The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1897-04-02
THE SURVIVAL OF
THE FITTEST.

Jim threw another log on the camp
fire, and the blazing circle Of light grew
to its old dimensions. We could see
the stars lodging back and forth be-
hind the tops of the pines, and the lone
coyote who had a monopoly Of noises
down the gulch was indulging us
with temporary rest. The patriarch
occupied the seat Of honor, a camp
stool, and the rest Of us were ranged
on a tree trunk.
The patriarch looked at me. "I'll do
you the favor" he said, "of filling my
pipe with your tobakky. Speakin' Of
sea yarns, that story of Jim's about
the icebergs that hunted in pairs, keep
in keen lookout to squeeze a ship
caught without a breeze, while the
polar bears sat by and laughed, was
toPbly good, and the one you told about
the thing that could stand on it's head
on the floor of the ocean and flap the
face of heaven with its tail, was purity
fair, yes, purity fair. But they war
just yarns, plain yarns, neatly unrav-
eled. And that makes me think of
what old Absalom Biggs used to say:
Always tell the truth, my lad, if you're
q master smart hand at It,
"Absalom had a distant relative-he
lived in Nantucket, and his brother was
anchored in Jamaiky-who bought and
sold everything, from queer shells to
queer money. His brother was smart
man, nigh as smart as Absalom him.
self. and he might have lived to be
great one If they had given him plenty
of rope. AS 1t was, he war leetle too
high-strung to make a success of life.
It's queer how the furriners acquire
all of our improvements, even the art
Of lynchin'.
"Absalom was master and sole pro-
prietor Of the good old tradin' brig,
Keep Mum. They war two of a kind,
Absalom and the brig. Absalom wore
a suit of homespun that hung on him
like sail wrapped around windmill,
and the brig was all right If she was
only as black as she was painted, for
she needed sprucin' up badly, but they
war both hard to beat in their decep-
tive lines, reckon. The Keep Mum
was one of the best of her kind that
ever faded out of sight of a revenue
SultCAs anu AOodAoLA as SAlllASu ~ d
patent right on lots of the tricks of his
trade. He was a quiet kind of man,
though he had good command Of Ian
guage, resultin' from hard study of cir
Gus posters when he was a Lad, and
the Keep Mum sailed so Silly that the
wind couldn't whistle through her rig
gin even.
Now, Absalom was a temperance
man from principle and interest,
though he wasn't particularly religious
and worshiped nothin', so far as /
know, except savin's banks. Never
taste the intoxicatin' cup, young man.
he used to say; you might miss
chance to make a dollar But Just the
same, after his brother came aboard
at the end of my first trip to Kingston,
br;ngin' with him a mysterious air
(kind Of strongly scented. Absalom
loaded the Keep Mum up with rum.
And such rum! In barrels, with rust
ed hoops and cobwebs clingin' round
'em, they hoisted it on board. The pir-
ates that hid it a century before stored
nothin' weak. and every year added to
its strength. Our second mate, who
was a man of much liquid experience
ashore as well as at sea, took a cargo
of one cup. 1t was just three days be-
fore he could navigate, and-would you
believe it!-for two weeks after that
whenever he dreamed of that rum at
night he'd wake up in the mornin'
tipsy.
"Absalom was a man who glanced
over newspapers from curiosity and
read trade journals for profit. So 1
knew somethin' extremely uncommon
was up when he spent a whole fore
noon porin' over newspaper, with his
elbows on the table and his fingers
clutched in his hair; and when heard
him chuckle, 1 was Interes ted. Absa-
lom Biggs never wasted a chuckle. I
heard him say, as he went out of the
cabin: They're strong in the body, but
weak in the head
"Of course, picked up the paper. 1t
told a story Of an awful tribe of can
nybals who resided on the west coast
of ,Afriky. 1t seemed they war a tribe
of reg'lar bunko-sterers, for all the
missionaries who went there war in
variably taken in. Then the Queen of
England sent down gunboat, and the
captain of the gunboat sent man with
a white flag and a proclamation in vio-
lent language to these cannybals- But