if so be as how she was of
that mind, and lot more of trash of
the same sort. Well, of course,
know'd NOTHING of all this, and [ ships
in the Hottinger with old Captain
Bursely and away goes to Liverpool
again. We docked in the Waterloo
dock of q Sunday forenoon, and that
evening I riggs myself up and goes up
as usual to see Polly and get my beer.
There wasn't nobody in the snug when
| went in, and as soon as ever Polly
came in and clapped her eyes on me she
come and put her arms around my neck
and gin me buss in true ship-shape
fashion. Well, I was a good deal took
aback by this, cause Polly hadn't never
been so familiar before; but as such
things are always acceptable after sea
voyage, just returned the broadside
to the best of my ability. After awhile,
Polly heaves to along side of me and
begins to tell me how glad she was when
she got my letter, and how she never
had any idee that L thought so much of
her, and all that, until | was completely
befogged, for 1 couldn't make out what
she was a-driving at at all. So I says: ::
Polly, my lass, Just belay them Jay
tacks and gum-sheets of yourn for bit,
and let's know what all this is about,
for I'm blowed if can make it all out
rightly, anyhow Says she: Don't
you know tho letter you sent me p
:" Mr., saysI; I didn't send you no
letter .--......
"' You did, says Polly, and here it
is, and she dove down into her pocket
and fetched it up. ......
"'Read it, says I, and she done SO
and I seen how the land lay at once, and
shaped my course accordin'. [ know'd
it was Billy's work at once, but I see
that [ was in for it.
"Polly,' says I, put me down on
ships deck any day, and put a marll IN
spike in my fist, and I'll turn out job
of work equal to any man put me on
a ships topsail yard in gale of wind,
and I'm equal to the situation but as
for readin' and writin', Polly, that /
never learned in my youth, and it hasn't
come to me in age, and consequently
that letter never did write but it's
got my name to the bottom of it, and /
never went back on my own name yet !;
as near as [ can make out, it's jist sich
a letter as [ should have writ if I'd been
able to and had had any idea of writin'
sich letter, and so what's writ is writ,
and can't be unwrit nohow; therefore,
if so be as how after understandin' the
subject in all its bearings you still con-
tinue of the same mind, we'll go this
very next Sunday after parson, and tie
a not with our tongues that we can't
never unite with our teeth. s -t
"Well, Polly said as how she was con-
venient; and so, sure enough, that very
next Sunday we was spliced in an old
church out at Everton, and got her a
passage home here in the same ship ]
was aboard of, and have never repented
of the same. Is she still living ??
Why, of course she is, and waitin'
for me at home this blessed minute.
While was goin' to sea she lived in a
house on Cherry street, and when I got
this here job of nightwatchman on the
dock we moved up in Sixth avenue,
where I lives at the present writin'."
}tH sso sti AZ.