Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PIE-EYED PIPER. ’ Most of those un-native sons went and hid behind things and we got headed back- wards and when the sun dispelled the mists, we found ourselves paddling merrily along about seven latitudes out of longitude; alse the jib-boom was suffering from a broken mizzenmast, and the spinnaker was jammed through the holocaust; the quarter-deck was busted into small change, and nothing at all was shipshape. So by the time we got our bearings and ciled ’em up, and the wind propellers began to propel us along in the right direction again, we were two days from where we ought to have been at. Then we began putting the foreign-ait skippers en a diet which had been ordered by old Dr. Jeff Parker, and they went and objected in all the different styles of lan- guage at their disposal. Jeff, he did his best in explaining that so many foreign people were starving to death and there was a great wave of unempioy- ment aboard in the land and one thing and another, and’ that the President wanted all us Joyal citizens to kind of conserve on food as much as possible. And the spokes- man for the hardly-able seamen alleged that far be it from them to deprive any starving people of food, but they themselves were among those so prominently men- tioned by the President, and when did they eat? It was a moot question, and if Jeff and I hadn’t been the only gents aboard with a cowple of guns apiece, there is no telling what we would have had for supper. Somehow we managed to keep the old vehicle traveling for a couple of days longer, and while the crew were quiet, they kept acting so silent that I began to get scared of ‘em. Then one night I went dewn into the hold to see if it was holding, and there was our Chinaman diligently devouring—well, this here chink wasn’t going to starve to death, you could see that. It was a pretty ratty trick and it scared me werse than ever. What if the whole crew took the same notion? I said that to myself under my breath and hurried back up and told Jeff. So Jeff sent me back down below to guard the cargo, and he 947 tock it upon himself to keep the ship busy plowing the raging main. it wasn’t more than another day till that raging main began to act as though it had been plowed too much. It seemed to take on a sort of a bilious attack, and then when another storm reached out from some- where and slapped Bessie Hicks where it didn’t do her any good, why, I came up on deck and talked things over with Jeff. The captain started in to yell a mess of words that didn’t bring about any calm- ness anywhere, and Jeff be started in with his dowble-action cuss words, and after a while we got the crew to tacking in the halyards and unbettoning the main sheets, and one thing and another, and prepared for the worst. The only trouble was that the worst was a whole lot worse than we This here captain alleged that the Bessie Hicks wasn’t in any kind of a physical candition to withstand much of a shock, aod as for him, the’d rather take his chances in a row boat if the storm got much meaner dispositioned. Which same it got. Yes, sir, that stofm became so violent that I went down and joined the rats and would have gladly died for my country. Only there wasn’t any country around, which was the whole trouble. The Bessie Hicks turned around again and started back, and the captain said it was just like a woman ship, and, takea altogether, it wasn’t any balmy afterncon’s sail, no matter how you looked at it. Little pieces of ship kept falling down from the top of something—the crow’s nest, mebbe—and spars, sails and masts mingled all in one wild mess there on the deck, while the crew crawled under things and yowled, and pandemonium busted out of the fo’castle and reigned. ““She won’t stamad it much longer,” our brave captain shouted as he staggered down the stairs to get him a drink. ‘Then what?” I yipped back. ‘“‘ The life boats!” be yelled, wiping his chin. Gosh! What about our cargo! That was the large thought that stuck up in my mind like a sharp stick, pushing all, other thoughts plumb out into the storm. comicloool C©