II.
A ship rat is not usually a cherished object of affection, but I knew of one, and here is the outline of his story: Once, in the quarterly overhauling of a frigate's main hold, a rat but a few days old was the only inmate found of a predatory colony which had scurried, been captured, or been carried away when the invaders entered. The ship's doctor, a tender soul, took nest and all to his room, rigged a crude but adequate feeding arrangement, and nursed and strengthened the baby rat into a healthy childhood. Nothing could have been tamer than the little gray creature, and it thrived lustily. It slept in the doctor's room, but made rambling adventures through the civilized plains of the ship, fearsomely avoiding the wilderness and deserts closed to man in the frames and timbers of her hull. At night it always awoke when the doctor came on shipboard, waited for a little food and fondling, and then slept peacefully until reveille sent it scampering to the steward for its breakfast. It kept the doctor's quarters clear of all winged insects, and made such a riot among the ants and roaches of the ward-room that the executive officer and mess caterer numbered it among their most efficient aids. It is unnecessary to say that no cats were allowed aft, and that the license and liberties of the officers' quarters were the cherished pleasure and hunting preserves of the rodent. Its affection for the doctor was unbounded, and it shared a particular fondness for the photographs of his children, peering through the glass at their innocent faces, and making a vantage-ground for its mid-day naps upon one of the largest of the frames which hung against the after-bulkhead of the officer's bunk.
One night, after a shore-going in a tropical port, the doctor lighted his candle at the ward-room lantern, and entering his room, heard a whirring note of anger over his bed. Looking up, he saw the little rat in a strange state of fury, its eyes burning like points of fire, its hair ruffled, and its legs gathered for a jump. Wondering at this unwonted excitement, the doctor called and whistled to it, and then turned to his bunk to throw back the bedclothes.
Just as his hand reached the upper covering he caught a strident shriek of anger and the whir of a flying body, and saw just beneath his uplifted hand the rat struggling in the bed with an animated ball of fuzzy black, bristling with clawlike tentacles that writhed convulsively. The struggle was sudden, sharp, short, and when it was over, the doctor saw, lying dead on his bed, one of the most savage and venomous scorpions of that region.
It had come on board probably in the unbarked fire-wood, and it worked its way aft through the hidden recesses of the timbers to the doctor's room. Had his hand ever touched the sheet where the scorpion lay hidden from him in the half-light, but visible to the rat, no power could have saved him from the poison of the sting which would have followed.
Of course his ratship was the hero of that day and of many days, and I should like to add that it went on in the pleasant lines of its youth, adding to its virtues hourly. But one night, when it had become big and strong, it strayed into the evil company of other rats, and went with them upon strange and perilous adventures. Gradually it forsook its civilization and life of simple honesty, and one mid-watch, close after four bells, it was found dead—a prey to a jealous ship cat, who caught it stealing warily towards a mess cheese forward.
Next in importance, but not chronologically, was a wonderful pig—not a euchre-playing, time-telling, disreputable suckling, but as plucky a four-legged shoat as ever thirsted for a miry spot or ran in windy weather with a straw in his mouth. What memories cluster around that intelligent suckling! What regrets filled our souls in after-days for his early flight!
By some lost correlation of ideas, pigs who go down to the sea are always dubbed "Dennis," and it is only a little less than mutiny to name them otherwise.
This Dennis, I regret to say, was smuggled aboard secretly just as we were leaving Talcahuana, in southern Chile—was stolen from the bosom of a most interesting family of brothers and sisters by a rogue of a steward, who afterward repeated the act on shipboard with distinguished results, except in this case our money, and not the pig, dramatically disappeared.
Dennis was discovered by his grunted protests against confinement shortly after we were under way—probably off Quiriquina Island, and too late to make restitution—and his beauty and developing intelligence so appealed to us that he was saved from a growling butcher to become an important member of our ship family. He was entered upon the cook's roster as Dennis O'Quiriquina, which was softened to O'Quiri, and then, in compliment to the land where his race is most prized, into Dennis O'Kerry—as Milesian a title as Brian Boru, of Clontarf, and all the sons of Heremon could have desired.
It must have been some time in March that he joined us, for I remember on St. Patrick's day, when the hills back of Valparaiso were echoing with the strains of "Garry-owen" and "The Connaughtman's Rambles," played by the flag-ship band, Dennis trotted aft at full speed, decked with green ribbons, and carrying a small clay pipe around his neck and the mealiest potato in the locker slung to his corkscrew of a tail. He appreciated the dignity of the time and place, for when we went to quarters he made a polite bow to the Captain, and for the first time in his life asserted and secured his rights as a quarter-deck. On occasions of special ceremony he had to be driven from the quarter-deck with contumely, but he never could be rooted from the spot, for regularly when the drum beat to quarters he came aft on a run to his station, blow high or blow low, fair weather or foul, and assumed to a mathematical nicety the spot selected on the saint's day.
He had his bath at daylight, and was washed and brushed and combed into a state of snowy whiteness which proclaimed the possibilities of piggy cleanliness, and then he feasted in dignified ease within the honored and exclusive precincts of the galley. During the day he lolled about the decks, generally in the wake of the spare spars, filled with the pride of placeship, and never awed from the career of his humor. He attended drills with praiseworthy punctuality, and was in nobody's watch and everybody's mess, which is the perfect flower of sea luxury. When night came, in his early days of leanness, he sought his hammock, and, later, his carefully prepared division tub; but after a time, when fatness clung to his bones, and no sailor's bed devices would hold him, he would airily promenade the deck, waking up a sailor here and there, until he found a shipmate fitted for his high nobility. I have frequently seen a man awake in the middle of the night, and, calling Dennis, give him half his blanket or pea-jacket, and then, with a contented grunt, Dennis would nestle snugly in his new bed, and sailor and pig sleep the sleep of the just, their mingled snores filling the still hours of the middle watch with a touching tale of boon companionship.
But an end came to all this happy time, for Dennis acquired undue fat and fell into moralizing, sedate, and dignified ways; then he lost his sense of humor, his fondness for fun, and at last he forgot the laboriously taught proprieties of ship etiquette and sea life. Could he have been dreaming of the lost wallowings of his race, the prizes of unalloyed wealth that lay in sun-bathed mires? The truth is, Dennis degenerated with his prosperity, and became touchy and captious. We would have borne with his ailments, for he had sailed thousands of miles with us, and had such a way of cocking his weather eye knowingly to wind'ard, such a rolling gait, and such a heroic fondness for 'baccy and lobscouse, that we would have cherished him to the end.
It was somewhere about the last of June, and we were at anchor off Papaete, in Tahiti, when the Captain said to me, in his quiet way, "You will have to send the pig ashore; the executive officer reports him unfit for duty."
Of course this sealed the fate of Dennis. So I sent for the man who looked out for him, and said: "Barbe, my lad, it will be the Fourth of July next week, and Dennis has to be turned ashore or eaten. If you wish, your mess may have him for dinner on that holiday."
Barbe glared at me in astonishment, almost in horror, as if I had suggested he was a steamboat sailor, and not a man-of-war's man born and bred, and then said, mournfully:
"WHY, SIR, I'D AS SOON EAT MY BROTHER AS THAT PIG."
"Why, sir, I'd as soon eat my brother as that pig—as that Dennis, sir. He's weathered o' all we have, and I'd as leave stick my knife into a babby as into that animal. Of course, sir, if it's go ashore, go it is, sir. But I'd like to make terms with the man that's to have him, so Dennis will get the treatment and the kindness he larned with us, sir."
It was as I had expected, and so the arrangements for his new home ashore were made.
Eheu, fugaces! Dennis went ashore the next day in the dingy—bag and hammock, ribbons, dhudeen, and potato—all the men clustering in the bridleports and gangways to see him off, and the officers waving a farewell from aft. As his pigship pulled under the bows I heard from forward a rousing cheer, which was the last ship greeting he was ever to know.
A countryman of ours had drifted into that land, and Dennis had been consigned to his care under a guarantee that his later days would be spent on a plantation inland and never killed.
DENNIS O'KERRY.
I drifted ashore next day, and there, lying in the shadow of a pandanus-tree on the shore line, his nose buried in his fore-trotters, and his eyes closed in weary waiting and sorrow, was Dennis. He looked up mournfully as I entered the ship-chandlers, and gave me a grunt of sullen recognition, as if he felt I were the author of his misery, or at least an aider and abettor of those who had sent him into exile. His new owner said he had moped from the beginning, at first wistfully roaming about, and at last settling into the morbidly melancholy condition in which I found him.
It happened, fortunately, to be liberty week for the men, and whilst we were discussing his woes the voices of some of our crew came from the landing. The transition was marvellous. Dennis sprang to his feet, gazed inquiringly seaward for a moment, and then as the men's voices grew nearer and louder, he twisted his tail into the rigidity of a corkscrew and bounded beachward, where the liberty party was skylarking by the jetty under the palm-trees.
No need to describe the meeting or the subsequent festivities. Dennis followed each party that came ashore, trotting after them into the back country, sleeping in the bush, and I believe enjoying the holiday more than they did. He was the first to welcome the coming party, the last to speed the going, filling his part of host with a grace and dignity in town, and an abandon and a freedom in the country, that awoke in after-days the tender regrets of his companions.
The frolic of Dennis and his friends lasted a scant week, and when the last boat-load left the beach he turned mournfully shoreward, unheeding the re-echoing cheers they gave him, and crawled, swaying port and starboard in his grief, slowly towards the loneliness of his new home. He fell into gloomy ways; he lost his fat and dignity; he seemed on the verge of a decline; he took himself seriously as a persecuted exile in a far land. Finally it was thought best to send him afield to his new labors, and his master tried to woo him countryward, but in vain. He had won his way into this American's heart, for when force was suggested he declined to tie the pig's legs together, and throw him into a cart as he would have done with a pig of less degree. He declared that Dennis was a gentleman by instinct, a little low in his mind, but still a gentleman, and that he could wait until Dennis might, as if in the gayety of a holiday, idly stray with him on some early morning to the plantation inland. But Dennis was obdurate and unhappy; and so the day before the ship sailed for Apia his old master, the ship's cook, and the boatswain's mate were sent to him, for it was known he would follow the trill of the bosun's call. When he heard the familiar voices and saw the blue shirts of his shipmates, and caught the bird-like whistle of the mate, he jumped to his feet, gave an ecstatic grunt, and ran among the trees wildly, with the fire of youth rioting in his trotters.
A two-wheeled cart was brought to the door, the driver took the reins, the bluejackets seated themselves in the stern-sheets, and with Dennis trotting gayly at the tail-board, the merry company waved a farewell to me as they went slowly down the Purumu Road into the heart of the land.
Just beyond the last police station of the town two roads join, one curving shoreward and the other winding through a wilderness of cocoanut groves up the gentle inclines of the island. Here the cart stopped for a moment, while the men, trilling a bright ballad of the sea, dismounted to weave a chaplet of hibiscus for the decoration of the jocund pig.
Then remounting, the cart pushed forward merrily, rounded the bend where the shrubbery met the archway of the trees, and Dennis passed hillward out of my life forever.
[ROSE PETALS.]
BY EMMA J. GRAY.
o save your rose petals and make a rose-bag for your room would be delightful.
While the rose is still fresh tear off its petals and scatter them thinly on a large platter. In this way expose them to the light. Every few hours pick up a handful and let them shower down, so as to expose both sides of the petals. The next day put them on a different platter, or you may use the same one provided you are careful to thoroughly dry it, for the plate will be very moist. The second day sprinkle a little salt over the petals, as this helps to purify them. Keep this treatment up until they are all dry, then put them in a thin muslin bag.
Cover the bag with violet, yellow, or pink china silk as best suits the color of your room. Tie it close at the top, as you would tie any other bag, and suspend it on a rocking-chair back, gas-fixture, or any convenient place. It will prove an attractive ornament as well as convey delicious odor. Use inch-wide satin ribbon the same color as the silk to tie the bag. Make a generous bow, with ends of irregular length. Cut the ends pointed or slanting, and this prevents the ribbon fraying.
Another way to use petals after they are dried would be to lay them between two pieces of pink cheese-cloth, cut the exact size of your bureau drawer. After the petals are in place knot the cheese-cloth, about two inches apart, all the way down and across with tiny bows of baby-width pink ribbon. This will help to keep the petals even; otherwise they would lay in a heap at one end. Put such a piece under your linen, and have it perfumed with roses.
It will take a great many roses to make either a fair-sized bag or drawer pad, but the dried petals may be saved and added to until you have enough. Keep them in a tightly covered china or glass receptacle. Never dry the petals on brass or other metals; dry them on marble, china, or glassware.
In the same way that rose petals are used try sweet-marjoram, lavender, or other pleasantly scented herbs or grasses. Besides being a delight to the eye and conveying delicate perfume, they may also serve as a reminder of a pleasant gift or enjoyable entertainment.
Try also balsam, pine, and hop bags. Make small ones not over ten inches long; cover with pretty silk, knot on narrow ribbon of a shade either complementary or to match, and suspend such from a chair back, door-knob, or curtain fixture.
A delicious bag would be made of pea-green silk or the green of the pine itself, and enlivened by a net-work of gold silk, the strings for which should be gold-colored satin or bullion thread.