’LONG SHORE CRUISE OF THE “NANCY P.”
We was off Seguin with the “Nancy P.,”
From the Sheepscot bound for Boston way;
We was one day out, and massy me!
What a leak she’d sprung sence she left the bay!
Why, never knowed sech an awful leak,
Gad, we made her old pump squeak,
Gad, we made it whoop and hump,
—Two at a turn, on the stiddy jump,—
Ker-chonk, ker-chump,
With an up yo-ho and a down ker-bump.
But the more we pumped, the more she drawed,
And we all turned to for a mighty pull;
But when we giv’ her the soundin’ rawd,
Why, bless yer soul, she was jam, bang full.
Plumb, jamb full to the soaked old deck,
Full to her gol-durned tarred old neck;
Wonder was how she kept aflo’t,
With the sea a-gozzlin’ in her thro’t;
Ker-do’t, ker-do’t,
—And we couldn’t leave, ’cause there wam’t no
bo’t.
So we hung to the pump and we giv’ her Cain,
Though it didn’t seem to be no use.
We thought of the good dry ground in Maine,
And durned the pelt of that old caboose,
Durned the hide of a tops’l tub,
For we never thought we’d see the Hub;
—Got so scart we forgot to thank
Our lucky stars for a lo’d of plank,
Ker-clink, ker-chank,
And still we bounced that old pump crank.
So we woggled on like a bale of hay,
And we set our teeth and we pumped with
groans.
At last we got to Boston bay;
But our arms were stretched to our ankle bones,
Hands were the size of corn-fed hams,
Eyes bulged out like the horns o’ rams,
We humped like monkeys bound for war,
And ev’ry man had a raw, red paw,
Ker-haw, ker-haw,
We beached that tub—and then we saw—
The “Nancy P.,” she’d grown that old,
Her butts had rotted all away.
Her lo’d of planks still jammed the hold,
But we’d left her bottom in Sheepscot bay.
So there we’d made a tumble try
To pump old ’Lantic ocean dry.
Over our rail, ’twixt you and me,
We’d h’isted, suttin, a mile of sea;
Blame me! But we
Was a darn sick crowd on the “Nancy P.”
