The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-18

for the marines, who are known fore and
aft as persons of remarkable innocence and
gullibility.
Yet for all this the story is true.
When Paddy White slipped his earthly
moorings and went drifting away to the
shoreless sea, apparently, he only stepped
out on the head of the bowsprit and
changed his rig. He was not seen to shift
his personality, but solemn-looking bird,
sort of cross between a sand piper and a
crane, was seen standing on the spar about
the time dying Quartermaster White, con-
| ming the wheel in his delirium called out,
''Starboard steady! watch the weather.
leech of the to gallant-sail, my boy, and
let her go full and by!"
Paddy rested a moment on the newly
uplifted sods in the navy-yard cemetery
rect1on and the life. Then the boatswain
piped Clover away" as the sweet-toned
bugle played "Out all lights" and Paddy
had forever turned in.
But the solemn bird never left the ship,
and in the quiet nights, when the crew
slept in their canvas hammocks with the
sentries calling ''All's we-l-l-lp as the
in through an open port and fly noiselessly
up and down the dim spar deck till the
reveille. The elder men-the "plank-
owners"-saw it, as age gives the ancient
shellback second-sight, and the deep mystic
things of the sea are unveiled to the weak
old eyes, grown blear and watery from
looking to windward in gales. The young
fellows, OF course, never saw the silent,
spectral visitant, which was well, because
they would have been frightened and
would have passed the word that the ship
was haunted. When the sea-dads spoke
OF the occurrence they simply mentioned
the fact OF Paddy's coming. back and didn't
consider that supernatural return in the
deep, dead night as anything out of the
ordinary.
Why shouldn't Paddy White come back :?
They always expected that he would. Old,
old sailors always come back to their old
old ships. There is SYSTEMATICALLY
yond the horizon; it has never been
charted; no meridians nor parallels are
traced across Its stormiess surface, and
there the dead men sail their dead ships.
And moreover, Paddy White had right
to come back, for did he not own plank
in the independence? The locality of that
bit OF timber was somewhat vague, but it's
existence was an article of faith both in the
cabin and forecastle, and Whites right to
the same was as clear as the points on the
compass card. OF course there is no para
graph in the rules and regulations to the
effect that long servitude conveys any kind
OF material ownership other than the gen.
eral idea OF national copartnership which
the 60,000,000 more or less people in this
country have in Government property, but
White was sole owner in this particular
plank, and had held possession for nobody
knows how long. He had appeared aboard
the frigate out on the Mediterranean sta
ton when he and the vessel were both
young-that is younger than they are now.
On the subject of Whites youth it may
be In order to speak right here of the Diff
ferent opinions that have obtained in the
navy as to the date of his debut on ship
board, a juvenile mariner. One said he
was powder-monkey with Paul Jones and
fought like a Trojan on the Goodman
Richard. Another held that he was the
sole survivor of the Royal George when
she turned turtle and sank with 800 men in
harbor. 1t was also reported (by an ap-
prentice fresh from school) that he was in
the French fleet at the battle of the Nile
and blew up with Casabianca when the
L'Orient was destroyed, and he escaped
with only his whiskers singed. A Bible
student in the forecastle said that it could
be found in Revelations that White was
chief quartermaster on the ship that went
ashore on the Isle of Patmos during ST.
PauPs trip to Rome. The sailmaker's
mate, who read Rollins Ancient History
IN his watch below, reported that Paddy
White swan ashore from the wreck of
Marc Antony's fag-galley at Actium.
a close searcher in far-away antiquity
tried to ship the everlasting sailorman in