The Portland daily press., 1900-10-22

Two sailors, with their dunnage bags
slung over their shoulders, followed
shipping master down a Bangor pier the
other day to go on board an old hooker,
deep loaded with lumber, that lay wait
ing for her stores and crew. Just as the
party reached the pier head a great gray
rat was seen to cautiously and skillfuily
( make his way along the taut bow hawser
/ from the vessel to the wharf. The first
sailor, seeing the rat leave the vessel and
Bcuttle away up the wharf, stopped short
in his tracks, dropped his bag and de-
clared
''That settles It'll You don't get me
aboard that hooker!'
The sailors mate, a stupid looking
! Swede, coaxed, and the shipping master
sWore, threatened and argued, but all to
no purpose. The superstitious tar would
not join the vessel. ''She's as good as
/ gone" he declared. They're all done
/ for when the rats begin to leave EN-"
and he shipped in another vessel. The
1 Swede went along in the rat deserted
i schooner, with what luck is not yet
( known, and ever since that day the ship
ping master has been cursing the Jacks
who go by signs and telling stories OF
vessels that have survived all sorts Of Ill
omens.
While the shipping master was talking
away on this subject an old time sailor
dropped in and took the opposite side Of
the argument, telling some stories that
made all the Jacks in the place feel the
need of something bracing for their
nerves.
There" said the old man, twas the
case Of the brig Starlight, that lost her
second mate. The second mate he
dreamt the night before she sailed that
he saw himself in his coffin, and when
he came into Gillogly's place next day
to take parting drink with us be told
Of it, and we advised him to get another
berth. he said that he guessed 1t would
be all right in the brig. But it wasn't.
She sailed from Bangor for Port Spain
and soon ran into bad weather. While
helping to reef the mainsail the footropes
parted under him, and that was the last
Of poor Jimmy.
There was the bark Solferina, as pref
ty and sound a little vessel as ever left
this port. She sailed on Friday, draw
ing ID feet and the cook killed a black
cat the night before she sailed. This
made the men nervous, and they said so,
but the mate took a handspike to them,
and, being anchored off, with all the
boats up and dashed and the harbor full
of floating ice, there was no chance to
leave her. They never got q chance to
leave her, for she went down in a north
/ easter two days out and all hands with
her.
"Now, a man Of sense and with the
fear of God in him will get clear Of a
good deal Of hard luck and stay on top
of water longer than some of these smart
+ Johnnies. There was Ned Hengler who
shipped in the brig Rainbow, a gay old
West India hooker. Ned he lived right
here in Bangor, and he had good folks,
who went to church regular and KEEP So
Der. The day before the brig was to
sail Ned acted kind Of dumpish, and he
couldn't tell why Long toward night
he shook the feeling off and started down
over the hill from the Hampden road to
the river with his bag on his back. It
was a still, moonlight night and the tide
would serve in an hour from the time
Ned started from home. He had got half
way down the hill and could hear the tug
whistling for the vessels to get out their
hawsers-them that was going in the
tow.
GAN at once he felt a soft touch on his
arm, and be turned round. There in the
moonlight stood his old mother, as had
been in her grave eight years, and she
looked just as natural, Ned said as she
used to when she stood at the door way
ing him goodby when as a young fellow
he went away on his first trips. She
! l. IL, L.
and gently led him back over the hill,
moving as softly as a shadder, and at the
top of the hill she pointed toward home
Then she faded out Of sight like a puff
of smoke. Ned stood there a minute or
two, not able to stir out Of his tracks.
Then he picked up his bag from where
he had dropped it and went hons 1t
was the middle Of August, but the felt
cold and shivery, and the first thing he
did was to say his prayers. The Rain
bow sailed without him, and she was
never heard from.
''I remember Tom Scott, as others here
do and no one can say but what he was
a man Of sense. He was the best man
that ever sailed out of this port, and he
could lick any two men here in a fair
fight. He was as hard headed as they
make 'em, but he wouldn't sail in the old
schooner Harvest Home even after he'd
got his dunnage aboard and had turned in
for the night. Why? Well, he dreamed
that it was low water-chock low water
and that's about the worst thing a sail
orman can dream Of the night before
starting for anywhere. He woke up, and
just as he opened his eyes he felt hand
passed across his face. First he thought
it was rats tail, for the old sled was
full of rats, but the hand came again,
soft as a feather, kind of smoothing his
face, and he said it felt to him like the
hand of death. That was enough.
''Tom turned out, got his buds and
went ashore quick while all the rest
were snoring. She sailed in the morn
ing, and the captain raved like bull
when he found Tom, his best man, had
shook her. Tom staid ashore for awhile,
and we'll for him that he didn't make that
trip. There came a great blow from the
southeast just after the Harvest Home
sailed, and all they ever saw of her aft
erward was some pine boards from her
deckload and one of her quarter boards
18th bo- mama on II don't boIiovo IN