Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1892-06-03
Tho SHIP That Mover Came.

The Ship That Never Came.
A narrow, darkened cell in the city
prison of a Western town, a coast
town, where the flashing waves of the
Pacific could be heard even within
the confines, of the narrow, darkcned
cell. There was a dead man here, an
old man with white hair and a
wrinklcd face.
The prison keeper told the story.
sit goes along way back, young
man, but itdon't take long to tell it.
bennington, Vermont, you've heard
tell on. Bob Carter, him that'sdead
in there, liveG in Bennington forty
years ago. He had as pretty a wife,
and two as sweet children, as you or
me ever laid eyes on. Well. he got
what you fcllcrs call the Californy
fever. Thought he'd come out to the
coast and make his pile in a year.
"Bob came overland with a party
of Kansas f%ellcrs, long the Santa Fe
trail. That was somewhere in the
forties. He fixed things at home so
as his wife and kids could come 10y
sailin' vessel round the horn. Some
whar bout a year after Bob had struck
his camp here in San Diego, his folks
started for the coast. His wife wrote
him that she and the kids were to
sail next day on Old Sile Perkins
schooner, Petrol.
sat the end of three months. folks
hereabout began to look for the
Petrol. Bob Carter looked more than
the rest of us. He had been workin'
on the highway, and LAID off a week
or two just to be at the wharf when
the Petrol hove in sight. So Bob
was down at the water, with my glass
in his hands, early and late, lookin'
Tor the schooner. Every time a sail
appeared round Point Iona, Bob
would take a fresh chaw of terbacker
and look mighty pleased like.
'sWcll, to make a long story short,
a whole monthpassed and the schooner
never came. Then New Years came
again. and then the war. We all
made up u minds that Sile Perkins
schooner had gone to the bottom. We
all believed it, all but Bob. Every
night he would sit ON the wharf an
hour or more, waitin' for the Petrol,
an be used to say to me that she'd
come tomorrow sure. Every night,
when he turned in at the boardin'-
house, he went to sleepwlth the word
''to-morrow' oil his lips. Well, forty
years has passed and yet the Petrol
never came. Bob kept looking for her
through all these long years. Why,
man, he's neglected his work and lost
many a good job, gone hungry and
been out in the wet, Just to sit on the
wharf and look for the white sails of
the schooner that never came. 1t
hurt Bob's head. FIe hasn't been lust
right for ten years or more. I've
watched him close and kept him here
with me in the chain gang mostly.
Every night, through rain or shine,
I've lowed him to go down to the
wharf for a spell, for even last night
he was still lookin' for the Petrol in
the storm. He came back, wet and
shivering, and chills and fever all
night long, and this mornin', Just as
the sun was peepin' over the Cuyawaca
range. old Bob went to Sleep and
there's no man hereabouts can ever
wake him.
Sad, amt TT? Ihope he found the
Petrol safely anchored on the other
shore, with his wife and kids standin,
on the upper deck, holdin' out their
hands for him to come to them. II
there be q God, aud ] always thought
there be, He'd take the 'missin' shin
to Heaven, long with Bob. don't you
think so, Mister?"-Yankee Blade.
F.tL..f