Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1923-09-28

l applied to him for my wage, h
would only blow through his nose a
me, and stare me down, but befor,
the week was out he was sure t
think better of it, bring me my four
penny piece, and repeat his orders t.
look out for "the seafaring man witt
one Leg"
How that parsonage haunted my
dreams, l need scarcely tell you. On
stormy nights, when the wind shook
the four corners OF the house, and
the surf roared along the cove and
up the cliffs, l would see him in a
thousand forms, and with a thou
sand diabolical expressions. Now the
! leg would be cut off at the knee,
now at the hip; now he was a mon
strous kind of a creature who had
never but one leg, and that in the
middle of his body. To see him leap
and run and pursue me over hedge
and ditch, was the worst of night
mares. And altogether l paid pretty
dear for my monthly fourpenny
piece in the shape of these abomin-
able fancies.
But though l was terrified by the
idea of the seafaring man with one
leg, 1 was less afraid of the captain
himself than anybody else who knew
him. There were nights when he
took deal more rum and water than
his head would carry; and then he
would sometimes sit and sing his
wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding
nobody; but sometimes he would call
for glasses round, and force all the
trembling company to listen to his
stories or bear chorus to his sing
ing. Often I have heard the house
shaking with ''Yo-ho-ho and a bottle
of rum" all the neighbors Joining
in for dear life, with the fear of
death upon them and each singing
louder than the other to avoid re-
mark. For in these fits he
was the most overriding com
panion ever known, he would slap
his hand on the table for silence all /
he would fly up in a passion
OF anger at question, or sometimes !
because none was put, and so he
Judged the company was not follow
ing his story. Nor would he allow
anyone to leave the inn till he had
drunk himself sleepy and reeled off
to bed
His stories were what frightened
people worst of all. Dreadful stories
they were; about hanging, and walk
ng the plank, and storms at sea, and
The Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds
ind places on the Spanish Main. By
his own account, he must have lived
lis life among some of the wickedest
men that God ever allowed upon the
lea; and the language in which he
old these stories shocked our plain
country people alomst as much as
he crimes that he described. My
ather was always saying that the
nm would be ruined, for people
would cease coming there to be tyr
.nnized over and put down, and sent
hivering to their beds; but l really
'elieve his presence did us good. ,
'eople were frightened at the time,
ut on looking back they rather liked
t; it was a fine excitement in
uiet country life; and there was
ven party of young men who pre- !
ended to admire him, calling him a
true sea-dog," and a ''real old salt"
nd such like names, and saying
here was the sort of man that
lade England terrible at sea.
In one way, indeed, he babe fair
} ruin us; for he kept staying on
eek after week, and at last month
fter month, so that all the money t
ad been long exhausted, and still il
~ father never plucked up the t.
cart to insist on having more. If s.
yer he mentioned it, the captain c
lew through his nose so loudly that a
)u might say he roared, and stared f
y poor father out of the room. 1 "
ave seen him wringing his hands 81
ter such rebuff, and 1 am sure a
e annoyance and the terror he lived k
must have greatly fastened his n
.rly and unhappy death.
All the time he lived with us the ei
Iptain made no change whatever Il
his dress but to buy some stock ri
gs from a hawker. One of the Il
cks of his hat having fallen down, IL
. let it hang from that day forth, W
ougb it was a great annoyance IL
hen it blew. / remember the ap- b,
,arance of his coat, which hel IL
.tched himself upstairs in his room, hi
ID which, before the end, was moth hi
g but patches. He never wrote m
received a letter, and he never ST
oke with any but the neighbors, al
d with these, for the most part, on as
when drunk on rum. The great ST
a-chest none of us had ever seen m