Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1915 — A FISH-CHOWDER FEUD [ARTICLE]

A FISH-CHOWDER FEUD

By JOHN BARTON OXFORD.

Prom the galley companion came the noley clanging of the supper-ben. ' Twelve men ‘hurriedly dropped the trawls they were baiting and crowded Into the narrow forecastle. Tom Denude, the thirteenth man, was rather more leisurely. His way aoross decks to the forecastle took Tom past the galley, and at the companion hatch he stopped |to sniff. “Fish-chowder again?" he grunted In complaining and soulful disgust. “Flsh-chowder all the time! Nothin’ but fish-chowder on this old tub!” 1 Even as he stood there, mumbling his complaint, Evie Bishop, the trawler’s fat cook, came puffing up the companionway with a big fiat basket filled With heavy crockery mugs on his sum. In his other hand he bora a huge and steaming coffee-pot. Tom glared savagely at the cook. Then he sniffed the odor drifting up from the galley and glared harder. "Fish-chowder!” he snorted again. “All the time it’s fish-chowder on this her© croft! What’s- the matter with yer, Evie? Can’t you make nothin’ but that eternal fish-chowder?" Now fish-chowder —his particular variety of fish-chowder —was the pride of fat Evie Bishop’s simple heart. Any one who maligned that chowder touched Evie on the quick. “The boVs seem to relish that chowder pretty much,” said Evie with cold and crushing scorn. "Well, I don’t,” snapped Tom. “I’ve ett chowder till I’m ashamed to look a decent fish in the face.” "There’s them as says they couldn’t never git enough of that chowder,” Evie declared with pride. “Well, that ain’t me,” guowled Tom. “Seems to me it’s time we had somethin' else for supper once In a while.” "What’s the matter with the chowder I make?” Evie demanded, and his tones made the question a challenge. Tom shrugged his big shoulders and threw out-his hands, palms upward, in a despairing gesture.

"What ain’t the matter with it would be a simpler way of puttin’ It,” said he. The blood surged Into Evie’s thick neck, add thence to his leathery cheeks. * “Don’t you go to malignin’ my vittles,” he said hoarsely. "That’s a good chowder. I’ve been told by any quantity of folks that my chowders was the best they ever ett It’s only Ignorammersuses like you that ever finds fault with it—-folks that ain’t never been used to nothin’, anyway—-block-headed ignorammersuses, that can’t even read,” he emphasized his most telling shot. With his nose high in the air, he swept grandly past Tom Dennie and Into the little forecastle. , Tom waited there until Evie, grinning maliciously at the way his shot had gone home, came out of the forecast! e again. In a moment Tom’s big fingers were gripping tightly the cook’s left forearm. “Say, yer wanter take that back that yer Jest said about me—about my bein’ ign’runt,” he hlßsed. "Huh! I do—do I? Yer can't even so much as read,” the cook taunted again. - "You eat them words of youiu—you eat ’em right now!” bawled Ipm, giving the arm a more ezcrucia:ing twist.

Erie still had the big coffee-pot in his hands. Now he lifted it quickly and turned a good pint of the scalding fluid onto the back of the hairy hand that was twisting his arm. With a yowl of rage Tom caught up an iron capstan bar. What he might have done with it there is no telling, hut at that moment the skipper, attracted by the came poking out of the cabin. “Here! What’s goin’ on here?" he roared. "No fightin’, now. What’s the trouble between you two? Drop that bar, Tom! Drop it, I say! And yon, cooky, stop a menacin’ of him rwlth that coffee-pot. Now you git into Iyer galley; and you, Tom, go into the fo’castle and git yer supper.” ’Til git that darned cook before Fm done,” Tom threatened to the men about the table. "Jest went and scalt me, he did." The fishing was good that trip. In fire days’ time they were running for T wharf with a full fare. They swept past the lightship Just after dark.

Tom Donnie, tumbling aboard after the last of the mooring-lines were fast, aimost collided with Brie Bishop, Just coming out of the galley. For a moment they glared at .each other. Then the cook spoke. "Tom,” he said, “we been a chewin’ away at each other and neither one gittin’ any satisfaction. Whatter yer say if me and you goes ashore and settles this man to man fashion? If I wallop you, you buy me the best dinner I cam eat up to Cotter’s, in Dock square, and if you put it over me TO buy the dinner for you. Is it a go?” "Ter bet it’s a go,” said Tom with alacrity. T wharf is no place for fcettling such difficulties, so they poked down the avenue, crawled through the gate <of a wharf below, found an Ideal littie spot, even enough and properly (lighted, and peeled off their coats. There was a moment of cautions circling; then they doßed. The nearby freight-sheds echoed to grunts and

balf-clwked oaths and thudding blows. The cook drew first blood on Tomb nose, but a moment later he spat forth two of his front teeth. Then a bolt Of lightning, or a cannon-ball, or a mule kick, or something of the soft caught him full on the jaw. When the whole solar system had ceased to sparkle before his eyes and he scrambled weakly to his feet another bolt of lightning—or was it a 14-inch shell?—caught him once more. Tom stooped and pulled the cook to his none too steady pins. “Now yer can buy me the feed. Pm hungry for a good feed,” said he. “Yer’ll get it as soon as we can git to Cotter’s,” declared Evie. Cotter’s in Dock square was wellnigh deserted when they got there. Tom was rubbing his battered nose, and looking at Evie with a new and decidedly respectful interest. A waitress brought them red-bordered napkins and laid a bill of fare before each. Tom picked him up, blinking at it solemnly. "Anything you want, yer know,* Evie Invited. The respect in Tom’s eyes grew. Also he grinned across the table at his companion—a grin that lost somewhat in effectiveness by reason of Tom’s badly spilt lip.

“Ye’re a game little man,” declared Tom, whacking the table with one mighty fist. “Yer put up a peach of a fight. I wouldn’t 'a’ believed yer had It in yer. I know a game one when I see him, Evie; and that bein’ the case, yer’ll not be flndin’ me bleedin’ yer Any. Just bring; me—” Tom paused. He wrinkled and unwrinkled his heavy brows as he scanned that bill of fare. Evie noticed he was holding it upside down. , "Bring me some of this and a cuff of coffee,” said Tom pointing a pudgy finger at random to a line on the page.

And to the unbounded credit of Evie Bishop, let It here be stated that he did not so much as change a muscle of his face when the waitress set before the open-mouthed Tom a large and steaming bowl of —fishchowder! y* (Copyright.)