Part 7 (2/2)

Then there was Mac, the chief, a stunted, sandy little man, covered with freckles, and tattooed with various marine designs. He loved his engine better than himself, and in his sorrow at its break-up, he was driven to the bottle, and when last seen--after asking ”ever'

one” to take a drink--was wandering off, his arms around two Filipino sailors. Coming to life a few days later, ”Mac ain't sayin' much,”

he said, ”but Mac, 'e knows.” Yielding to our persuasion, he wrote down a song ”what 'e 'ad learned once at a sailors' boardin' 'ouse in Frisco.” It was called ”The Lodger,” and he rendered it thus, in a deep-sea voice:

”The other night I chanced to meet a charmer of a girl, An', nothin' else to do, I saw 'er 'ome; We 'ad a little bottle of the very finest brand, An' drank each other's 'ealth in crystal foam.

I lent the dear a sover'ign; she thanked me for the same An' laid 'er golden 'ead upon me breast; But soon I finds myself thrown out the pa.s.sage like shot,-- A six-foot man confronts me, an' 'e says:

Chorus--

I'm sorry to disturb you, but the lodger 'as come,” etc.

The feature of the song, however, was Mac's leer, which, in a public hall, would have brought down the house, and which I feel unable to describe.

The mate, aroused by the example of the chief, rendered a ”Tops'l halliard shanty,” ”Blow, Bullies, Blow.” It was almost as though a character had stepped from _Pinafore_, when the athletic, gallant little mate, giving a hitch to his trousers, thus began: ”Strike up a light there, Bullies; who's the last man sober?”

Song.

”O, a Yankee s.h.i.+p came down the river-- Blow, Bullies, blow!

Her sails were silk and her yards were silver-- Blow, my Bully boys, blow!

Now, who do you think was the cap'n of 'er?

Blow, Bullies, blow!

Old Black Ben, the down-east bucko-- Blow, my Bully boys, How!”

”'Ere is a shanty what the packeteers sings when, with 'full an'

plenty,' we are 'omeward bound. It is a 'windla.s.s shanty,' an' we sings it to the music of the winch. The order comes 'hup anchors,'

and the A one packeteer starts hup:

”'We're hom'ard bound; we're bound away; Good-bye, fare y' well.

We're home'ard bound; we leave to-day; Hooray, my boys! we're home'ard bound.

We're home'ard bound from Liverpool town; Hooray, my boys, hooray!

A bully s.h.i.+p and a bully crew; Good-bye, fare y' well.

A bucko mate an' a skipper too; Hooray, my boys, we're home'ard bound!'”

For the old maid this was the time the ages had been waiting for. What anxious nights she spent upon her pillow or before the looking-gla.s.s; what former triumphs she reviewed; and what plans for the conquest she had made, shall still remain unwritten history. When she was ready to appear, we used to hear her nervous call, ”Doctor! Can I come over?” Poor old maid! She couldn't even wait till she was asked. How patiently she stirred the hot tomato soy the captain made; O yes! She could be useful and domestic. How tenderly she leaned upon the arm of the captain's chair, caressing the scar upon his head ”where he was shanghaied!” Then, like Oth.e.l.lo, he would entertain her with his story about the ladies in the sea-sh.e.l.l clothes, or of the time when he had ”weathered the Horn” in a ”sou'wester.” She was flurried and excited all the week. The climax came after the captain left for Iligan. The old maid learned somehow that he was going to Manila on a transport which would pa.s.s by Oroquieta but a few miles out. Sending a telegram to the chief quartermaster whom she called a ”dear,” she said that if the s.h.i.+p would stop to let her on, she could go out to meet it in a _banca_. Though the schoolmaster and his wife had also requested transportation on the same boat, the old maid, evidently thinking that ”three made a crowd,” wired to her friend the quartermaster not to take them on.

We met the old maid almost in hysterics on the road to Lobuc. ”O, for the love of G.o.d!” she cried, ”get me a boat, and get my trunk down to the sh.o.r.e. I have about ten minutes left to catch that s.h.i.+p.” It was old Ichabod who rowed her out in the canoe--the old maid, with the sun now broken out behind the clouds, her striped parasol, and a small steamer trunk. It was a mad race for old Ichabod, and they were pretty well drenched when the old maid climbed aboard the transport, breathless but triumphant. I have since learned that Dido won her wandering aeneas in Manila, and that the captain finally has found his ”bucko mate.”

It was old Ichabod's delight to teach a cla.s.s of sorry-looking _senoritas_, with their dusty toes stuck into carpet slippers, and their hair combed back severely on their heads. The afternoons he spent in visiting his flock; we could descry him from afar, chin in the air, arms swinging, hiking along with five-foot strides. If he could ”doctor up” the natives he was satisfied. He knew them all by name down to the smallest girl, and he applied his healing lotions with the greatest sense of duty, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the regular M.D. But Ichabod was qualified, for he had once confided to me that at one time he had learned the names of all the bones in the left hand!

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