Last spring, just after the breaking up of winter, a down-east smack or schooner, freighted with cod-fish and potatoes, I believe, rounded off Cape Ann light, and owing to head winds, or some other perversity of a nautical nature, could no further go; so the skipper and his crew--one man, green as catnip--made for an anchorage, and hove the "hull consarn" to. Here they lay, and tossed and chafed, at their moorings, for a day or two, without the slightest indication on the part of the weather to abate the nuisance. So the commander of the schooner got in his little "dug-out," and giving the aforesaid crew special injunctions to keep all fast, he pulled off to shore to take a look around. Now, it so fell out that in the course of a few hours' time after the departure of the skipper, a snorting east wind sprang up, and not only blew great guns, but chopped up a short, heavy sea, perfectly astonishing and alarming to Hezekiah Perkins, in the rolling and pitching schooner. It was Hez's first attempt at seafaring; and this sort of reeling and waltzing about, as a matter of course, soon discomboberated his bean basket, and set his head in a whirl and dancing motion--better conceived by those who have seen the sea elephant than described. Hez got dea-a-athly sick, so sick he could not budge from the stern sheets, where he had taken a squat in the early commencement of his difficulties. In the mean time, the skipper came down to the beach and hailed the victim: "Hel-LO! hel-LO!" Hez feebly elevated his optics, and looking to the windward, where stood his noble captain, he made an effort to say over something: "Wha-a-t ye-e-e want?" "What do I want? Why, yeou pesky critter, yeou, go for'ard thar and hist the jib, take up the anchor, put your helm a-lee, and beat up to town!" This was all very well, provided the skipper was there to superintend, manage and carry out his voluble orders; but as the surf prevented him from coming on board, and the lightness of Hez's head militated against the almost superhuman possibility of carrying out the skipper's orders, things remained _in statu quo_, the skipper ashore, and Hez fervently wishing he was too. "Ain't you a-going to stir round there, and save the vessel?" bawled the excited captain. "How on airth," groaned the horror-stricken mariner, "how on airth am I to help it?" "Wall, by Columbus, she'll go clean ashore, or blow eout to sea afore long, sure as death!" responded the skipper; and before he had fairly concluded his augury, sure enough, the halser parted, the schooner slew round and made a bee-line _for Cowes and a market!_ This rather brought Hezekiah to his oats--he riz, tottering and feeble, on his shaky pins, and crawled forward to get up the jib.