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Small Sam Small
by
“‘Never you mind, Sam Small,’ says I; ‘we’ve all done dirty tricks in our time.’
“‘All?’
“‘Never a mother’s son in all the world past fourteen years,’ says I, ‘hasn’t a ghost o’ wicked conduct t’ haunt his hours alone.’
“‘You, too, Tumm?’
“‘ Me?‘ says I. ‘Good Heavens!’
“‘Uh-huh,’ says he. ‘I ‘low; but that don’t comfort me so very much. You see, Tumm, I got t’ live with myself, an’ bein’ quite well acquainted with myself, I don’t like to. They isn’t much domestic peace in my ol’ heart; an’ they isn’t no divorce court I ever heared tell of, neither here nor hereafter, in which a man can free hisself from his own damned soul.’
“‘Never you mind,’ says I.
“‘Uh-huh,’ says he. ‘You see, I don’t mind. I–I–I jus’ don’t dast ! But if I could break the law, as I’ve been teached it,’ says he, ‘they isn’t nothin’ in the world I’d rather do, Tumm, than found a norphan asylum.’
“‘Maybe you will,’ says I.
“‘Too late,’ says he; ‘you see, I’m fashioned.’
“He was.”
Tumm laughed a little.
* * * * *
Tumm warned us: “You’ll withhold your pity for a bit, I ‘low. ‘Tis not yet due ol’ Small Sam Small.” He went on: “Small? An’–an’ ecod! Small Sam Small! He gained the name past middle age, they says, long afore I knowed un; an’ ’tis a pretty tale, as they tells it. He skippered the Last Chance –a Twillingate fore-an’-after, fishin’ the Labrador, hand an’ trap, between the Devil’s Battery an’ the Barnyards–the Year o’ the Third Big Haul. An’ it seems he fell in love with the cook. God save us! Sam Small in love with the cook! She was the on’y woman aboard, as it used t’ be afore the law was made for women; an’ a sweet an’ likely maid, they says–a rosy, dimpled, good-natured lass, hailin’ from down Chain Tickle way, but over-young an’ trustful, as it turned out, t’ be voyagin’ north t’ the fishin’ with the likes o’ Small Sam Small. A hearty maid, they says–blue-eyed an’ flaxen–good for labor an’ quick t’ love. An’ havin’ fell in love with her, whatever, Small Sam Small opened his heart for a minute, an’ give her his silver watch t’ gain her admiration. ‘You’ll never tell the crew, my dear,’ says he, ‘that I done such a foolish thing!’ So the maid stowed the gift in her box–much pleased, the while, they says, with Small Sam Small–an’ said never a word about it. She’d a brother t’ home, they says–a wee bit of a chappie with a lame leg–an’ thinks she, ‘I’ll give Billy my silver watch.’
“But Sam Small, bein’ small, repented the gift; an’ when the Last Chance dropped anchor in Twillingate harbor, loaded t’ the gunwales with green fish, he come scowlin’ on deck.
“‘They isn’t none o’ you goin’ ashore yet,’ says he.
“‘Why not?’ says they.
“‘They isn’t none o’ you goin’ ashore,’ says he, ‘afore a constable comes aboard.’
“‘What you wantin’ a constable for?’ says they.
“‘They isn’t none o’ you goin’ ashore afore this schooner’s searched,’ says he. ‘My silver watch is stole.’
“‘Stole!’ says they.
“‘Ay,’ says he; ‘somebody’s took my silver watch.'”
Tumm paused.
“Tumm,” the skipper of the Quick as Wink demanded, “what become o’ that there little maid from Chain Tickle?”
“Well,” Tumm drawled, “the maid from Chain Tickle had her baby in jail….
* * * * *
“You see,” Tumm ran along, in haste to be gone from this tragedy, “Sam Small was
small–almighty small an’ mean. A gray-faced ol’ skinflint–an’ knowed for such: knowed from Chidley t’ Cape Race an’ the Newf’un’land Grand Banks as the meanest wolf the Almighty ever made the mistake o’ lettin’ loose in a kindly world–knowed for the same in every tap-room o’ the St. John’s waterside, from the Royal George t’ the Anchor an’ Chain–a lean, lanky, hunch-shouldered, ghastly ol’ codger in Jews’ slops an’ misfits, with a long white beard, a scrawny neck, lean chops, an’ squintin’ little eyes, as green an’ cold as an iceberg in gray weather. Honest or dishonest?–ecod! what matter? They’s nothin’ so wicked as meanness. But the law hadn’t cotched un: for the law winks with both eyes. ‘I’m too old for crime now, an’ too rich,’ says he; ‘but I’ve worked hard, accordin’ t’ the law o’ life, as she was teached me, an’ I’ve took chances in my time. When I traveled the outports in my youth,’ says he, ‘I sold liquor for green paint an’ slep’ with the constable; an’ the socks o’ the outport fishermen, Tumm,’ says he, ‘holds many a half-dollar I coined in my Whoopin’ Harbor days.’ He’d no piety t’ save his soul. ‘No church for me,’ says he; ‘you see, I’m no admirer o’ the handiwork o’ God. Git, keep, an’ have,’ says he; ‘that’s the religion o’ my youth, an’ I’ll never despite the teachin’ o’ them years.’ Havin’ no bowels o’ compassion, he’d waxed rich in his old age. ‘Oh,’ says he, ‘I’m savin’ along, Tumm–I’m jus’ savin’ along so-so for a little job I got t’ do.’ Savin’ along? He’d two schooners fishin’ the Labrador in the season, a share in a hundred-ton banker, stock in a south coast whale-factory, God knows how much yellow gold in the bank, an’ a round interest in the swiler Royal Bloodhound, which he skippered t’ the ice every spring o’ the year.