United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Blockades -- Juvenile fiction
"I reckon I'll have to. I ain't got no use for a one-handed man; but
I'll keep your place open for you, never fear. Just see that, now. Ain't
that a pretty looking arm for a white boy to carry around with him? It
makes me hate them Yankees wusser'n I did before."
The wounded arm was already becoming inflamed, and it was painful, too;
and although Beardsley's assistants were as careful as they could be,
Marcy winced while they were helping him off with his coat and vest and
rolling up his sleeve. When this had been done one of the men, in
obedience to a slight nod from the captain, seized Marcy around the
chest under his arms, the mate by a movement equally quick grasped his
left wrist, and both began pulling in opposite directions with all their
strength, while Beardsley passed his huge rough hands up and down over
the "bunch" until he was satisfied that the protruding bone had been
pulled back to its place. The operation was a painful one, and the only
thing that kept Marcy from crying out was the remembrance of Beardsley's
words "I ain't got no use for a one-handed man." That broken arm would
bring him a furlough.
"There, now; that'll do. 'Vast heaving," said the captain, at length.
"Put some of the stuff in that bottle on one of them bandages and hand
it over here. Pretty rough way of getting to go home, but better than
none at all, and I reckon your maw will be just as glad to see you as
she would if you had two good arms. Don't you reckon she will?"
After his arm had been bandaged and placed in a sling, Marcy was quite
willing to go into the forecastle and lie down in his bunk; and there he
stayed until the schooner entered the Neuse River and a tug came
alongside to tow her up to the city. This time there were plenty of
cheers to welcome her, the first coming from the working parties who
were building the fortifications, and the next from the soldiers and
loafers who were assembled upon the wharf to which she was made fast,
and who howled themselves hoarse when they caught sight of the holes in
her sails, her broken bowsprit, and her splintered rail.
"I see that blockade running has its dangers as well as privateering,"
said Beardsley's agent, as he sprang over the rail and seized the
captain's hand. "The _Hattie_ is cut up pretty badly, but the _Osprey_
was never touched. Been in a fight?"
"Well, no, not much of a fight, because we uns didn't have nothing to
fight with. But the schooner ran through a pretty tol'able heavy fire, I
tell you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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