New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1898-08-03
a STORY Z @ B w a TSON.
AN OCCASION WHEN THE OLD SEA
DOG WANTED TO SWEAR.

DOG WANTED TO SWEAR.
Not Being Profane Man, However, He
Gave the Job which Reused His wrath
to Fuller, the Bos'n's Mate, and Then
Let Events Take Their Course.
John Crittenden Watson does not be-
long to the list Of 'scussing officers, =
yet as a man-o'-war skipper he never
had a man Of his ships company aft for
swearing. He was singularly indulgent
of the hard swearers forward.
Hard language helps a man along
occasionally, he has been known to
say to one of his deck officers upon over
hearing stream Of maledictions from
the lips of some old fiat foot working at
a stubborn job forward, 'tand it is bet
ter for the men to work off their wrath
over fouled anchor chains in cuss words
than to take it out of each others
hide ,..t I'LL.
Aboard one Of the ships under Wat
son IS command there was an old bos n s
mate named Fuller, who had the call
throughout the whole navy as the cham
pion profane man Of the governments
line of packets Fuller never raised his
voice when he swore. He would simply
stand back and quietly regard the IMAM
innate object Of his wrath--a bent be-
laying pin perhaps or a slack ridge rope
and then he would open up in an or
binary conversational tone. But the ut
terances he gave vent to were sulphur.
ous It always took Fuller a good five
minutes to work off what he considered
the necessary number Of remarks on
such occasions, and it always seemed,
when he was through, that he had quite
exhausted the whole vocabulary Of pro-
family. But this was mistake. The
very next time anything went wrong
with bit of Fuller's gear he would
start in on new line that would con-
tain absolutely not a single repetition
of any of his previous performances. It
was always source of wonder to Full
ler's shipmates, even the old timers
where he picked up the new ones, all
of which were of startling originality
and force. II
These shipmates related only one in
stance in which he found himself at a
loss for words. He was with landing
party from his ship, marching on the
outskirts Of Chemulpo, Korea. He stub
bed his toe on a loose bowlder in the
road and fell on his face in the dust.
He picked himself up and looked at the
road. He opened his mouth to say some
thing, but he had no words. He was
dumb with wrath. Two or three times
he attempted to begin, but it was nc
60. He was stuck for once, so he pulled
out a pistol and deliberately fired it into
! the air five times. He had to express his
feelings in some way. ? ga -: ~.
When Fuller was serving aboard
| Watson's ship, he was in good shape,
and his frequent quiet outbursts kept
the forward part Of the ship keyed ul
with wonder as to what was coming
next. One morning at big gun drill,
Captain Watson himself was superin
tending the exercise. One of the woode1
cartridges became damned in the breect
Of the inch rifle to which he was de
voting most of his attention. H,
wouldn't permit any of the gunner
mates around him to attempt to loosen
the cartridge, but essayed the job him
self. He tugged at the damned cartridg
and broke his finger nails over it, ant
still it wouldn't come out. It was
pretty hot morning on deck, and tn
perspiration began to roll off his face il
streams, but he persisted in trying t.
loosen the stuck cartridge. He looke'
as if he would like to say heap wer
he a swearing man, but he wasn't
swearing man. When he had BEEF
working for five minutes over the jam
med cartridge with no success, he look
ed pretty helpless and miserable. II
gave one final tug, but the stuck Cal
fridge remained in the guns breech
The skipper gathered himself together
mopped his forehead ana looked at tn
goll.
':Ccnfound it all,'' he broke out
"where's Fuller? Send me Fuller, some
body .-.. .r-..,. .r q. -.
Fuller was on hand directly. b
wasn't gunner's mate, and he ha
nothing to do with the guns, but Wa,
son wanted Fuller to tackle the jamme
I cartridge all the same. - %
Fuller" said Watson, 'ttry and e
that dummy out of that gum :
/ Fuller looked at the stuck cartridge
and Watson retreated to the starboar
side of the quarter deck Fuller mad
two or three claws at the wooden ca,
fridge, but it wouldn't come out.
gunner's mate could have got it out
a jiffy, but Fuller wasn't in that liz
Of the service. He tugged away, but
was no go. Watson stood regarding tt
l horizon on the starboard side Of tt
quarter deck. Fuller spat on his HAND
and made one more try. The DUNN
didn't move tenth Of an inch. The
Fuller mopped his forehead with b
neokerchief, clapped his cap on the bae
| of his head and opened up. It was gre.
| work, this performance of Fuller's s, an
| no mistake. He eclipsed all Of his 70
| mer efforts He stood with his hands {
his sides, looking at the gun breech al
| saying things at it that no Morgan