The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1902-05-15
4 Sailors Lot.

Il =
i have been asked If a, sailors
lot is hard. No, not necessarily
so. The sailor finds a silver lining
to every Respondent cloud THAT
is more than I can say for the
clouds in this village), and he
takes things as they come.
When up aloft the sailor goes and ventures on
the yard,
The landlubber, who no better knows, thinks
his lot is hard:
But Jack with smile each danger meets
He heaves the log trims off the sheet,
And draws his glass of grog.
Grog's silver lining, all right.
Eight bells had struck, and Jack awoke,
Before the first gray streak of morn had broke,
Abaft the mast mustered he, on the deck with
Bonded knee,
But not in prayer-to "holyst0neo the deck and
curse the fate that brought him there.
When fiercely blow the northern gales
We scud under lower topsails,
But when gentler winds from south ard arise
skies.
Those few lines of silver lining
were composed by a midshipman
on the sloop of war "Nonesuch, =
Captain Scratchorn, who brought
prickly heat to Boston. The mid
shipman was afterward blown to-
death by the premature discharge
of gun at target practice. He
called the lines his nautical
Shakespeare, and asked me to
have them printed, but l never
met with paper that I thought
was worthy of such gems of sailor
thought until I fell in with The
MIRROR.
The sailors lot is dead easy COM
pared with the cooks. The cook
we'll God help the cook if he is.
not good one, for it is an old
saying that God sends the grub.
but the devil sends the cooks.
They are a rum lot, those ships
cooks. When man is too lazy to.
ship for sailor he will ship for a
cook so he will get all night in,
like sergeant-major's cat.
All deep water ships that is all
ships going south of the equator
allow each man in the crew three
quarts of fresh water per day of
"a hours. I refer to merchant
sailing ships; men-of-war and
steamships condense their own
water, but wind jammer" sailor
gets out three quarts day to
drink, cook and make tea and cof-
fee. You measure it out to the
cook-one pint each for coffee, one
pint each for tea, and if there were
nine men in the watch we would
give him twelve quarts for soup. We
allowed fraction for boiling the
soup, but when we gave him pint
for tea or coffee he would give back
Ia pint or take the consequences.
The cook used to get three quarts
a day, the same as the rest of the
men, and if he didn't live on that
we would dip him over the side
and fill him up with salt water and
then roll him on the deck till we
got it out of him. The beef and
pork was boiled in sea water, and
so was the duff. When it rained
hard at night we would catch rain
water and use it for soup and cof-
fee if we drank it raw it would
give us scurvy. We had to hide
it, for if he knew we had it the
captain would take it away from
us for fear of scurvy. We would
drink it when we were thirsty just
the same, and SO would you land
lubbers.
When it rained good and hard
during the day, without too much
wind or with a steady wind, we
would have a grand wash. We
would stop up the scuppers and
get about foot or Is inches Of
rain water on the deck and If we
had pigs on board we would turn
them loose and the sailors and the
pigs would have lot of fun.