ADVENTURES ASHORE
As we rested on our oars by the strange island, and smelled the warm odor of the marsh and the fragrance of unseen flowers, and listened to the wheekle of a night-hawk that circled above us, we talked of one thing and another, chiefly of the men aboard the Island Princess and how glad we were to be done with them forever.
"Ay," said Davie Paine sadly, "never again 'll I have the handle before my name. But what of that? It's a deal sight jollier in the fo'castle than in the cabin and I ain't the scholar to be an officer." He sighed heavily.
"It warn't so jolly this voyage," Neddie Benson muttered, "what with Bill
Hayden passing on, like he done."
We were silent for a time. For my own part, I was thinking about old Bill's "little wee girl at Newbury-port" waiting for her stupid old dad to come back to her, and I have an idea that the others were thinking much the same thoughts. But soon Blodgett stirred restlessly, and the cook, the cleaver on his knees, cleared his throat and after a premonitory grunt or two began to speak.
"Boy, he think Ah ain't got no use foh boys," he chuckled. "Hee-ha ha! Ah fool 'em. Stew'd, he say, 'Frank, am you with us o' without us?' He say, 'Am you gwine like one ol' lobscozzle idjut git cook's pay all yo' life?'
"'Well,' Ah says, 'what pay you think Ah'm gwine fob to git? Cap'n's pay, maybe? 0' gin'ral's pay? Yass, sah. Ef Ah'm cook Ah'm gwine git cook's pay.'
"Den he laff hearty and slap his knee and he say 'Ef you come in with us, you won't git cook's pay, no' sah. You is gwine git pay like no admiral don't git if you come in with us. Dah's money 'board dis yeh ol' ship.'
"'Yass, sah,' says I, suspicionin' su'thin' was like what it didn't had ought to be. 'But dat's owner's money.'
"Den stew'd, he say, 'Listen! You come in with me and Cap'n Falk and Mistah Kipping, and we's gwine split dat yeh money all up'twix' one another. Yass, sah! But you all gotta have nothin' to do with dat yeh Mistah Hamlin and dat yeh cocky li'le Ben Lathrop.'