Year: 1872

said 1t was for damning the old lady. But
don't know. All know is he just cried
out and dropped. Yes, we left 'em, him
and the old lady, sitting side by side. l
telt as mean as Lucifer. l called out
gOod-by to him, and how mean felt. But
the blast blew his answer the other way. |
saw his lips move, but lost the words, |
heard the old lady, though as l swung off.
You could have heard her in purgatory, if
you'd been so far. She piped up like a
weasel: " My sons carrying me to Bos-
ton. lie said it shouldn't cost me moth


| heard her until got ashore. Griggs
didn't, himself. He was chilled or frozen,
or something of that kind. and in kind of
faint, they said. was mighty glad of it,
| must say. The old creature did pipe up
50 We stood on the rocks and watched
them, well as we could see them through
the beating of the blow. l had a feeling
as if my eyes were beaten in my head. l
put both hands up to hold 'em in. 1 saw
Hancko trying to tie a life preserver on to
the old lady. The other boys didn't. But
L did. He tried to tie it on, and she sat
and wrung her hands. don't suppose l
heard her, but I'd have sworn | did, a
piping up He said it shouldn't cost me
nothing"


Hancko stood up. | saw that He
stood looking straight ahead. | thought
he had a grand look, being at distance
where you mi ssed the squirting of his eye.
And he stood 50 tall, sir, on that wreck,
as tall as | stand to-day, which is six foot
three in my stockings.


| suppose when a mans counting his
wife he thinks more Of such things quite
natural-but | couldn't help thinking,
when | saw Jib Hancko standing there, of
that young woman down to Squam. If
she'd been down to Calais visiting cousin


now, it would have seemed a pity. And
wondered if he thought of it, how he and
the Pansie were going down together by
themselves.


Next minute there came the awtulest,
longest, horridest cry | ever listened to on
land or sea Whether 1t was the old lady
as she struck water, or whether it was the
skipper coming to and seeing the Pansie'S 5
headlight out, or whether it was the devils
below or the angels above, [ couldn't tell


you to this day.


don think you could understand, sir,
unless you'd been through it yourself,
what feeling It gives a man to fall and
slip, slip and fall, clutch and cling, and
drop plumb down a wall of rock like thai.


all sea beneath you and about you-and


squeeze your feet into little ledge you


know of, and Jam your fingers into a little
crack above your head, to save a human
creature if so be it washes up against you,
and see the lath aud piles come laundering
in. To see 'em rear and strike, and top
pie over, and splinter up like teacups, aud
suck under and slip of. To hear the
noise they made IN hitting, aud to mistake


en- for human legs and arms, and grab at
them, and lose your balance, aud duck
your head as they come crashing up. Nor
yet TO dodge a bundle OF lath carried
shoulders over on one awful wave, and
find you'd lodged u human body, sir, and
1t was banging up against the cliff ike
sea weed, before your very eyes. Well, l
lodged him just that way then sprang
on him, then [ lost him then 1 had him,
l couldn't tell you how-by the hair, by
the leg, by the collar, all ways, no ways:
he was very slippery. 1t was a very
slippery feeling | mad, what with him and
the ice


Yes Oh. yes. They got Us up. 1
wasn't much hurt myself, l don't know
how it happened about Hancko He lay
such a dead weight, l suppose There
was hole there in the rock You could
see it If we were nigh enough. None too
big for mans body. They had to pull
him through. Twice they had him, and
he slip ed lie was awfully jammed


Wen, the Monday morning came at
last had a feeling all the night as if
the san would never rise again. But
Monday morning come like other Monday
and folks hung out their wash
ing along the shore. But it was the
lwiulest Monday morning, sir, that ever
Gloucester knew All the shore, from
Pavilion beach there to Norman's Woe,
was covered with wreck washed up like
pebbles on the beach, All uD and down
the harbor ruins of boats lay rocking in
the wind. Some went to shore as we did,
and cracked on the rocks, dead weight
some got speared in the breakers-some
1ritted off to sea many of 'em just went
down at their anchors, with the lights of
the town IN their faces, or swamped be-
fore striking the rocks. Fifty crafts went
to pieces in that harbor, and fifty men
to the bottom before the blow was over


The harbor lay a solid sheet of foam
that day, from end to end. From its
having such a white and shining look it
made me think about the Sea Of Glass we
read of sir, | thought of it when I saw
them drag the bodies up, and the poor
fellows faces turned up on the snow. And
[ wondered if their ghosts were walking
up and down the channel in the winter
playing hares. 1t seemed such
freezing work. All along the coast, AID
in Boston bay, and off Cape Cod, it was
an awful blow. But Gloucester got the
knuckles Of it.


The old lady came ashore that morning
We hauled her up and carried her into
little shed there was about there, and COW
cred her over with bed-quilt before the
skipper saw her,


We never found Ben Bumper.


The mate came to about dawn,-that is
to say, as much as Jim Hancko will ever
come to, this side of the place where the
OuuB WOhdu lIOn DqudH Ldu SouS "
for which, if I'd been pious man, [
should have thanked the God of sea and
shorc.) 1t wouldn't have been a pleasant
Job for her riding over in the wind four
miles that morning, to see the cuts he had
about the head, and the look. You see
the jam was all about the head. We
warmed him up, and rubbed him up, and
cheered him up, and Griggs paid the
doctor seventy-ive cents for feeling of his
pulse, but it was no mortal use. He sat
as crazy as a loon in the kitchen of the
house we took bim to, chattering about
that old LADY, and saving how he'd held