"No; we must have been well outside of it."
"Two steamers passed us before the fog set in, and of course they had no trouble keeping clear of the fleet. Yesterday afternoon I slipped away to the southward of the rest of them, some half a dozen miles, following a school of fish, and all of a sudden I saw the fog coming up. I made up my mind that there wasn't any use of going back, and so I lay to right where I was. The fog came down thicker than cheese, and not long afterward the heavy swell set in from the southward and eastward, and I knew there was weather brewing. So I had all the dories got aboard and stowed amidships. The swell kept on increasing, and the fog was so thick you couldn't see the length of the schooner. It was just after three bells in the midwatch when I heard a yell from my lookout. Before I could tumble out of my bunk there was a tremendous thump that threw me half-way across my cabin. I jumped on deck just in time to see the huge black hull of a steamer towering above us. She slipped away into the fog, and was gone. There were a few shouts from her deck, but we neither saw nor heard any more of her.
"I sprang forward to see what damage had been done. I found my little schooner had been mortally hurt, gentlemen, and that's a fact. The foremast, as you must have noticed, had been snapped off about ten feet above the deck, and had carried a lot of our rig with it. But that was not all. The wreckage from aloft had fallen so that something—the foretopmast, I suppose—had smashed our dories into kindling wood. I sent my mate below, and he came back with the report that we were taking in water through half a dozen seams forward. I set two hands at work to try to stop the leaks, while the rest of us cleared away some of the wreckage. Meanwhile the swell had increased so that we were rolling dreadfully, and there was great danger that some one would be hurt by the loose timbers. I'm thankful, however, that we escaped that misfortune. Toward daylight the wind rose and blew the fog off. I saw that we were in for a blow, and I decided to run toward the land as long as I dared. I set the canvas that you saw, and started her off ahead of the gale. All hands were sent to the pumps, but in spite of our hardest work the water gained on us. The gale increased and the sea rose, and then I found that the schooner was so heavy with the water in her that she was in great danger of being pooped—that is, gentlemen, having a sea break over her stern and sweep her decks. That would have been the end of us, and not a soul would have known what had become of us, for, you see, we had no boats to take to, they being smashed. So there was nothing to do but to heave her to and wait, hoping that some ship might come along and take us off. Gentlemen, it's cruel hard to work at the pumps till your arms are numb and your back feels as if it were being cut with a saw, and still to know that your vessel is settling under you, and that in a short time she must go down. I tell you we cast mighty anxious looks around the horizon every time we rose on a sea; and we felt like cheering when we saw the smoke from your funnel down in the west. Then came another time of anxiety before we were sure you were coming our way, and even after that we weren't positive that you would take us off."
"What!" exclaimed the new voyager; "is it possible that there are men so inhuman as to leave fellow-creatures on a sinking vessel?"
"There are a few such fellows on the sea," said the Captain of the schooner; "but I don't think any of them sail under the flag that your Captain ran up to his peak when he saw our signal of distress."
THE SWEETMEAT AGE.
Long ago when the moon was one big pie
For all little boys to eat,
Then some of the stars were sugar-plums,
And some of them raisins sweet;
Then the glorious sun was a custard pudding
Served up in a vast blue dish;
And the whole of the sea was soda-water
Half filled with ice-cream fish;
The great round earth was a luscious peach,
The grass was the puckery fuzz—
If it doesn't seem true to all and each,
Let him believe it who does—
Then the mountain-peaks were chocolate drops,
And the icebergs Roman punch;
And the dark storm-clouds rained lemonade—
People dug up the mud for lunch.
When it hailed, the hailstones were fine popcorn,
And pulverized sugar it snowed;
And the brooks as they ran by the candy-trees
With lovely root-beer o'erflowed.
Ah! that was the time, in the long ago,
When children worked hard, tooth and tongue;
But most of them suffered from overfed stomachs,
And, somehow, they all died young.
R. H.