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Updated: June 8, 2025
"I'd show him, if I had him in here for twenty minutes!" "That fellow's interested me," said Crothers. "He's got me thinking. I vote we investigate him." "How?" "Ashore, fathead." "There'll be no shore leave." "No? You left off being wet nurse to the dawg?" "I brush him, mornin's; if that's what you mean." "Is he fit?" "Fit to fight a bumboat full o' pilots!" "Could he be sick for an hour?"
They were, says Mr Stephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover the main of America.
Stopping everybody's leave, though, unfortunately happened to be a necessary precaution, and communication with the shore was limited to the visits of the bumboat and washermen. On the following morning we commenced to fill up with coal. I have before remarked that in this port we have lady coal heavers.
Now I cannot think otherwise than that cheating is cheating, and that a person is not a bit more honest, because he laughs at you in the bargain. A few days after I came on board, I purchased some tarts of the bumboat woman, as she is called; I wished to pay for them, but she had no change, and very civilly told me she would trust me.
"Never mind the tea, then," replied Jack, "I'll take some milk." "Is it milk massa manes, and the bumboat woman on the oder side of the bay?" "We have no milk, Mr Easy; you forget that we are on blue water," replied Jolliffe, "and I really am afraid that you'll have to wait till dinner-time. Mesty tells the truth."
There must be some spots in the neighbourhood capable of cultivation, for our bumboat is loaded with an abundance of tempting fruits grapes of rich bloom and large growth, apples which would do no discredit to a West of England orchard, and peaches scarcely inferior to those v of the Mediterranean. I refer, of course, to that bird which our shipmates denominate "dungaree chicken."
'Just a plunge and a dozen strokes, Dartrey said; 'and you'll come to my hotel and give me ten minutes of the "recreation"; and if you don't come willingly, I shall insult your country. 'Ah! I wish Mr. Durance were here, Skepsey rejoined. 'It would upset his bumboat of epigrams. He rises at ten o'clock to a queasy breakfast by candlelight, and proceeds to composition.
"Well, I don't know; but there is a something about the cut of his jib which reminds me of him, now you mention it. Peter was a good boy." "Aye, that he was, and as sharp as a needle. You see," said Mrs Chopper, turning to Joey, "sharp's the word in a bumboat. There's many who pay, and many who don't; some I trust, and some I don't that is, those who won't pay me old debts.
It was whispered that I was the son of the first lieutenant, and that he was aware of it. How far that may be true I know not, but there was a likeness between us; and my mother, who was a very pretty woman, attended his ship many years before as a bumboat girl.
Our stay off Tompkinsville was to be short, but we had time to become acquainted with a characteristic naval oddity known as the bumboat. Diligent inquiries among the old sailors on board the "Yankee" failed to enlighten me as to the derivation of the name, but the consensus of opinion was that these floating peddlers sold articles which, to use a slang phrase, were pretty "bum."
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