Omaha daily bee., 1888-12-02

| ted himself her serving man, and upor
fine days he would arrange her caml
chair on deck, and wrap her snugly up
keep her supplied with reading matter
and, when she would tire, he would es
cort her up and down the poop" like 8
| love-sick swain instead of husband
Mrs. Holiday was the direct contrast in
appearance to her husband. While he
was a fine built, athletic-looking fellow
| with tlaXen hair, mustache and beard,
| she was beautiful petite brunette. a
| handsome woman by all means, and
with wealth of blue black hair and
eyes like sloe.
"Well, on Thanksgiving day, very
early in the morning the weather COM
menced to thicken. The glass began to
fall, and every indication of dirty day
and night set in. The wind had been
blowing from w. N. W., but about noon
it veered round and came from e. N.
E., right in our teeth. An ugly beam
sea set in, and the white caps came out
in great force. At eight bells, 4 clock
in the afternoon, went below. The
weather remained just about the same,
| and the Claudine was tumbling about in
| all directions, and when it came my turn
| again to take the bridge. | can tell you,
| very few appeared to eat their turkey
| and cranberry sauce that Thanksgiving
evening. At 8 o'clock I relieved the
| mate aud found anything but q com
Portable prospect for bridge duty till
midnight. The wind howled through
the rigging like sixty, and my watch
huddled themselves around the 'fiddley'
waiting for any orders 1 might give
them. Bye and bye it began to
rain, and this fact coupled with
the water that the vessel COM
menced to ship decided me
upon the necessity Of 'battening down
the matches. / never knew ship to
cut such capers as did the "Claudine"
that night Lord! how the pantry stock
suffered, and the way the cooks pots
and pans ratified was something to re-
member.
well, ladies and gentlemen, at six
BELLS 10 o'clock, it was blowing per-
feet hurricane from the eastward. 1t
had got full, fair and square in our face,
and bluff how'd as our vessel WAS she
made little progress, so | ordered the en-
gines slowed down and sent the men for
ward to put some head sail on her to try
and steady her up. Suddenly the wind
shifted round and began to blow big
guns" from e. S. h. and almost in
stantaneously-quicker than it takes to
tell you-a terrific sea, regular
'snorter,' struck US mid slips throw
her over on her beam ends, and at the
same time our steam steering gear gave
out aud for few minutes the Claudine
was literally a log on the water. /
rang the telegraph and stopped the en-
gine, and sang out at the same time to
the 'bos'n to send men aft to man the
auxiliary hand steering gear. You
should have seen how the sailors jumped
along to execute my orders. Very
quickly we had the old hooker with
her head up to the wind. Not a mo-
ment too soon, however, for a second
sea caught the shi p and came thunder
ing down upon the decks. Nobly she
responded, down she went, but only for
a moment, and rising to the occasion
after a sh udder that was felt from stem
To stern, she shook the water off, aud
rose to her work The next attack, was
a vicious one from a half spent beam
sea that didn't smother US again, but
'heeled' the ship over on her beam ends
to port. | stood peering through the
combined influence o. both rain and
sprays trying to keep keen
look out when horrorsl as
looked saw a white
robed figure glide along the deck. run
ming with nimble feet up the incline;
for you will guess what degree the
ship was lying at being on her beam
ends. | was speechless for second.
Quicker than a flash the figure sprang