Sandy | Page 5

Ricks Wilson, the most unprepossessing soul on board the good ship America.
"You see, it's this way," explained Ricks as the boys sat behind the smokestack and Sandy became initiated into the mysteries of a wonderful game called "craps." "I didn't have no more 'n you've got. I lived down South, clean off the track of ever'thing. I puts my foot in my hand and went out and seen the world. I tramps up to New York, works my way over to England, tramps and peddles, and gits enough dough to pay my way back. Say, it's bum slow over there. Why, they ain't even on to street-cars in London! I makes more in a week at home than I do in a month in England. Say, where you goin' at when we land?"
Sandy shook his head ruefully. "I got to go back," he said.
Ricks glanced around cautiously, then moved closer.
"You ain't that big a sucker, are you? Any feller that couldn't hop the twig offen this old boat ain't much, that's all I got to say."
"Oh, it's not the gettin' away," said Sandy, more certain than ever, now that he was sure of an ally.
"Homesick?" asked Ricks, with a sneer.
Sandy gave a short laugh. "Home? Why, I ain't got any home. I've just lived around since I was a young one. It's a chance to get on that I'm after."
"Well, what in thunder is takin' you back?"
"I don't know," said Sandy, "'cep'n' it ain't in me to give 'em the slip now I know 'em. Then there's the doctor--"
"That old feather-bed? O Lord! He's so good he gives me a pain. Goes round with his mouth hiked up in a smile, and I bet he's as mean as the--"
Before Hicks could finish he found himself inextricably tangled in Sandy's arms and legs, while that irate youth sat upon him and pommeled him soundly.
"So it's the good doctor ye'd be after blasphemin' and abusin' and makin' game of! By the powers, ye'll take it back! Speak one time more, and I'll make you swaller the lyin' words, if I have to break every bone in your skin!"
There was an ugly look in Ricks's face as he threw the smaller boy off, but further trouble was prevented by the appearance of the second mate.
Sandy hurried away to his duties, but not without an anxious glance at the upper deck. He had never lost an opportunity, since that first day, of looking up; but this was the first time that he was glad she was not there. Only once had he caught sight of a white tam and a tan coat, and that was when they were being conducted hastily below by a sympathetic stewardess.
But Sandy needed no further food for his dreams than he already had. On sunny afternoons, when he had the time, he would seek a secluded corner of the deck, and stretching himself on the boards with the green book in his hand, would float in a sea of sentiment. The fact that he had decided to study medicine and become a ship's surgeon in no wise interfered with his fixed purpose of riding forth into the world on a cream-white charger in search of a damsel in distress.
So thrilled did he become with the vision that he fell to making rhymes, and was surprised to find that the same pair of eyes always rhymed with skies--and they were brown.
Sometimes, at night, a group would gather on the steerage deck and sing. A black-haired Italian, with shirt open at the throat, would strike a pose and fling out a wild serenade; or a fat, placid German would remove his pipe long enough to troll forth a mighty drinking-song. Whenever the air was a familiar one, the entire circle joined in the chorus. At such times Sandy was always on hand, singing with the loudest and telling his story with the best.
"Make de jolly little Irish one to sing by hisself!" called a woman one night from the edge of the crowd. The invitation was taken up and repeated on every side. Sandy, laughing and protesting, was pushed to the front. Being thus suddenly forced into prominence, he suffered an acute attack of stage fright.
"Chirp up there now and give us a tune!" cried some one behind him.
"Can't ye remember none?" asked another.
"Sure," said Sandy, laughing sheepishly; "but they all come wrong end first."
Some one had thrust an old guitar in his hands, and he stood nervously picking at the strings. He might have been standing there still had not the moon come to his rescue. It climbed slowly out of the sea and sent a shimmer of silver and gold over the water, across the deck, and into his eyes. He forgot himself and the crowd. The stream of