Left on Labrador | Page 9

our intention to become sailors. We would merely use the sea and
its ships as a means of conveyance in our scheme of travel.
... Breakfast at six o'clock; two messes,--one of the crew, the other
comprising our party and the captain. The men had boiled potatoes,
fried pork, corn-bread, and biscuit. At our table we had roast potatoes
and butter with corn-bread, then biscuit and butter with canned
tomatoes. After breakfast, we went on deck a while; but the motion was
far too great for comfort. The breeze held. The coast of Massachusetts
was low in the west. To the north, the mountains of Maine showed blue
on the horizon. We went below to read. Raed had bought, borrowed,
and secured every work he could hear of on northern voyages and
exploration, particularly those into Hudson Bay. It was our intention to

thoroughly read up the subject during our voyage: in a word, to get as
good an idea of the northern coast as possible from books, and confirm
this idea from actual observation. This was the substance of Raed's plan
of study.
... By eleven o'clock we had grown a little sea-sick,--just the slightest
feeling of nausea. Kit shuts his book, rests his arm on the table, and
leans his head on it.
"You sick?" demands Raed.
"Oh, no! not much; just a little squeamish."
Presently Wade lies down on his mattress, and I immediately ask,--
"Much sick, Wade?" To which he promptly replies,--
"Oh, no! squeamish a little; that's all."
By and by the skipper looks down to inquire, "Sick here, anybody?" To
which we all answer at once,--
"Oh, no! only a bit squeamish."'
Squeamish was the word for it till near night, when we seemed
suddenly to rally from it, though the motion continued the same; but
the wind had veered to the south, and almost wholly lulled. We slept
pretty well that night; but the next forenoon the nausea returned, and
stuck by us all day. Every one who has been to sea knows how such a
day passes. We had expected it, however, and bore it as lightly as
possible.
... On the third morning out we found it raining, with the wind
north-east. The schooner was kept as near it as possible, making about
three knots an hour. The wind increased during the forenoon. By eleven
o'clock there was a smart gale on. The rain drove fiercely. We grew
sick enough.
"This is worse than the 'poison spring' at Katahdin!" groaned Kit.

The skipper came down.
"Is it a big gale?" Raed managed to ask.
"Just an ordinary north-easter."
"Well, then, I never wish to meet an extraordinary one!" gasped Wade.
The captain mixed us some brandy and water from his own private
supply, which we took (as a medicine). But it wouldn't stay down:
nothing would stay down. Our stomachs refused to bear the weight of
any thing. Night came on: a wretched night it was for us. "The Curlew"
floundered on. The view on deck was doubtless grand; but we had
neither the legs nor the disposition to get up.... Some time about
midnight, a dozen of our six-pound shots, which had been sewed up in
a coarse sack and thrown under the table-shelf, by their continued
motion worked a gap in the stitches; and three or four of them rolled
out, and began a series of races from one end of the cabin to the other,
smashing recklessly into the rick of chairs and camp-stools stowed in
the forward end. Yet I do not believe one of us would have got up to
secure those shot, even if we had known they would go through the
side: I am pretty certain I should not. They went back and forth at will,
till the captain, hearing the noise, came down, and after a great amount
of dodging and grabbing, which might have been amusing at any other
time, succeeded in capturing the truants and locking them up. The next
day it was no better: wind and rain continued. We were not quite so
sick, but even less disposed to get up, talk, or do anything, save to lie
flat on our backs. We heard the sailors laughing at and abusing
Palmleaf, who was dreadfully sick, and couldn't cook for them. Yet we
felt not the least spark of sympathy for him: I do not think we should
have interfered had they thrown him overboard. Wade called the poor
wretch in, and ordered him, so sick he could scarcely stand, to make a
bowl of gruel; and, when he undertook to explain how bad he felt, we
all reviled him, and bade him go about his business.
"Nothin' like dis on de oyster schoonah," we heard him muttering as he
staggered out.

... The