Little Wolf: A Tale of the Western FrontierCornelius, Mary Ann Mann
General
Little Wolf: A Tale of the Western Frontier
Cornelius, Mary Ann Mann
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
"While I write, the Captain's little daughter sits beside me. We have
met several times on the hurricane deck--Flora and I--and are on quite
intimate terms, considering the shortness of our acquaintance. The
first twenty four hours she was seasick, 'wery, wery sick,' she
informed me, and her pale face bore traces of the ordeal through which
she had passed; and, indeed, the countenances of most of the
passengers are suggestive of Tompsonian doctors. To such, our three
days at sea must have been uncommonly disagreeable, the weather having
been rough the entire period. Yesterday, we were favored with a storm.
The commencement was most sublime, but all having been unwillingly
ordered below I was borne resisting into the cabin and the splendid
exhibition of nature shut from my view, of course I could not keep on
my feet, but I managed to climb upon a stand, and holding on with all
my might, I could see the waves through the port hole run mountains
high, and what silly thing do you think I did? I actually cried with
vexation, shut up in that miserable place.
"It was as if Black Hawk had been bearing me exultant on a wild gallop
in the face of winds that shook the very foundations of the earth,
and, the loftiest enthusiasm having been enkindled, I was suddenly
plunged into a sickening, stifling, dismal cavern, and shut out from
light and liberty.
"I made frantic assaults upon the porthole, and the remonstrances of
the ship carpenter, who chanced to spy me, would have availed him
nothing had he not forcibly lifted me down, and seated me upon the
floor of my state-room.
"The miserable creature imagined me frightened out of my senses. 'No
immediate danger Miss,' said he, 'compose yourself; the ship will
right up directly--throwing all the light trash overboard--chicken
coops just gone over.'
"'Man,' moaned a woman on whose face was blended an expression of
benevolence and nausea, 'did you open those coops, and let out those
fowls, that they may not drift about and starve?'
"'The sea, madam,' said the builder of ships, grandly, 'the sea has
swallowed them coops and all.'
"Miss Flora has just asked me if my letter is not most finished,
'for,' said the cunning little elf 'you might put in that papa called
you a stubborn little wretch yesterday, when you wouldn't go down to
the cabin.'
"I wonder if he dared to say it, I suppose I looked incredulous, for
the little mischief continues to reiterate the assertion, but she
consolingly adds, 'He was wery, wery angry then, and he knew you
wouldn't hear him. You don't care, do you?'
"I have almost told a fib, and said, 'no indeed.'
Two days later.
"I have had my revenge on the captain by jumping overboard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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