Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-07-31
DOWN In A STEAMSHIP.

-
NV father was a rich man when I left
New York. His partners only daugh-
ter was to be my wife when [ should re-
turn.
was a student in a Vienna hospital
when received a cable from home that
the ola house had failed. It proved to
be an honest failure and both families
were beggars.
| counted my pocketbook from cover
to cover. l had just enough to leave
free of debt and get to Liverpool. How
to cross? Well, swim if necessary.
In the Liverpool steamer office was an
old Harvard College mate. This en-
barrassed me. He owed me grudge
from the football days at Berkeley Oval.
Determined to work my passage over,
I entered what I supposed was not the
office where my old competitor was man
ager. | did not see him, but he must
have caught sight of me. / was sur
prised with the promptness with which l
was told to 90 on board the c., and
something would be found for me to do.
Two days out l was called to the cap
tain's own room, insulted with the
charge, at first politely put, of being Il
stowaway, and finally stung to madness
bitter enough to obey silently when the
officer said: eff you really don't want
30 steal your passage, go report to the
engineer and shovel COAL"
This did. My experience [ want to
describe. 1t is common enough to hun
dreds of poor scamps this moment all
over the seas. But, God pity them, they
have not the tongue to tell,
nor. perhaps, always the sensibility to
feel, what their life really is.
Dizzy already with the tossings of the
sea l staggered down those series of iron
stairwavs till | stood at last on the ship $
lowest deck Behind me were the vast
bunkers of coal that glistened from q
million eyes when the furnace doors were
opened. and then faded out of sight.
Before me the huge pillows rose, not
silent, but roaring monsters, so hungry
that the toiling pygmies who fed them
jumped to their tasks till the sweat rolleo
from their bare backs. The heat was, te
one descending from the pure breath Of
the Atlantic, something fearful. was
dressed in my ordinary attire, and even an
overcoat at that, SO precipitate had beer
nv action. The smell Of baking lubrl
cants and red hot iron, the dead air
poisoned with coal gas and bilge waite
odors, the dust, despite all showering
but most of all the sudden transition
from white light to blacklist darkness
momentarily proceeding, as this and tina
furnace door was opened anu snut,almoS
felled me to the floor.
As l stumbled and caught my hold o.
the stair RAIL- again the hardy fellow
shouted: s'Give US your shilling and G
back!" supposing that l was a curlou
passenger seeing the sights OF the ship.
The voices of derision reused me.
was no passenger. Twas an honest peg
gar like the rest; and here was to b
imprisoned for week, watch On an
off!
In frenzy tore off my clothing I'll
stood in my trousers and shoes like NJ
fellows I stated my hiring to the fel
low in charge of the watch, and he CAV
me my shovel with plying laugh.
l was put at the boiler nearest til
stair. The midships would have been
less drunken spot, but l leaped at tn
hardest task.
My head grew dizzy. I painted for
full vital breath. The corrugated fool
ing, polished till it was glossy smooth
spots, tangled my poor feet so that It
peatedly fell. All, that sense of whir
ing, whirling, whirling! How little tt
fair folk in the cabins, know of all tn
plutonian hole beneath their carpets.
Really, thought could descrit
somewhat that lurid fantasia amid the
scarlet skinned, good natured demon
but I cannot. Vertigo struck me dow
in less than a half hour. The next
knew l was being revived in the con
panionway, and the sea air was so graf
full. The ships surgeon asked me if
felt able to go to work again, al
courteously recognized that I was not
laborer. was graceless enough
growl out my spleen and reassert that
was no stowaway, which the good dc
tor did not understand.
turned to the assistant engineer, W