CHAPTER XIV. TONY MAKES ANOTHER BREAK.
"Go way! Go way from dar, boy!" exclaimed the cook, when Tony presented himself before that important personage. "Didn't de fus' mate done tol' you to turn to?"
"He did," replied the boy, "but the other one ordered me to come here and help you."
"Den dat's all right. Dar's the dinner I done save for you; but you'd bes' eat wid one hand, an' do something else wid de other, kase if de fas' mate look in hyar an' see dat you ain't doin' nuffin' but eat, he'll find work for you, suah. Dat's de kind of a man he is!"
Acting upon this advice, Tony ate his dinner by snatches, and for a short half hour he was allowed a little peace; but at the end of that time, the cargo was all aboard, the hatchways were closed, and a tug came alongside to tow the schooner to the Gulf. As she was to pick up two or three other small vessels on the way, the services of all hands, as well as those of the cook and his clumsy subordinates, were called into requisition in making up the tow.
No doubt there were many interesting sights to be seen along the river below New Orleans, but if there were, Tony never knew it. He was kept busy every moment, and between handling wet lines and hauling at the halliards and sheets, his blistered palms fared badly indeed. He ate his supper as he had eaten his dinner, holding his food with one hand and working with the other; and at ten o'clock tumbled into his hard bed, aching in every joint, and almost ready to cry with weariness and disappointment.
"I know I have made a mistake," thought the runaway, who had borne up remarkably well considering all the circumstances. Almost all the boys who leave home as he did, shed bitter tears of repentance before the first night has passed over their heads. "Bradley was right when he said, that I am not the sort of stuff that sailors are made off, for I can't stand it, to work all the time as hard as I can put in. I've made one break, and if I get the chance I'll make another; but this one will be toward home."
Tony was very homesick now; and he awoke the next morning from a fitful slumber into which he had fallen, to find that he had been attacked by another malady, that was almost as bad—sea-sickness. He got up when all hands were called, but the officer on watch, seeing his condition, did not order him to turn to. They were now well out in the Gulf, and the shores of Louisiana were lying low in the horizon. The waves raised by the brisk wind that was blowing, tossed the little schooner about in a way, that made it impossible for Tony to keep his feet without holding fast to something; and now and then a billow, higher than the rest, would dash against her bows, and send the water in a shower all over the deck. This was the life for which Tony had so often longed; but now that he was having a little experience of it, he did not like it. The bounding and plunging of the schooner, were very different from the smooth, gliding motion of a river steamer, and Tony was frightened.