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Small Sam Small
by
“‘Mary, my dear,’ says Sam Small t’ the barmaid, ‘a couple o’ nips o’ the best Jamaica you got in the house for me an’ Mr. Tumm. Fetch the lad a bottle o’ ginger-ale– im -ported. Damn the expense, anyhow! Let the lad spend his money as he has the notion.’
“An’ Sam Small smiled.
* * * * *
“‘Tumm,’ says Small Sam Small, that night, when the boy was gone t’ bed, ‘ecod! but the child spends like a gentleman.’
“‘How’s that, Skipper Sammy?’
“‘Free,’ says he, ‘an’ genial.’
“‘He’ll overdo it,’ says I.
“‘No,’ says he;’ ’tisn’t in the blood. He’ll spend what he haves–no more. An’ like a gentleman, too–free an’ genial as the big-bugs. A marvelous lad, Tumm,’ says he; ‘he’ve ab-se- lute -ly no regard for money.’
“‘Not he.’
“‘Ecod!’
“‘He’ll be a comfort, Skipper Sammy,’ says I, ‘on the swilin’ v’yage.’
“‘I ‘low, Tumm,’ says he, ‘that I’ve missed a lot, in my life, these last fifteen year, through foolishness. You send the lad home,’ says he; ‘he’s a gentleman, an’ haves no place on a swilin’-ship. An’ they isn’t no sense, Tumm,’ says he, ‘in chancin’ the life of a fair lad like that at sea. Let un go home to his mother; she’ll be glad t’ see un again. A man ought t’ loosen up in his old age: I’ll pay. An’, Tumm–here’s a two-dollar note. You tell the lad t’ waste it all on bananas. This here bein’ generous,’ says he, ‘is an expensive diversion. I got t’ save my pennies– now !’
* * * * *
“Well, well!” Tumm went on; “trust Small Sam Small t’ be off for the ice on the stroke o’ the hour for swilers’ sailin’–an’ a few minutes t’ win’ward o’ the law. An’ the Royal Bloodhound had heels, too–an’ a heart for labor. With a fair start from Seldom-Come-By, Skipper Sammy beat the fleet t’ the Funks an’ t’ the first drift-ice beyond. March days: nor’westerly gales, white water an’ snowy weather–an’ no let-up on the engines. Ice? Ay; big floes o’ northerly ice, come down from the Circle with current an’ wind–breedin’-grounds for swile. But there wasn’t no swiles. Never the bark of a dog-hood nor the whine of a new-born white-coat. Cap’n Sammy nosed the ice into White Bay; he worked out above the Horse Islands; he took a peep at the Cape Norman light an’ swatched the Labrador seas. But never a swile got we. ‘The swiles,’ says he, ‘is t’ the east an’ s’uth’ard. With these here westerly gales blowin’ wild an’ cold as perdition they’ve gone down the Grand Banks way. The fleet will smell around here till they wears their noses out,’ says he; ‘but Cap’n Sam Small is off t’ the s’uth’ard t’ get his load o’ fat.’ An’ he switched the Royal Bloodhound about, an’ steamed off, with all sail spread, bound down t’ the Grand Banks in a nor’west gale, with a burst o’ snow t’ season it.
“We made the northerly limits o’ the Grand Banks in fog an’ ca’m weather. Black fog: thick ‘s mud. We lay to–butted a league into the pack-ice. Greasy weather: a close world an’ a moody glass.
“‘Cap’n Sammy,’ says I, on the bridge, ‘there’s no tellin’ where a man will strike the fat.’
“‘Small chance for fat, damme!’ says he, ‘in fog an’ broodin’ weather.’
“‘Give her a show,’ says I, ‘an’ she’ll lighten.’
“‘Lighten?’ says he. ‘Afore night, Tumm, she’ll blow this fog t’ the Saragossa Sea.’
“The glass was in a mean, poor temper, an’ the air was still, an’ thick, an’ sweaty.