Every One Away From Home Thinks That Some Great
Thing Must Have Happened, While To Those At Home There Seems To
Be A Continued Monotony And Lack Of Incident.
As much as my feelings were taken up by my own intelligence
from home, I could not but be amused by a scene in the steerage.
The carpenter had been married just before leaving Boston, and
during the voyage had talked much about his wife, and had to bear
and forbear, as every man, known to be married, must, aboard ship;
yet the certainty of hearing from his wife by the first ship, seemed
to keep up his spirits. The California came, the packet was brought
on board; no one was in higher spirits than he; but when the letters
came forward, there was none for him. The captain looked again,
but there was no mistake. Poor "Chips," could eat no supper.
He was completely down in the mouth. "Sails" (the sailmaker)
tried to comfort him, and told him he was a bloody fool to give
up his grub for any woman's daughter, and reminded him that he
had told him a dozen times that he'd never see or hear from his
wife again.
"Ah!" said "Chips," "you don't know what it is to have a wife, and" -
"Don't I?" said Sails; and then came, for the hundredth time, the story
of his coming ashore at New York, from the Constellation frigate,
after a cruise of four years round the Horn, - being paid off with
over five hundred dollars, - marrying, and taking a couple of rooms
in a four-story house, - furnishing the rooms, (with a particular
account of the furniture, including a dozen flag-bottomed chairs,
which he always dilated upon, whenever the subject of furniture was
alluded to,) - going off to sea again, leaving his wife half-pay,
like a fool, - coming home and finding her "off, like Bob's horse,
with nobody to pay the reckoning;" furniture gone, - flag-bottomed
chairs and all; - and with it, his "long togs," the half-pay,
his beaver hat, white linen shirts, and everything else. His wife
he never saw, or heard of, from that day to this, and never wished
to. Then followed a sweeping assertion, not much to the credit of
the sex, if true, though he has Pope to back him. "Come, Chips,
cheer up like a man, and take some hot grub! Don't be made a fool
of by anything in petticoats! As for your wife, you'll never see
her again; she was 'up keeleg and off' before you were outside of
Cape Cod. You hove your money away like a fool; but every man
must learn once, just as I did; so you'd better square the yards
with her, and make the best of it."
This was the best consolation "Sails" had to offer, but it did not
seem to be just the thing the carpenter wanted; for, during several
days, he was very much dejected, and bore with difficulty the jokes
of the sailors, and with still more difficulty their attempts at
advice and consolation, of most of which the sailmaker's was a
good specimen.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 198 of 324
Words from 103045 to 103572
of 170236
