The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1901-07-19


grim also In my mood, SO that though
| found Harry sitting up. I said Moth
Ing TO him, but fell to knocking up
planks. He seemed dazed a little. and
was wipng the blood from his face.
"ChOpplng her upT
eyes"
"WhyY
"On fire."
"Ohw
That was all we said. I got up four
planks with the nails sticking in them,
and nailed them together in a square.
If you keep on mailing planks to-
gether, In the end you will get a raft
not comfortable in a chOppy sea, but
shipwrecked people have no right to
be comfortable.
thought myself smart to see things
so clearly and find so simple a way Of
dealing with shlpwrecks and l thought
poorly of Harry to be doing nothing
but stare down into the waist of
the ship and at the glow beyond in the
mist; no sort of a sailor, seeing thei
barge might go down any minute.
said: Look here, Harry, IL you float
on my raft, you help make her"
Terrible lot Of water below here"
he replied, after a time. There's a
dining-room table floating around right
side up under my feet"
Then l thought had to do with an
idiot, and went on hammering planks.
1t was no time to argue, for shortly
there came a forward movement Of the
John Andrews, and knew what is the
feel of a sinking ship-it makes your
stomach go into a knot
l ran and caught Harry by the collar,
and cried, "Shes sinkingv'
"Slnk nothing. Let 90 my collarp'
he said. "She amt sinking. There's
water coming. Twill put out the fire."
The calmness of him staggered me;
he might be right
"Why won't she sink?
"All wood. Wood don't sink less
it's waterlogged. Where was you
brought up? She's nothing but a raft
this here John Andrews. What you
want to make another for? Why look!
If she settles enough to put the fire
out, that's good. If she don't, let her
burn. She can't burn past the waist,
which is mostly under water, anyway.
Stands to reason don't It? No. Fact"
he ended, with heavy sarcasm, "you
might say it seldom does"
Now according to shipwrecks as I
had heard of them, when a ship settles
she goes down. Anyway, it makes a
man nervous to watch her settle, hold
ing only to anOther's mans theory that
she won't sink. Even if he knows she
won't, he's more or less afraid she will
l went and sat on my raft Harry
pretended he thought it all very ordi-
nary.
There's canned things below" he
said. Fact. There's deviled ham and
canned peaches and cold soup. Fact
Here's what gets EN-"
He slipped oyer the side of the great
hole l had made in the deck, and
heard him splash in shallow water,
grunting a little at that
The John Andrews did not settle at
our end at first, but rose so far as
could see in the mist she might have
been riding altogether.
Harry put his head up. "Sink! Sink
nothing. She's going up like one of
them Sunday-school angels" and
dropped again.
I could plainly hear the whistle and
hiss of steam, and knew that the fire
was being put out. judged now that
it burned down from the portfolios till
stopped above water-line. After that
the water would come in but slowly
for a time, till as the stern sank it
would come in faster and faster, and
naturally as the stern sank the PROV
went up, but she couldn't stay up
there forever like a forsaken old kite.
You notice that barges have high
decks fore and aft, and that the sides
run low between. So that when the
stern Of the John Andrews sank deep
it began to pour into the waist in riv-
ers with a great noise. The PROV
dropped, and the water rushing for
ward spouted on the fore-deck. Harry
came up pretty wet and scared, but he
had his shirt full of tins.
The John Andrews settled slowly,
you might say inch by inch, the black,
tumbling water coming nearer us up
the side. 1t made me fidgety, that's
the truth. Down we sank till the
water lay over the sides of the ships
middle, maybe two feet, and then
stopDed.