CHAPTER XXII
THE YARN OF THE "SPANKING SAL"
The wooden-legged clam digger, Habakuk Somes, seemed suddenly to haveacquired a great interest in Tom Jonah.
He appeared almost every day at the tent of the Corner House girls anddid his best to become friendly with the dog. Tom Jonah grew used tohis presence, but he would allow no familiarities from the dilapidatedwaterside character.
The girls thought "Kuk" Somes only queer; the boys "joshed" him a gooddeal. Nobody minded having him around, considering merely that he wasa peculiar fellow, and harmless.
His tales of sea-going and sea-roving were wonderful indeed. How muchof them was truth and how much pure invention, the older Corner Housegirls and Neale O'Neil did not know. However, they forgave his"historical inaccuracies" because of the entertainment they derivedfrom his yarns.
Tess and Dot listened to the old fellow with perfect confidence in hisachievements. Had he not known--in a moment--what it was that shotwater up through the holes in the clam flat? The smaller girlslistened to old Kuk Somes with unshaken confidence.
"And how did the pirates get your leg, Mr. Kuk?" asked Tess. "Yourreally truly leg, I mean."
She and Dot were sitting on the edge of the tent-platform, under theawning, with their bare feet in the sand, with Tom Jonah lyingcomfortably between them. The dog had a brooding eye upon the clamdigger, who sat on a broken lobster trap a few feet away.
"Huh! them pi-_rats_?" queried the clam digger. "Well--er--now, did Isay it was pi-_rats_ as got my leg, shipmet?"
"Yes, you did, sir." Dot hastened to bolster up her sister's statementof fact. "And you said it was on the Spanish Main."
"Well!" declared the old man, "so it was, an' so they did. Pi-_rats_it was, shipmet. An' I'll tell yer the how of it.
"I was carpenter's mate on the _Spankin' Sal_, what sailed fromBosting to Rio, touchin' at some West Injy ports on theway--pertic'larly Porto Rico, which is a big merlasses port. We had agood part of our upper holt stowed with warmin' pans for the merlassesplanters----"
"Oh, Mr. Kuk!" ejaculated Tess in rather a pained voice. "Isn't that amistake? _Warming pans?_"
"Not by a joblot it ain't no mistake!" returned the old man. "Warmingpans I sez, an' warming pans I sticks to."
"But my geogoraphy," Tess ventured, timidly, and mispronouncing theword as usual, "says that the West Indies are tropical. Porto Rico isnear the Equator."
"Now, ain't that wonderful--jest wonderful?" declared the clam digger,smiting his knee with his palm. "Shows what it is to be book l'arned,shipmet.
"'Course, _I_ knowed them was tropical places, but I didn't know 'twasall writ down in books--joggerfries, do they call 'em?"
"Yes, sir," said Tess, seriously. "And it is so hot down there theycouldn't possibly need warming pans."
"Now, ye'd think that, wouldn't ye, shipmet? And I'd think it. But theskipper of the _Spankin' Sal_, he knowed dif'rent.
"A master brainy man was Captain Roebuck. That was his name--Roebuck,"declared the clam digger, solemnly. "Hev you ever seen a warming pan,shipmet--an old-fashioned warmin' pan?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Tess and Dot together. "There's one hangs over themantelpiece in the sitting-room of the old Corner House," added Tess."That's where we live when we're at home in Milton.
"And it is a round brass pan, with a cover that has holes in it, and along handle. Mrs. MacCall says folks used to put live coals in it andiron the beds before folks went to bed, in the cold weather. But wegot furnace heat now, and don't need the warming pan."
"Surely, surely, shipmet," agreed the clam digger. "Them's the things.And Cap'n Roebuck of the _Spankin' Sal_, plagued near crammed theupper holt with them.
"It looks right foolish, shipmet; but that skipper got a chancet terbuy up a whole lot o' them brass warmin' pans cheap. If he'd seen 'emcheap enough, he'd bought up a hull cargo of secon' hand hymn books,and he'd took 'em out to the heathen in the South Seas and made aprofit on 'em--he would that!" pursued Kuk, confidently.
"He must have been a wonderful man, sir," said Tess, while Dot satround-eyed and listened.
"Wonderful! wonderful!" agreed the clam digger. "But about themwarmin' pans. When we got ter Porto Rico we broke out the first ofthem things. Looked right foolish. All them dons in Panama hats andwhite pants, an' barefooted comin' aboard to look over samples oftradin' stock, an' all they can see is warmin' pans.
"'What's them things for?' axed the first planter, in the Spanishlingo.
"'Them's skimmers,' says Cap'n Roebuck, knowin' it warn't no manner o'use to try to explain the exact truth to a man what ain't never seedsnow, or knowed there was a zero mark on the almanack.
"He grabbed up one o' them warmin' pans and made a swing with it likeyou'd use a crab-net. 'See! See!' says the dons. 'Skim-a damerlasses.' That's Spanish for 'Yes, yes! skim the merlasses,'"explained Kuk, seriously.
"'But what's the cover for?' axed the don. 'Ye don't hafter have nocover,' says Cap'n Roebuck, and he yanks the cover off the warmin' panan' throws it away.
"And there them dons had the finest merlasses dipper that ever wentinter the islan's. Cap'n Roebuck seen their eyes snap an' put a good,stiff price on the things, and inside of a week there warn't a warmin'pan left on the _Spankin' Sal_.
"Then," pursued the clam digger, "we stowed away in our upper holtgoods what would bring a fancy price at Rio, and laid our course forthe Amazon.
"But we was all hands mighty worritted," admitted Kuk, lowering hisvoice mysteriously. "Ye see, ye never could tell in them old days, an'in the West Injies, who it was safe to trust, an' who it was safe ter_dis_-trust.
"Yer see, so many of them snaky Spanish planters was hand an' glovewith the pi-_rats_. And ev'rybody on the island knowed the _Spankin'Sal_ was takin' away a great treasure that had been exchanged for themwarmin' pans. We was a fair mark, as ye might say, for thempi-_rats_."
"Oh!" gasped Dot, hugging her Alice-doll the tighter.
"How much treasure was there, Mr. Kuk?" asked the ever-practical Tess.
"A chist full," announced the clam digger without a moment'shesitation. "A reg'lar treasure-chist full. All them planters hadn'thad ready cash money to pay for the warmin' pans, and they'd give inexchange di'monds and other jools--and the exchange rates for Americanmoney was high anyway. So the _Spankin' Sal_ was a mighty good ketchif the pi-_rats_ ketched her.
"So, when we sailed from Porto Rico we kep' a weather eye open forblack-painted schooners with rakin' masts an' skulls and shinbones ontheir flags. When we seed them signs we'd know they was pi-_rats_,"declared Kuk, gravely.
The small Corner House girls sighed in unison--and in delight! "Theplot thickens!" whispered Agnes to Ruth behind the flap of the tentwhere they were listening, likewise, though unbeknown to Kuk and thechildren.
"Go on, please, Mr. Kuk," breathed Tess.
"Oh, do!" said Dot.
"Well, shipmets," said the old clam digger, "bein' peacefulmerchantmen, as ye might say, we hadn't shipped aboard the _Spankin'Sal_ to fight no pi-_rats_," declared Kuk, with energy. "We wasn't nosogers, and we told the skipper so.
"'We'll fight,' says I. Bein' an officer--carpenter's mate, as I toldye--I was spokesman for the crew. 'But we wants ter fight with weeponsas we air fermiliar with. Let you and the ossifers fire the cannon,skipper,' says I, 'and give us fellers that was bred along shore an'on the farms some o' them scythes out'n the lower holt.
"'Cutlasses an' muskets,' says I, 'is all right for them as has beenbrought up with 'em,' says I, 'but, skipper, me an' my shipmets hasbeen better used ter cuttin' swamp-grass an' mowin' oats. Give us theweepons we air fermiliar with.'
"And he done it," declared Kuk, wagging his sinful old head. "We brokeout some cases of scythes and fixed 'em onto their handles aftergrindin' of 'em sharp as razers on the grin'stone in the waist of the_Spankin' Sal_.
"Pretty soon we seen one o' them black-hulled schooners comin'. Shecouldn't be mistook for anythin' but a pi-_rat_, although she didn'tfly no bl
ack flag yet.
"'Let 'em come to close quarters, skipper,' says I. 'Let 'em board us.Then me an' my shipmets can git 'em on the short laig. We'll mow 'emdown like weeds along a roadside ditch.'
"He done it, an' we did," pursued Kuk, rather heated now with theinterest of his own narrative. "When they run their schooner alongsideof us and the two ships clinched, and they broke out the black flag attheir peak, me an' my shipmets stood there ready to repel boarders.
"Them pi-_rats_," proceeded Kuk, "fought like a passel of cats--toothan' nail! They come over aour bulwarks jest like peas pourin' out o' asack. 'Steady, lads!' I sings out. 'Take a long, sweepin' stroke, an'each o' ye cut a good swath!'
"An' we done so," the clam digger said, nodding. "Our scythes waslonger than the cutlasses of them pi-_rats_; and before they could gitat us, we'd reach 'em with a side-swipe of the scythes, and mow 'emdown like ripe hay."
"Oh, dear, me!" gasped Dot.
"How awful!" murmured Tess.
"'Twas sartain sure a bloody field of battle," declared the clamdigger, nodding again. "If it hadn't been for my leg I wouldn't neverhave fought no pi-_rats_ again. A man has his feelin's, ye see. Ourscuppers run blood. The enemy was piled along the deck under ourbulwarks in a reg'lar windrow."
"And did you kill them _all_--every one?" demanded Tess, in amazement.
"No. We jest cut 'em down for the most part," explained Kuk. "Ye see,we cut a low swath with our scythes; mostly we mowed off their feetand mebbe their legs purty near to their knees. After that therebattle there was a most awful lot o' wooden legged pi-_rats_ on theSpanish Main.
"An' _that_," declared the clam digger, rising and getting ready tomove on, "was the main reason why I left the sea; leastwise I neverwanted to go sailin' much in them parts again.
"In the scrimmage I got a shot in this leg as busted my knee-cap. Ikep' hoppin' 'round on that busted leg as long as there was anypi-_rats_ to mow down; and I did the knee a lot of harm the doctors inthe horspital said.
"So I had ter have the leg ampertated. That made folks down that-a-wayax me was I a pi-_rat_, too. I'm a sensitive man," said Kuk, wagginghis head, "an' it hurt my feelin's to be classed in with all themwooden-legged fellers as we mowed down in the _Spankin' Sal_. So Icome hum an' left the sea for good and all," concluded Habakuk Somes,and at once pegged off with his clam basket on his arm.
"What an awful, _awful_ story!" cried Dot.
"Too awful to believe," answered Tess, wisely.
The Corner House Girls Under Canvas Page 22