Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1923-10-26


e deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, slut
tering tongue, and other marks c
drunkenness. Time after time he wa
r ordered below in disgrace. Some
; times he fell and cut himself; some
3 times he lay all day long in his lit
tie bunk at one side of the compan
: ion; sometimes for day or two h
would be almost sober and attend t
his work at least passably.
In the meantime we could neve
make out where he got the drink
That was the ships mystery. Watcl
him as we pleased, we could do moth
ing to solve it, and when we asked
him to his face, he would only laugh
if he were drunk, and if he were
sober, deny solemnly that he evel
tasted anything but water.
He was not only useless as an Of
ficer, and had bad influence among
the men, but it was plain that al
this rate he must soon kill himself
! outright, so nobody was much sur
! prised, nor very sorry, when one dark
night, with a head sea, he disap-
peared entirely and was seen no
more.
Overheard" said the captain.
well, gentlemen, that saves the
trouble of putting him in irons"
But there we were, without a
mate, and it was necessary, of course
to advance one of the men. The
bOatswain, Job Anderson, was the
likeliest man in way as mate. Mr.
TrelaWney had followed the sea, and
his knowledge made him very useful,
for he often took watch himself in
easy weather. And the cockswain,
Israel Hands, was a careful, willy,
old, experienced seaman, who could
be trusted at a pinch with almost
anything
He was a great confidant of Long
John Silver, and so the mention of
his name leads me to speak of our
ships cook, Barbecue, as the men
called him.
Aboard the ship he carried his
crutch by a lanyard round his neck,
to have both hands as free as pos
sible. 1t was something to see him
wedge the foot of the crutch against
a bulkhead, and prOpped against it,
yielding to every movement of the
ship, get on with his cooking like
someone safe ashore. Still more
strange was it to see him in the |
heaviest of weather cross the deck |
He had line or two rugged up to |
help him across the widest spaces
Long Johns earrings, they were
called-and he would hand himself |
from one place to another, now US
ing the crutch, now trailing it along
side by the lanyard, as quickly as
another man could walk Yet some
If the men who had sailed with him
before expressed their pity to see him
80 reduced.
He's common man, Barbecue"
laid the cockswain to me. ''He had
good schooling in his young days,
Ind can speak like a book when he's
20 minded; and brave a lions
alongside of Long John! I
zee him grapple four and knock their
leads together-him unarmed."
All the crew respected and even
beyed him. He had a way of talk
ng to each aud doing everybody
ONE particular servicve. To me he
vas unweariedly kind, and always
lad to see me in the galley, which
e kept as clean as a new pin; the
ishes hanging up FURNISHED and his
arrot in a cage in the corner.
Come away, Hawkins" he would
ay; come and have a yarn with
ohm. Nobody more welcome than {
ourself, my son. Sit down and hear Y
he news. Here's Cap'n Flint -
alls my parrot Cap'n Flint, after t
ne famous uccaneer-here's Cap'n e
lint predicting success to our
yage. Wasn't you, cap'n?"
And the parrot would say, with d
reat rapidity: "Pieces of eight! t
Ieces of eight! pieces of eight" till
0u wondered that it was not out c
breath or till John threw his hand a
erchief over the cage. T.
Nov, that bird" he would say n
Is maybe, two hundred years old, n
awkins-they live forever mostly, b
nd if anybody's seen more wicked t
ass, it must be the devil himself. b
les sailed with England-the great 81
ap'n England, the pirate. She's II
zen at Madagascar, and at Malabar, &
Id Surinam, and Providence, and n
)rtobellO. She was at the fishing v
} of the wrecked plate ships. It's g
ere she learned Pieces of eight, b.
I'd little wonder; three hundred a!
i'd fifty thousand of EN-, Hawkins u
lie was at the boarding of the d.
iceroy of the Indies out of Goa, 2
e was, and to look at her you would h
ink she was a baby. But you bl
RELIED pOwder-didn't you cap'n?" m
Stand by to go about" the parrot H
)uld scream. II
"Ah, she's a handsome craft, she pC
p the cook would say, and give
r sugar from his pocket, and then sa
e bird would peck at the bars and
ear straight on, passing belief for m
ckedness. There" John would CT
d, you can't touch pitch and not h'
mucked, lad Here's this poor in yC
cent bird of mine swearing blue W
e and none the wiser, you may lay a
that, She would swear the same,
a manner of speaking, before the |
aplain." And John would touch ao
J forelock with a solemn way he W.
d, that made me thing he was the M
st of men. tn
In the meantime squire and Cap tn
n Smollett were still on pretty dis tl'
Mt terms with one another The
lire made no bones about it; TO
despised the captain. The cap ri'
N, on his part, never spoke but iii
len he was spoken to, and then or
)rt and sharp and dry, and not a Pc
I'd wasted. He owned, when driven IN