Year: 1874

lucky and run. Capt. Billy Magrude
saved his brig O year and half ago, q
this very dock, from being burned up
because he had carpenters hatche
handy. You was wanting me, sir p
said the captain. "What can 1 do fol
you ?"


Only this" 1 replied; 81 am YER,
little nautical, and my experience does
not go beyond yachting but I have, ]
think, kind Of memory for ships.
Did L not see this ship at New Bedford;
she was then in the whaling business
some years ago?"


-" exactly so, sir. You are right.
Maybe you found her out by the cary
Ing on her stern. She is o queer old
craft, built as they only built 'em fifty
years ago. She has been kept up,
though, all the time right through, and
the oil is so soaked into her timbers
that there is no, rot in her. For nigh
on to thirty years she pitched and
tumbled on the Pacific, and many a
whale she has had alongside of her, and
tried out, and if all the money she has
armed was in my pocket or in yourn, or
only halved between us, whv, +. for
one, make bold to say that I wouldn't
be here slowing away coal-oil. The
petroleum business is kind of resting
place for old-fashioned ships. 1t used
to be the lumber trade, but now lots
OF the old stagers go into coe1-oil."


1t is, then, a kind of charnel-house
for decayed vessels ?"


I We'll, that's it, pretty much. l
seed you looking at her stern. It's q
real nice bit of work that carving.
Them flowers is all buttercups and
cowslips and sunfowers now from their
color. There is a queer yarn about
this here ship which L don't mind tell
ing. I am fresh in her, that is to say,
it will be year this coming February
since 1 took hold of her. I amt had
much luck, that is for my time of life,
and had hoped at my age to be some.
thing more than captain of an oil-craft:
but luck is everything. Now, we sea.
faring men keep the rur somehow OF
oil the ships and the stories about 'em.
You see, some ships bring luck and
others don't. I've known q ship that
mostly always made money for her
owners, but always killed her captains.
L knowed one bark that made every
skipper as sailed her take to drink.
You see, the story about this ship I got
from the man as sailed her before me





but five men to handle her, and four of
'em, of which I am one, has been on
her during the last ten years. Afore
that, for nigh ON to forty years, only
one man sailed her. Before the keel of
this ship was laid, there was seafar-
ing man as sailed out of Maine. That
man struck salt water airly, and
hadn't no education when he was young,
but lots of pluck. III them days, fifty
year ago, passengers used to take the
regular liners from Boston or New
York and GO to Charleston. That sailor
man was before the mast. He was a
handsome, civil kind of fellow, and
was learning his duty fast. There
came once aboard the brig he was on,
which was Charleston iner-one of
them big Boston bugs-one OF them
aristocrats of the old time-with sick
daughter, his only che-ild." My cap
tain, L saw here, was inclined to be
melodramatic, as he insisted on this
peculiar, eccentric subdivision of sin
gle syllable.


"The wage was a long one, and
jacks duty it was to go down below
and hand that young miss on deck, and
put her like frostbitten flower in the
sun, for they thought she was dying.
Now this rich mans cheild didn't care
brass tarden for Jack, but Jack. who
was an ass, cared for her. When
they got South, Jack put the lady in
her carriage at Charleston, and bid her
goodbye, and didn't say nothing more.
near dying in Charleston, and Jack
kept calling every day, with the cap
tain's compliments, so he said, to see
how she was getting on but they wasn't
the captains 8 compliments, but his own.
She didn't get any better or much worse,
but kept backing and filing. When
it got to be time for Jacks brig to 60
home, the girls father he came in per-
son on board to thank the old man for
his civility in sending so often to make
inquiries about his daughter. Now,
this made the captain stare, for the old
skipper, after he had dumped the party
ON the Charleston wharf, had no more
thought about 'em than of an odd cask
OF nails. So the story got about the
ship, and the crew ran poor Jack about
it, as shipmates will, until Jack got
most wild. But they knowed Jack didn't
allow much chatting, so after regular
knock-down or so, they let Jack alone.
Jack stayed by that brig all that winter,
she going regularly on her trips, and
he finding out how the young woman
was making out. She stayed South
most q year, and then Jack learnt she
was coming home in another vessel.
What does he do but leaves his own
craft and ships in the other one, and
comes home with the young woman.
Jack had brushed UP mighty in the
twelvemonth, though he wasn't nothing
more than a sailor. The father didn't
know him no more than you could tell
one link of chain cable from another,