Part 15 (1/2)
”What d'ye feed 'em?” said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness, for the smell of the pens woke all the fare Dunno as it's any o' my business, but I've a kind o' notion that oil-cake broke small an' sprinkled--”
”Thunder!” said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over the side ”What asylu feller,” Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging, ”let o any further that I've--”
The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense politeness
”Excuse ricultural person with the hair will kindly shut his head, the sea-green barnacle with the wall-eye hten us”
”Naow you've rily He could not stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped out the latitude and longitude without more lectures
”'Well, tbat's a boat-load of lunatics, sure,” said the skipper, as he rang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into the schooner
”Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him an' his crowd are abaout the likeliest I've ever seen,” said Disko as the ”We're Here”
slid away ”I was jest givin' himent on lullsikin' round these waters like a lost child, an' you must cut in with your fool fars sep'rate?”
Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, winking one to the other and full of joy; but Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till evening, Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was practically a barn on blue water, and Disko insisting that, even if this were the case, decency and fisher-pride de Jack stood it in silence for a tiry skipper makes an unhappy crew,--and then he spoke across the table after supper:
”Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?” said he
”They'll tell that tale ag'in' us fer years--that's all,” said Disko
”Oil-cake sprinkled!”
”With salt, o' course,” said Salters, i reports from a week-old New York paper
”It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's,” the skipper went on
”Can't see ut that way,” said Long Jack, the peacemaker ”Look at here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather c'u'd ha' ivin' her her reckonin',--over an'
above that, I say,--c'u'd ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent on the it ut! Av coorse they will not 'Twas the ame an' twice runnin'--all to us” Dan kicked Harvey under the table, and Harvey choked in his cup
”'Well,” said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat plastered, ”I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' ht there,” said Toht there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked himent, to be anyways--what it shouldn't”
”Dunno but that's so,” said Disko, who saw his way to an honourable retreat fronities
”'Why, o' course it was so,” said Salters, ”you bein' skipper here; an'
I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint--not from any leadin' or conviction, but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two blame boys of aours”
”Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd done'?
Always those blame boys But I wouldn't have missed the show fer a half-share in a halibutter,” Dan whispered
”Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate,” said Disko, and the light of new argu into his pipe
”There's a power av vartue in keepin' things sep'rate,” said Long Jack, intent on stilling the stor and Hare's f'und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on the Marilla D Kuhn, instid o' Cap Newton that was took with inflaator we called hiht 'thout a pond o' ru up to the lead
”He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston lookin' fer the Lord to make him captain of a towboat on his ive him his board free fer a year or ator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't he?”
”Seventeen, I guess He died the year the Caspar McVeagh was built; but he could niver keep things sep'rate Steyning tuk him fer the reason the thief tuk the hot stove--bekaze there was nothin' else that season