People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — A CHRISTMAS TURKEY. [ARTICLE]

A CHRISTMAS TURKEY.

How an Old Tar Came Near Being Cooked For Dinner. “I never think of Christmas turkeys without remem her in the time I come near to bein the turkey myself,” said an aged sailor to the group of seamen who surrounded him as he • sat upon the end «f an old spar on South street, New York. The ancient mariner's name was Jack Brown, and as he had followed the sea fuf " man and boy for over 50 years and had cruised in every part of the world the group listened in respectful silence, well knowing that when old Jack Brown started to spin a yarn it was sure to be well worth hearing. “It was away back in 1640, and I was little more than a youngster then—only about 18. I had bunked aboard the Jolly Rover;' but, mates, she didn’t prove to be what her name indicated. We left this port for Melbourne, weathered Cape Horn as safe from Davy Jones’" locker as a mountain a mile inland, and all was smooth goin until we were a week’s sail into the south Pacific. Then a storm struck us that sent us scuddin along under bare poles like a Mother Carey’s chicken afore a cyclone. “I’ve run afore many a gale, mates, but that hurricane could give points to any of ’em. One minute the Jolly Rover would plunge out of sight into a big wave, and the next she would seem to be perched like the ark on a Mount Ararat of water. The gale blew nearly all night without a moment’s pause. All we could do was to let her run. Suddenly she struck with a shock that made every timber creak. I was below, but I rushed on deck, expectin the ship would go down. An instant later a big wave came over the rail, washed me overboard and swept me on and on. I | kept my head above water part of the time, j every moment expectin to be dashed agin j the rocks. To my joy, I was washed up on a sandy beach. Luckily I had strength ( enough left to get up and run inland a few ' feet before the next wave caught me. | “Day was just breakin, and as I looked i around I saw' Captain Stout, Second Mate j Bill Pry and Jim English crawlin out of * a big wave and helped ’em up the beach. “ ‘Look!’ yells Pry, sliakin the water ! from his eyes. ‘There she goes!' “As.y?e glanced in the direction of the Jolly Rover she staggered like some giganI tic animal with a mortal wound and sank ! beneath the waves. We watched the beach : for an hour, but not another man came ! ashore. Every Jack Tar of ’em was 1 drowned. Then we started inland to cxI plore the place. We didn’t feel at all at ease, mates, because Captain Stout figured I as how we must be on one of the smallest I of the Solomon islands, which we knew was inhabited by the toughest lot of cannibals and head hunters in the Pacific. “We realized that we were dead men if 1 wo were captured, and we kept a sharp j lookout for the cannibals while we were ; takin in the lay of the land. Wo saw | many cocoanut and breadfruit trees, but | the island was apparently uninhabited. I say apparently because about half an hour | after we lauded a dozen ugly, tattooed 1 savages leaped upon us from the bushes. I knocked one of ’em off his legs before a big warclub brought me to the grass, and Stout, Pry and English had no better luck. The savages were armed with clubs, bows and arrows and bone pointed spears, and their hair was thick and bushy and was stuck full of sticks for hairpins. “We were all bound hand and foot, and then the savages carried us to a village near by, where we were thrown into a hut and guarded by two big black fellows armed with clubs. “ ‘Mates,’ says English, ‘did you notice what was liangin up agin the hut next to us?’ We all said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘it was the flesh of human bein’s, and, as Captain Stout feared, these fellers with clubs is cannibals.’ “ ‘lf they are, our goose is cooked, and —and so are we, ’ the captain says with a hollow sort of a laugh. ‘Blast my eyes,’ he says, ‘if tomorrow ain’t Christmas day too! Perhaps these blacks are goin to have us help ’em make their turkey dinner a success. ’ Wo all shuddered, and Jack Brown for one thought ho had seen New York for the last time. We lay in the hut all day and the followin night. The savages fed us very well, and while we enjoyd the moss wo couldn’t help thinkin that the black villains were giviu it to us to make us more fat and eatable. Next mornin wo heard agreatyellin and poundin of tamtams, and Fry, who could look through a crack in the hut, said that a big party of blacks had just' returned from somewhere in largo war canoes and had with ’em a dozen native prisoners. “ ‘lt looks,’ says Fry, ‘as if our captors have been makin war on another tribe that lives in this village. The prisoners they have with 'em evidently got away when the village was attacked, but were chased inland and captured. ’ “Pry’s guess proved correct, and tie soon found that our captors did not live on the island, but on another largo one about five miles away. Just after sunrise Christmas day we were loaded into big, handsomely carved war canoes along with the dozen native prisoners, and the savages paddled across a wide channel to their own island. On the shore was a native village, and about 1,000 dancin, yellin drum beatin blacks of both sexes welcomed the return of the war canoes, loaded down as they were with Christmas turkeys. “Well, mates, the savages carried us up the beach a short distance and dropped us near an ugly idol 20 foot high. Several hundred fires were built near by, and then most of the savages gathered in a circle around the idol. Pretty soon a dozen of the tallest blacks, all armed with long, sharp spears, danced around the idol to the music of a hundred tamtams, and then they ranged th'e dozen native prisoners in a/line facin the idol and spcarfcd the poor <blacks through and through. “I won’t describe the horrible scene that followed, except to say that we lay there expectin every minute would bp our last aud saw tho cannibals cook and devour their victims. “ ' They’re savin us for dessort, ’ says-the .captain. “But they didn’t save us long. In a very few minutes the 12 big savages were leadin us toward the idol, and we were sayin goodby to one another. Death seeinod very near when suddenly we heard the boom of a dozen cannon. An instant later shells exploded right and left among the cannibals, killin scores of thorn. The remainder took one look at the British man-o’-war, lyin in the channel half a mile away, and then fled, panic stricken. “We sailors were soon tackin for the beach with every sail drawin, you can bet, and when the warship’s boats picked us up Jack Brown for one was heartily thankin heaven he’d saved his wishbone!” Earle H. Eaton. What folly it is to pray, “Give ua our daily bread,” if we have devoured widows’ houses, and go to church with the cash in our pocket.