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Title: The Skipper and the Skipped
Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul

Author: Holman Day

Release Date: September 1, 2005 [EBook #16631]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SKIPPER AND THE SKIPPED ***

Produced by Ron Swanson

[Frontispiece: THE SKIPPER TELLS OF "THE GLORIOUS, FASCINATING SEA."
See Chapter II.]

THE SKIPPER AND THE SKIPPED

BEING THE SHORE LOG OF CAP'N AARON SPROUL

BY
HOLMAN DAY

AUTHOR OF
"THE RAMRODDERS"
"KING SPRUCE" ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
MCMXI

BOOKS BY
HOLMAN DAY

THE SKIPPER AND THE SKIPPED. Post 8vo . . $1.50
THE RAMRODDERS. Post 8vo . . . . . . . . $1.50
KING SPRUCE. Ill'd. Post 8vo . . . . . . $1.50
THE EAGLE'S BADGE. Ill'd. Post 8vo . . . $1.25

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N.Y.

COPYRIGHT, 1911. BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY, 1911

THE SKIPPER AND THE SKIPPED

I

Cap'n Aaron Sproul, late skipper of the _Jefferson P. Benn_, sat by
the bedside of his uncle, "One-arm" Jerry, and gazed into the
latter's dimming eyes.

"It ain't bein' a crowned head, but it's honer'ble," pleaded the sick
man, continuing the conversation.

His eager gaze found only gloominess in his nephew's countenance.

"One way you look at it, Uncle Jed," said the Cap'n, "it's a come-down
swifter'n a slide from the foretop the whole length of the boomstay.
I've been master since I was twenty-four, and I'm goin' onto
fifty-six now. I've licked every kind in the sailorman line, from
a nigger up to Six-fingered Jack the Portugee. If it wa'n't for--ow,
Josephus Henry!--for this rheumatiz, I'd be aboard the _Benn_ this
minute with a marlinespike in my hand, and op'nin' a fresh package
of language."

"But you ain't fit for the sea no longer," mumbled One-arm Jerry
through one corner of the mouth that paralysis had drawn awry.

"That's what I told the owners of the _Benn_ when I fit 'em off'm
me and resigned," agreed the Cap'n. "I tell ye, good