Dialect literature, Canadian; Fishing villages -- Fiction; Newfoundland and Labrador -- Fiction; Sea stories; Short stories
“So down we went, an’ we had the whole crew in a heap on the forecastle
floor afore they woke up. Ecod! what a mess o’ green faces! A
per-feck-ly limp job lot o’ humanity! Not a backbone among un. An’ all
on account o’ their stomachs! It made me sick an’ mad t’ see un. The
cook was the worst of un; said we’d gone an’ woke un up, just when he’d
got t’ sleep an’ forgot it all. Good Lord! ‘You gone an’ made me
remember!’ says he. At that, Jowl let un have it; but the cook only
yelped an’ crawled back in his bunk, wipin’ the blood from his chin. For
twenty minutes an’ more we labored with them sea-sick sailors, with
fists an’ feet, as Jowl had prescribed. They wasn’t no mercy begged nor
showed. We hit what we seen, pickin’ the tender places with care, an’
they grunted an’ crawled back like rats; an’ out they come again, head
foremost or feet, as happened. I never seed the like of it. You could
treat un most scandalous, an’ they’d do nothin’ but whine an’ crawl
away. ’Twas enough t’ disgust you with your own flesh an’ bones! Jowl
’lowed he’d cure the skipper, whatever come of it, an’ laid his head
open with a birch billet. The skipper didn’t whimper no more, but just
fell back in the bunk, an’ lied still. Jowl said he’d be cured when he
come to. Maybe he was; but ’tis my own opinion that Jowl killed un, then
an’ there, an’ that he never _did_ come to. Whatever, ’twas all lost
labor; we didn’t work a single cure, an’ we had t’ make a run for the
deck, all of a sudden, t’ make peace with our own stomachs.
“‘The swine!’ says Jowl. ‘Let un drown!’
“I ’lowed we’d better pump; but Jowl wouldn’t hear to it. Not he! No
sir! He’d see the whole herd o’ pigs sunk afore he’d turn a finger!
“‘_Me_ pump!’ says he.
“‘You better,’ says I.
“‘For what?’
“‘For your life,’ says I.
“‘An’ save them swine in the forecastle?’ says he. ‘Not _me_!’
“I ’lowed it didn’t matter, anyhow, for ’twas only a question o’ keepin’
the _Wings o’ the Mornin’_ out o’ the grave for a spell longer than she
might have stayed of her own notion. But, thinks I, I’ll pump, whatever,
t’ pass time; an’ so I set to, an’ kep’ at it. The wind was real
vicious, an’ the seas was breakin’ over us, fore an’ aft an’ port an’
starboard, t’ suit their fancy, an’ the wreck o’ the _Wings o’ the
Mornin’_ wriggled an’ bounced in a way t’ s’prise the righteous, an’ the
black sky was pourin’ buckets o’ rain an’ hail on all the world, an’ the
wind was makin’ knotted whips o’ both. It wasn’t agreeable, an’
by-an’-by my poor brains was fair riled t’ see the able-bodied Jowl with
nothin’ t’ do but dodge the seas an’ keep hisself from bein’ pitched
over-board. ’Twas a easy berth _he_ had! But _I_ was busy.
“‘Look you, Jowl,’ sings I, ‘you better take a spell at the pump.’
“‘Me?’ says he.
“‘Yes, _you_!’
“‘Oh no!’ says he.
“‘You think I’m goin’ t’ do all this labor single-handed?’ says I.
“‘’Tis your own notion,’ says he.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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