Beadle's Dime Novels No. 131 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

WATCHING THE VESSEL. 17 “Was it?” she asked, looking into the roaring ocean with meditative eyes, as if she could see there the picture which she had heard described, but of which she had no recollec- tion—a wrecked ship, a boat-load of sturdy men pulling to the scene through a thousand perils, a mother and babe low- ered into the rocking shell, a flood of water sweeping over it and washing it away—only the daring steersman, oar in one hand and babe in the other, sustaining himself until the angry waves tossed him ashore alive. “Here comes the neighbors, swarmin’ out o’ their hives,” muttered Hardy Joe, as he had Jong been dubbed. “ They'll see fun to-night. We might as well get our tackle ready, and signal the agent, too, fer thar’ ain’t no power on ’arth kin prevent that ship’s beachin’. You'd better go back, gal; I don’t see there’s any thing fer you to do.” “ Oh, I want to watch the vessel. I like to be out. I’m not cold.” =~ “ No, I s’pose not. The ice is friz all over ye now, like a new suit. We'll have to put ye in trowsers, Tangee, and ship ye before the mast, yer so crazy about the water.” “T’ve thought of that myself, daddy.” : : “ Have ye now, raly?” cried the man, with a hoarse laugh. “That's jest like ye, gal; but don’t ye do it, kase I don’t want to spare ye. What would I do without a passenger on board the Jolly Jack ?” and chuckling at the audacious conceit of the little girl, in resolving to become a sailor, he turned to greet the neighbors who were gathering about the stranded rock, as the highest point, from which to observe the motions of the threatened vessel. “ She ain’t a steamer, and she can’t hold off,” was the unan- imous conclusion. The short, dark afternoon was now drawing to a close. Over at the west, where it was sunset, according to the indi- cations of the clock in the Jolly Jack, not a gleam of light was to be seen—yes! just one fiery arrow darted out of the leaden mass of clouds and struck the unknown ‘ship, -as she labored down, borne on by winds and waves, showing her quite clearly at the very moment when she plunged on to a spit of sand which ran fur out into the sea. ‘The next instant comicbooks.com