The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

32 nothing about. Would you have me with you? A fool?” “ Fool! ” Ordway and I exploded the word in the same breath, and Ordway nearly fell off the bench. | “Man,” I said, “don’t ever call yourself a fool. So far from being a fool are you that you are a king among men. But let us get at your history’a little way. We are tired, and need rest. “But while we smoke these cheroots tell us of your life here, and how you came.” “Tt is all very strange,’ he an- swered. “ There are papers for you to read. He wrote after the other died.” “Who was the other?” “His name was Boatswain.” “ You—you mean he was the boat- swain of a ship?”’ “Mr. Donaldson called him Boat- swain. He died when I was very lit- tle. His leg was broken. He was go- ing to build a boat to go to the big world, but a tree fell on him. Mr. Donaldson told me about it when I had got older. Mr. Donaldson said he did what he could, but something got to be the matter and Boatswain died.” “What do you remember about the. world before you came here? ” “Nothing. First remember I have is when Mr. Donaldson had me on his knee telling me things.” “What did he tell you? ” “He told me somewhere maybe I had a father. He said maybe not a mother, because he thought the sea take my mother when the ship go down.” “So it was a ship, eh? Do you know the name of the ship?” He walked into the same apartment from which he had brought the che- roots, and came out with a piece of wood two feet long. It seemed to be the name-plate that is sometimes screwed to the side of the pilot-house on a small vessel, or alongside the after deck-house on some sailing craft. I took it. The gilt letters had faded, and had been scratched. But I could make out the word Voluna. THE ARGOSY. I handed the board to Ordway, who read it as I had. “Was your mother a passenger on the Voluna? Of course, she must have been, if you were a baby.” “ Boatswain didn’t know, and Mr. Donaldson didn’t know. Mr. Donald- son told me there were three women on the ship. But he did not know any- body.”’ | “What's the use making him go all over this, Dag?” asked Ordway. “ It must be a painful subject. Let’s get the papers he speaks of and see what the real history is.”’ Without a word the islander rose. He came back from the same. room dragging a sea-chest with him. It was old, dingy, and broken. But it had preserved whatever had been entrusted to it, and he took out a ‘book. ~ Whether he looked upon me as the leader of our forlorn expedition, or because I was nearer to him, I don’t know, but he handed me the book. Ordway settled himself comfortably, and said: “You read a while, Dag. When you get tired I’ll take it up.” _ The book was withered and wrinkled. It had once worn a cover in which red was a predominating color. But this had been washed in salt water, and the red was yellow. I opened it at the first page. On the fly-leaf I saw: Log kept by Boatswain Anderson, of the Voluna, after she went down in longitude 64, 4 west of G., and latitude 64, on August 24, 1887. “ That brings our friend’s estimate of his age right,” broke in Ordway. ‘““ He was ten, he says, when Donaldson was drowned, and has been alone four- teen years. He is twenty-four, and— but go on.” The Voluna was a small passenger- ship, plying atween Copenhagen and New York. Captain Bjarlson. We sailed with seven passengers. I did not know the names of any passengers. There were three women and a baby CoOMmicbook CO