Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical NarrativeKemp, Harry
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Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical Narrative
Kemp, Harry
Kemp, Harry, 1883-1960
With seeming calm and nonchalance I made the kitchen. With a semblance
of outward serenity I picked up a rag and returned to wipe off the wall.
I was vastly relieved to find that the bluff had worked.
The Canuck was finishing his meal in silence.
From that moment till the end of the voyage he was as quiet and
Unobtrusive as anyone could wish him to be....
* * * * *
I have a curious habit of often waking up in the night from deep
slumber, and breaking into laughter over some funny incident or other
that has happened to me a long time ago ... I have chuckled over this
incident many times ... if that bully only knew how terrorised he really
had me!...
* * * * *
It is impossible to describe the Georgian Bay and the beauty of its
thousands of islands ... as we steamed through them in the dawn, they
loomed about us through sun-golden violet mists.... Here as small as the
chine of some swimming animal, there large enough for a small forest of
trees to grow upon them....
* * * * *
Another storm ... on Lake Huron ... a fair-sized one.
I was walking along the deck, just after dawn, the waves riding and
running and shattering aboard. I carried the dinner bell, was ringing it
for breakfast ... when the greatest wave I have ever seen on the Lakes
came running, high-crested, toward the boat,--that seemed to know what
was happening, for it rose to meet it, like a sentient being....
The wave smashed ... hit the galley and washed over the top of it,
catching me in a cataract as I hugged close. I was driven hard against
the taut cable wire that made our only railing. For a moment I thought
the water reaching up from over-side as the vessel lurched would clutch
me and suck me down.
A close and breathless call. A rending, splintering sound told me damage
had been done. I looked toward the captain's cabin ... and laughed
heartily, for all my discomfort and dangerous escape ... for the whole
side of the cabin had been stove in,--and, terrified, his eyes sticking
out, in his dirty underclothes the captain had been hurtled forth, his
face still stupid from sleep though full of fear.
I rushed up to him. His drawers sagged pitiably with wet.
"A close shave, sir!" I remarked.
When I brought him his breakfast he was still trembling.
* * * * *
I left the package freighter _Overland_. It was almost time for the new
school year. But Warriors' River lay in my way back to Laurel, and I
determined to stop off and pay a visit to Baxter, at Barton's Health
Home....
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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