Part 11

"A fine brother Moccasin yourself!" said the clothing dealer, "wantin' me to lose money on a sale."

So we went to another place, and he happened to be a Jew and not a Moccasin. Not that he wouldn't like to be a member of that noble order; which made O'Brien and Haile warm up to him, so that they forgot to argue about the price at all.

They had to saw a foot off Shorty's new pants to make them fit, and the coat came pretty low down on him; but no harm in that Bill and Oliver and I said. We got pretty good fits.

They bought tickets for us and we took the train to Gloucester, and then I went down to Tony Webber's to get a shave, and there was a young fellow in the chair next to me said to Tony: "Yer sh'd have been out in the breeze!"

"What vessel?" I asked.

"The _Thunderbolt_," he says.

"And what shape is she in?"

"Go down to the halibut company's wharf and see," he says.

I did go down later. She'd lost both masts to near her deck, and her bowsprit was broken off short at the knightheads--not a thing left on her except her last coat of paint and a few twisted yarns of her lower shrouds. But, thank the Lord, no men lost. They had all stayed aboard.

"They were luckier than the _Hiawatha_. Heard about the _Hiawatha_?" asked a man in the chair.

"No; what about her?"

"I had a brother on her," said this man. "She was hove down and her whole crew washed over--hove flat down and the whole crew of eight men in the water at once. Six of 'em got back--first one and then another, the first of those back aboard heavin' lines to the others still overboard. Two men never came back, though--pretty rough it was."

On his own vessel, the _Thunderbolt_, it was pretty rough sailing, and in the middle of it there was one of the crew--he'd never been off-shore fishing in his life before this--he came on deck with a life-preserver around him. "Seas to our masthead," said the man off the _Thunderbolt_, "and he comes on deck with a life-preserver. He must 'a' thought he was bein' wrecked in some swimmin'-pool in some Turkish bath 'stead of old South Shoal in a gale. If ever he'd got two feet from the deck of that vessel, he'd lasted 'bout two seconds--him and his life-preserver!"

Tony, the barber, was so interested in the man with the life-preserver that he gave me a fine cut on my right cheek.

John and the skipper and Steve and the cook were buried that same day in Gloucester, and we all went to the funeral; and coming away from the funeral: "You goin' back fishin'?" said Shorty to me.

"No more fishin' for me," I said. And Shorty and Oliver, they both said never again for them, either.

That was day before yesterday. This morning the master of the _Antoinette_ came along with Shorty and Oliver and asked me didn't I want to make just one more swordfishing trip while the season was on.

I looked at Shorty. He was wearing a smile and had a rose on his coat some girl had given him. "I thought you said you were through fishing, Shorty?"

"So I did," said Shorty, "but a man says a lot o' things in his careless hours. I've had a couple o' good nights' sleep since."

"And you, Oliver?" I said.

"Me? Well, there's a wife and an old mother up to my house, and I never read anywhere the gover'ment was paying out money to the families of fishermen who didn't want to fish any more, did you?" said Oliver.

So I said all right I'd go along, too. "What's the use--we're sea-birds," I said. "It's our home and our living--where else should we go but to sea, at the last? But have you seen Big Bill?"

Yes, Shorty had seen Big Bill. He had hopes to get a job at the car-barn. "He's had two warnings, he says," said Shorty, "and not to wait for a third would be foolish. He's up on Main Street right now with people buying drinks for him, while he tells 'em how he managed to save himself off the _Henriette_."

Well, Big Bill's all right; but he's alive to-day because a better man--the same being John--shoved him into a dory when he might have gone himself instead. And Big Bill thinks of John only as an irresponsible young fellow who liked to play jokes with blueberry dumplings.

The best men don't always come back from sea. Four good men stayed aboard the _Henriette_, and two of them--the skipper and John--were certainly quicker and braver than any of the others of us. The skipper could have come away first, but he didn't.

Nor John. Six years I was shipmates with John and he was one good shipmate. Good shipmates--they make a long cruise short, a rough sea smooth. Good shipmates! You don't mind going with good shipmates alongside.

And the _Antoinette_, she's a sister ship to the _Henriette_--thirteen tons net and thirty tons of ice in the hold. And that same dock lumper who never left a vessel leave Duncan's without he sees her off--he says she's down by the head, too.

A fine joy-killer, that lad.

We're putting out in an hour. So fair wind, boy--I'm off.

The Medicine Ship

Old Bill Green was comin' out of Spiegel's Caffy, meanin' a place where a man can have somethin' to eat while he's havin' a drink, an' he had folded over his arm what looked like a pretty swell coat for old Bill to be wearin'.

Noticin' me, "Hulloh, Hiker!" says Bill, an' we stroll along till we come opposite to Wallie Whelan's father's store on South Street, where Bill stops. "I do like that little Whelan kid," says Bill. "I wonder is he in?"

Wallie was in, an' "Hulloh, Hiker!" an' "How do you do, Mr. Green!" he says, an' comes runnin' out when he sees us.

An' old Bill says, "Oh-h, driftin' by--driftin' by," an' spreads out to the air the coat he's carryin' on his arm. All wrinkled up it was, like somebody's slept in it, but a pretty swell coat just the same, like the kind hackmen wear to a funeral or a weddin' with a stovepipe hat. There's a pocket in one o' the coat-tails, an' old Bill slides his hand into it and out comes a case, an' when he springs open the case there's a shiny black pipe.

"Well, well," says Bill, lookin' at the pipe like he was wonderin' how it come there.

"Where did y' ever get that fine pipe, Mr. Green?" asks Wallie.

"Oh, a souveneer, a little souveneer of other days--of days I'd 'most forgot," says Bill.

"A handsome pipe!" says Wallie.

"Yes," says Bill, "if on'y I had the fillin' of it once in a while!"

"Wait!" says Wallie, an' rushes inside the store.

"Comanche Chief, if you have any in stock!" calls out Bill after him.

Mr. Whelan, who's sittin' by the open winder in his office, looks out to Bill an' then to the clerk an' smiles that it's all right to Wallie over the top of his mornin' paper, an' Wallie comes out with a plug o' Comanche Chief smokin' for Bill an' a plug o' the same of chewin' for me.

I bites into mine right away, but old Bill looks at his pipe, an' then, sayin' he didn't know's he'd baptize it yet awhile, he reaches over an' gnaws a corner off my plug o' chewin'.

An' Wallie's dyin' to know how it come to be a souveneer pipe, but is too polite to ask, on'y he can't help havin' another look at the pipe an' noticin' the picksher of a bird on the bowl an' readin' the letters on the gold band. "HRC" he reads out, an' looks at old Bill.

"I know, I know," says old Bill. "They bring me back, them initials, lad, like nothin' else could, to days that is past 'n' gone." He looks across East River over to Brooklyn mournful-like, but not forgettin' to chew an' chew, 'nd bineby, when he has his jaws well oiled up, he says: "'Tis many 'n' many a year ago, lad, an' me the cabin-boy an' the fav'rite o' the capt'n o' the good ship _Tropic Zone_."

"The _Tropic Zone_! What a corkin' name for a ship!" says Wallie.

"Ay, lad," says Bill, "a noble name an' a noble ship, a full-rigged four-master, an' one fine day we up jibs an' yanchor an' sailed out this same Yeast River an' past the Battery an' down New York Bay an' the Jersey coast, an' on an' on, bearin' s'utherly, till we came to the land o' Yunzano, which was--an' mebby is yet--down South Ameriky way, an' we went ashore, me 'n; the capt'n, to call on the noble don which them same initials stands for.

"HRC," says Bill, readin' 'em off the pipe. "How well do I remember the noble don, Hidalgo Rodreego Cazamma, who lived in r'yal splender in a most lovely an' fertyle valley. Lookin' back now through the vister of my matoored manhood, I can't say's I c'n recall in all my years o' world travellin' a more entrancin' picksher than the valley o' Yunzano when my capt'n 'n' me hove into it of that gorgeous April mornin'. There was a river gleamin' like silver--an' sometimes like gold 'n' copper--flowin' through that marvellous valley, an' above it rose the volkanous mountains with sides of the color of the purple neglijay shirts an' tops like the ruby scarf-pins that sometimes you see of a mornin' on the hot sports in Times Square. An' in that valley was forests with all the tropic trees that ever you read of, bearin' the most jul-luscious fruits--pomgrannits, cocoanuts, pineapples, limes, lemons, grapefruits, alligator-pears--any fruit ever you see to the stalls in the market was there in abundance. An' fr'm the branches o' them same trees came the most melojus birds' voices, an' the birds themselves 'd a-dazzle your eyes with the color o' their feathers. Parrakeets, marrakeets, bobalinks, nightingales, an' a little red, white, 'n' blue-spotted bird the natives called an eggleeno."

"Ah-h!" says Wallie, "and is that the picture on the bowl o' the pipe?"

"The same," says Bill; "done by a master hand, with the same round pop-eyes--see--an' the same wide, square-cut tail like the stern of a ferry-boat.

"'Dijjer ever in yer life, William, see anything more saliferous?' says the capt'n to me whilst we're ridin' up to the don hidalgo's house--a hashyender, they called it--longer 'n' wider than any two blocks on Broadway, but not so high, with a red roof, an' walls o' solid marble, an' marble columns 'n' promenades around it, with thousands o' lofty trees liftin' their heads to the sky, an' balconies outside the winders, an' spoutin' fountains in the r'yal pam garden, which was the size mebby o' Central Park. It took all of a thousand servants, I should say, in pink-'n'-old-rose knee-pants, to look arter the place; an' the old don kep' a band o' musicians in a green-an'-old-gold uniform on tap all the time. The house rules there--the same engraved in silver on ivory tablets an' hung on the wall over the head o' your bed--was that if a guest woke up in the middle o' the night an' didn't feel well enough to go back to sleep, he had on'y to poke the little Injun boy who slep' on a mat afore every door with his big toe an' say to him: 'Boyo, some musico!' An' we did one night, an' in no time the still air was rent by the entrancin' strains of 'In the Sweet By 'n' By,' which was the pop'l'ar toon o' them days, an' the one we ordered. Guitars, manderlins, violins, oboes, trombones, an' cornets they had in squads, though to my mind a native instrerment called the hooloobooloo was the most truly musical of all. Shaped like the bow of a ship it was, with a hundred strings to it, an' made a noise like a breeze o' wind tryin' to steal through a forest o' trees on a summer's night. 'Twas ravishin'.

"Arter the fatigues of our long an' tejus voy'ge, the hashyender o' the don was a most refreshin' place to pass a few days in, but we had our business to attend to. Not that the noble don would sully our ears by mentionin' the same to us. In those tropic countries the greatest insult to the stranger who happens to step in an' camp awhile with you is to ask him what's on his mind--not till he's been restin' up for at least a week. However, after six days o' restin' up, with salubrious fruits an' wines an' the most melojus concerts, my capt'n broaches the cause of why we're callin' on the Don Hidalgo Rodreego Cazamma."

"Ah-h," says Wallie, "now we'll get it, Hiker!"

"Yes," says Bill, "now we'll have it. But, lemme see now--I must tell it so it'll be clear to your young interlecks," an' he looks hard at the pipe an' then mournful-like acrost East River toward Brooklyn.

"In them days," Bill goes on at last, "no place you could go to in the whole Yunnited States--the piny woods, the rocky hills an' grassy plains, no busy city fr'm the rock-bound coast o' Maine to the golden shores where rolls the Oregon, no sleepy hamlet between the wooded hills o' Canada an' the surf-washed sands o' Florida, but you'd see in big letters on the tops o' flat rocks an' the sides o' mountains, the backs o' fences an' the roofs o' barns, in the winders o' drug-stores an' the flags o' back alleys, nowhere but you'd see: YUNZANO SWAMP ROOT, FOR COUGHS, COLDS, LUMBAGO, RUMMATIZ, GOUT, CHILBLAINS, COLD SORES, COLIC, BRIGHT'S DISEASE, AN' LIVER TROUBLE--all in high yoller letters agin black paint.

"Pints an' 'quarts in bottles, for sale at all reputable drug-stores, an' those bottles had to come all the way by sea an' fr'm the estate o' Don Hidalgo Rodreego Cazamma, who owned all the swamp-root region in Yunzano. An' when it'd come on to blow an' the ship'd take to rollin', where there was no way o' tellin' till arter you'd get to port an' counted 'em how many bottles was left that wasn't busted. Sometimes more'n half or three-quarters of 'em 'd be busted.

"An' now we come to that noble benefactor o' the human race who at that time owned the string o' drug-stores painted blue 'n' green 'n' red, with cut-rate prices up 'n' down the side of every one of 'em. 'Twas him owned the Yunnited States rights to Yunzano Swamp Root, an' he used to sell millions 'n' millions o' bottles of Yunzano every year, an' he says: 'Why do we have to have so many o' these bottles o' Yunzano busted in comin'?' An' he says: 'I have it--by Plutie, I have it. I'll build a special ship for carryin' my wondrous tropic medicines!' An' he does. He builds a ship 'special, an' in her he sets a great tank--oh, mebby four hundred foot long an' fifty foot wide an' deep--oh, deep as the ship was deep, and of all the ships ever I sailed in she was the deepest. 'There,' he says to my capt'n, 'spill the Yunzano in there 'stead of in bottles an' we'll make millions--millions, sir!' He meant he'd make millions. An' the _Tropic Zone_ was that ship, an' so it was we come, me 'n' the capt'n, to be doin' business this lovely day with the owner o' the great Yunzano estate.

'What we want, don,' says the capt'n fr'm his chair that was made of inlaid precious woods an' the horns o' th' anzello, a beeyootiful creachure like a nantelope, of which on'y one was killed every hundred years--'what we want, don,' says my capt'n--an' four liveried servants keepin' the flies 'n' other insecks off him with wavin' pam-leaves while he's talkin'--'is to take our swamp-root home in bulk.' An' the don, a man o' most majestic figger, smokin' a fourteen-inch cheroot in another chair that was inlaid all in di'monds 'n' gold, he considers the case and finally agrees to sell us enough to fill our tank, which is two million two hundred 'n' sixty thousand gallons o' Yunzano at forty-two cents a gallon. An' we despatch a fleet messenger back to the ship, an' up comes the gold with forty men-at-arms o' the don guardin' it--a million dollars or so it was, an' all in the coin o' the realm--shiny ten an' twenty dollar gold pieces.

"Well, that's settled, so we goes back to the ship, ridin' our sumpter-mules in the dewy morn, an' down the gleamin' silver 'n' gold 'n' copper river comes the Yunzano in the skins o' wild animals on bamboo rafts, an' while they're dumpin' it inter the tank the capt'n 'n' me, by special invitation, have a look at where the don manufactured the Yunzano.

"It was dark like the sassaparilla they served out to church picnics when it oozed first from nature's bosom, an' not till it was mixed with a native liquid called poolkey did it become th' inspirin' article o' commerce which the rocks an' fences an' druggists' winders an' the advertisin' an' sometimes the readin' columns of our American journals shouted to the public. This poolkey grew on trees, in little cups like, which all you had to do was to turn upside down an' into your mouth. It was the grandest proof to me o' the wise provisions of nature. It was a white-colored stuff, an' tasted like an equal mixture o' wood alcohol an' red flame. One part swamp root to one part poolkey made up the Yunzano o' commerce that many folks preferred to tea. The poolkey kep' it fr'm spilin'. Some o' the most inveterate battlers agin the demon rum we ever had, some o' the most cel'brated politicians, platform speakers, an' drug-dealers in the land, certified over their own signatures to the component parts o' Yunzano an' indorsed the same highly.

"Well, our tank was fin'lly filled to the hatches with the two million two hundred 'n' sixty thousand gallons o' prime Yunzano, an' when we considered the sellin'-price--pints fifty cents, quarts a dollar--quarts o' the five-to-the-gallon size--up home we felt happy to think what profits was goin' to be in this v'yage, for--but lemme see--did I say his name, the owner o' the _Tropic Zone_ an' the fleet o' drug-stores?"

"No," says Wallie. "An' I was wonderin'."

"No? Well, Nathaniel Spiggs was his name. However, to continue our tale. There we was, our cargo all aboard an' waitin' on'y for the mornin' light to leave to sea. It was a windin', tortuss channel outer that harbor, not to be navvergated at night by no ship of our size, an' the skipper was readin' the Bible in his cabin. He liked to read a few chapters afore turnin' in of a night, an' to my joy he used to invite me to sit 'n' listen to him, an' many a time in after life I'd be minded of my old skipper o' the _Tropic Zone_, an' the mem'ry of his monitions fr'm the Bible was surely a great bullerk to me agin terrible temptations.

"An' while he's sittin' there, balancin' his specks an' readin' to me, 'n' stoppin' to expound now 'n' agin where mebby my young intellergence couldn't assimmerlate it, the mate comes down 'n' salutes 'n' says: 'Sir, there's some people on the beach makin' signs o' distress--on horseback.' An' the skipper, arter a few cusses, which was on'y nacheral at bein' disturbed in his pious occupation, he sets the Bible back in his bunk an' goes up on deck. An' me with him.

"An' there they are. An' behold, as we look, we see--my eyes bein' young an' marvellous sharp in them days was the fust--afar up the mountainside--to descry a band o' people ridin' wildly down to the valley an' makin' what must 'a' been all manner o' loud noises, judgin' by the way they waved their arms an' guns, on'y they was too far away to be heard. An' the capt'n gets out his night-glasses."

"Excuse me, Mr. Green," says Wallie, "but what is a night-glass?"

"A glass you look through at night is a night-glass. Don't all the grand sea-stories speak o' night glasses?"

"That's why I ast. But, excuse me--please go on," says Wallie.

"An' who should they turn out to be on the beach, wavin' dolorous-like signals o' distress, but the don hidalgo an'--I forget mebby to mention her afore--the don's lovely daughter! An' with them is four sumpter-mules, an' the sumpter-mules, when we goes 'n' gets 'em off in a boat, turns out to be loaded down with gold 'n' jewels. The million dollars in gold we'd brought for the Yunzano water 'n' all the jewels the noble don's fam'ly has been savin' up for hundreds o' years is on the mules.

"When we get 'em all aboard--mules 'n' all--the don explains how there's been a revverlootion in th' interior, an' how the General Feeleepo Balbeezo, the leader o' the revverlootionists, 'd planned to capture the hashyender o' the don, includin' his beeyoocheous daughter 'n' the gold 'n' jewels. An', on'y for a cook in the employ o' the wicked general give it away, he would. The don had cured this cook's grandmother of a vi'lent attack o' tropic fever years afore this by frequent an' liberal applications o' Yunzano, an' this grandson, though he was a wild an' reckless an' dark-complected youth, who preferred to associate with evil companions, nevertheless was grateful for the don's curin' his grandmother 'n' never forgot it. An' when he overhears in the kitchen, where he's fryin' a few yoller podreedos for the general's breakfast, the general hisself tellin' of his dastardly plan to his vellay, he ups on the fav'rite war-charger o' the general's, a noble steed eighteen hands high, an' don't stop ridin', without stirrup or bridle or saddle, till he comes gallopin' in a lather o' sweat--a hundred 'n' ten miles in one night over the mountain trails--to the don an' tells him all. O' course, when later the wicked general discovers the cook's noble devotion to the don's fam'ly, he has him hung on the spot, but that's to be expected, an', the hero an' herrin' bein' saved, it don't matter.

"'Cheer up, my brave don!' says our skipper, when the don tells him the story, an' refreshes him with a drink o' vold bourbon fr'm his private stock that he kep' under lock 'n' key in his cabin. An' he has one hisself. An' then he considers, an', while he's considerin', the General Balbeezo 'n' his army, who it was I'd seen ridin' down the high mountainside, they're arrived at the beach. An' they hollers acrost the harbor to us that if we didn't give up the don hidalgo an' the seenyohreeter, his daughter, an' the gold 'n' jewels, why, he, General Balbeezo, regardless of possible international complercations, will bring his artillery to the beach 'n' blow us all outer water.

"The don 'n' his daughter is tremblin' with fear, but 'Fear not, fear not!' says our skipper, an' sends for the owner's son."

"The owner's son--aboard all the time!" says Wallie.

"Sure. I'd 'a' told y'about him afore," says Bill, "but it wasn't time yet. He'd made the passage with us so's he could study the volkanous mountains o' Yunzano, the like o' which mountains wasn't in all the world anywhere else. He was a wonderful stoodent, so abstracted in his studies that he hadn't heard a word of what we was sayin' in the cabin this night till the capt'n sent me to call him outer his room. He was sure a noble specimen o' fair young manhood to gaze upon--'twas on'y the other day I was readin' up to the Yastor Library of a hero in one o' the best-sellers just like him: seven foot tall 'n' three foot acrost the shoulders, an' nothin' but pale pink curls to below his shoulders, an' he no sooner steps inter the cabin now, his wonderful keen, blue-gray eyes still with the absent-minded look o' the stoodent o' science, than I could see the don's daughter, the seenyohreeter, was goin' to fall wild in love with him.

"The capt'n explains the situation to young Hennery. An' Hennery thinks awhile, an' by'n'by he speaks. 'Har, I have it!' he says. 'The volkaners!' an' orders h'isted up from the hold his balloon."

"A balloon, Hiker--whooh!" says Wallie, an' sits closer to Bill.

"A balloon, yes. Y' see, besides bein' brought up by his father to be a great chemist an' stoodent o' mountains, he was likewise professor of airology in one of our leadin' colleges. An' he fills up his balloon--the whole crew standin' by to help him pump the hot air inter it--an' then away he goes. 'In an hour, I promise you, you shall hear from me!' he says, an' we watch him soarin' 'n' soarin' 'n' soarin' till his balloon ain't no bigger than a sparrer an' higher than the large an' silvery moon.