Of The Lads Who, Beside Myself, Composed The Gig's Crew, I Know
Something Of All But One.
Our bright-eyed, quick-witted little
cockswain, from the Boston public schools, Harry May, or Harry Bluff,
as he was called, with all his songs and gibes, went the road to ruin
as fast as the usual means could carry him.
Nat, the "bucket-maker,"
grave and sober, left the seas, and, I believe, is a hack-driver in
his native town, although I have not had the luck to see him since
the Alert hauled into her berth at the North End.
One cold winter evening, a pull at the bell, and a woman in distress
wished to see me. Her poor son George, - George Somerby, - "you
remember him, sir; he was a boy in the Alert; he always talks
of you, - he is dying in my poor house." I went with her, and in
a small room, with the most scanty furniture, upon a mattress on
the floor, - emaciated, ashy pale, with hollow voice and sunken
eyes, - lay the boy George, whom we took out a small, bright boy
of fourteen from a Boston public school, who fought himself into
a position on board ship (ante, p. 231), and whom we brought home
a tall, athletic youth, that might have been the pride and support
of his widowed mother. There he lay, not over nineteen years of
age, ruined by every vice a sailor's life absorbs. He took my
hand in his wasted feeble fingers, and talked a little with his
hollow, death-smitten voice.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 614 of 618
Words from 168909 to 169172
of 170236
