The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-07-12
AN ACROBATIC STEAMER.
An Old Sailors Story of a Re-
 markable Voyage.

"Yes, there he is," said Henry.
 The boys had gone down to the pier to look for the Old Sailor. It was Saturday, and as there was no school they were in hopes that their old friend would tell them a yarn. He was sitting in his favorite place at the end of the pier, gazing out on the ocean. The boys followed the direc- tion of his gaze, and saw two-masted schooner-rigged steamer, deeply laden, blowing her way southward at a slow pace, with an acre of foam rising al most to her hawse-pipes. She rolled slowly and heavily as she went, and poured an oily column of black smoke from her single fat funnel.
 An wot kind O vessel do ye think that are?" asked the Old Sailor, without looking around.
 "A steamer, of course," said Henry.
 An werry good, too, so fur as it goes" responded the Old Sailor, in- dulging in one of his silent laughs. But wot kind O a steamer?"
 Looks like tramp" answered George.
 That's werry good, irdeed," said the Old Sailor. "A tramp she are and a tramp she'll be. An she are werry much like another tramp l once knowed, only she are summat shorter an cOnsid'able more by the head, w'ich the same tramps often is."
 Twill you tell us about the tramp you knew?" asked Henry.
 That are the werry identical thing I'm a-standin' by fur to do," said the old Sailor. He took another careful look at the steamer and then broke out thus: "W'ich the same ye may call me a marine eff it waren't in the year afore l quit the sea an came here to spend the rest O my nateral-born days a-tellin' you boys about it. l shipped as second mate onto the tramp steam CT Iron Mary, with cargo O tin cans, gOatskins an rattlesnakes' teeth fur Whites island"
 "Why, what are rattlesnakes' teeth good for?" asked George.
 "The natyves O that island," an swered the Old Sailor, ''wear them an tin cans fur ornaments an goatskins
 
 our cargo fur Whites Island oats, w'ich the same will make slow hoss fast, only they is werry hard to get, eos wy, the natives won't trade 'em 'cept- in in leap-year, it bein' their belief that oats growed in them years ain't good. We got under way from Moo York on a werry fine mornin' in Feb ruary, an passin' the Scotland light ship at four bells in the forenoon watch, laid our course south by east. The Iron Mary were not werry fast ship, but she were werry pertiklerly fine-built vessel. She war built in nine water-tight compartments, with slidin' bulkhead doors, so that if she got into a collidgion you could shet up the compartment wOt were busted an keep the water from goin' into any other part. Leastways, that's wot ye could do if the doors worked all right, witch the same they ginerally don't. An that were the cause O this ere yarn wot I'm a-tellin' ye.
 "We had good weather fur several days, an got about fifteen hundred mile on our course. Then the byrome- ter beginned fur to go down slow and stiddy. It kep' a-goin down fur nigh onto two days, an still the weather were clear an conf table. But our old man, Cap'n Waterbury Boggs, sez he to me, sez he: 'Ye know wot the poet sez, don't yep An allowed didn't know no poets. An sez he to me, sez he: The poet sez: Long foretold, long last; short notice, soon past" An sez I to him, sez I: The poet wot said that were seafarin' pusson, jess like that, sez to him, sez l, him bein' the cap'n O the ship, an me the second mate. l hadn' much more'n got the words out O my mouth wen it be- ginned fur to cloud up, an awful swell rolled up out O the southeast. The Iron Mary she rolled so that ye couldn't keep your feet, an the skip per he changed her course sos she'd head into it. At three bells in the evenin' it beginned fur to blow, an by midnight it were howlin' gale. Afore mornin' it got up to a hurricane, an the steamer were a-shippin' water till thort her decks d be clean stove in. The cap'n he ordered us to put ile in the drain pipes, an so we soon stopped the breakin' O the seas, an rode