The Captain comes down sometimes and plays checkers with me, which is very nice of him; and I am going to call him Captain Sam, because father has had two other captains by the name of Bartlett.
To-day it is raining and quite cold, and the poor fishermen look as if they would rather be indoors; but they say it is a good day for fish and they must try to get as many as they can. Mother bought enough fish for dinner and breakfast; and now I must close, for Captain Sam is waiting for our mail.
With much love and a bushel of kisses, from
Your AH-NI-GHI´-TO.
P. S. We don’t have any real night at all now. It is daylight almost all night long.
As soon as the fisherman dropped into his boat with the mail the “Windward” went on her way, but the foggy weather and north winds kept her back a few days along the Labrador shore. Davis Strait was crossed in a wind storm which kept up for days, and one day while AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S mother was reading to her in the cabin there came a gust of wind wilder than any before. It was followed by a great crash on deck, a shower of broken glass from the cabin skylight and the shouting of the Captain to his men and the running of the sailors obeying his orders. AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S mother was frightened, but hardly had the glass stopped falling when AH-NI-GHI´-TO cried, “Go on with the story, mother.” She had been in so many storms at sea that she was not the least afraid, and took everything that happened on board ship as a matter of course.
“A Great Iceberg”
Captain Sam said afterwards that the ship had been tossed on the waves like a ball, and in the storm and fog had come so near a great iceberg that when the man on the lookout saw it she had to be brought round the shortest and quickest way, to keep her from being dashed to pieces against its frozen sides.
This caused the bags of coal lashed on deck, to break loose and slide across the deck, smashing everything in their way.