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Updated: May 1, 2025
Thinking that I might still be under observation I decided to put off what I had to do until the very early morning, so I undressed myself for bed. I took care to put out the light before turning in, so that I might not be seen lashing the satchel round my neck with a length of spunyarn. I slept with my head upon it.
This done, he ingeniously replaces the bottle, slides the flask suspiciously into his bosom, saying, "It'll taste just as strong to a vote-cribber," and seeks that greasy potentate, the prison cook. This dignitary has always laid something aside for Spunyarn; he knows Spunyarn has something laid aside for him, which makes the condition mutual.
In truth, we must confess, that Spunyarn was so exceedingly liberal of his friendship that he would at times appropriate to himself the personal effects of his neighbors. But we must do him justice by saying that this was only when a friend in need claimed his attention.
"There's a piece of spunyarn, that's just the thing I want;" and Tommy ran half way up the pier to the bridge, picked up the line, and commenced stringing the flounders on it. "I don't want them all, Tommy; only give me two or three. I never shall forget you, Tommy," said Katy, her eyes suffused with tears of gratitude.
"Ah, Spunyarn," says Tom, greeting the old sailor with childlike fondness, as the tears are seen gushing into the eyes, and coursing down the browned face of the old mariner, "I owe you a debt I fear I never can pay. I have thought of you in my absence, and had hoped on my return to see you released. I am sorry you are not "
"I don't know how he'd got on if it hadn't bin for the old sailor, yonder," says the jailer, pointing to Spunyarn, who is crouched down at the great black fireplace, blowing the coals under a small pan. "He took to Tom when he first came in, and hasn't left him for a day. He'll steal to supply Tom's hunger, and fight if a prisoner attempts to impose upon his charge.
He, therefore, had no difficulty in carrying into operation his favorite scheme of KEEPING ALL HANDS AT WORK. A large quantity of "old junk" was put on board in Salem, and on the passage to Brazil, after we reached the pleasant latitudes, all hands were employed from eight o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the evening in knotting yarns, twisting spunyarn, weaving mats, braiding sinnett, making reef-points and gaskets, and manufacturing small rope to be used for "royal rigging," for among the ingenious expedients devised by the second mate for keeping the crew employed was the absurd and unprofitable one of changing the snug pole royal masts into "sliding gunters," with royal yards athwart, man-of-war fashion.
For a moment, Spunyarn seems half inclined to grasp Tom by his collarless coat and shake the hydrophobia, as he calls it, out of him; then, as if incited by a second thought, he draws from his shirt-bosom a large, wooden comb, and humming a tune commences combing and fussing over Tom's hair, which stands erect over his head like marlinspikes.
And I feel I have to thank you for it, Spunyarn something different all over me. God bless you! I won't forget you. But I'm hungry; that's all that ails me now. "I may thank my mother " "Thank yourself, Tom," interposes the sailor. "For all this. She has driven me to this; yes, she has made my soul dead with despair!" And he bursts into a wild, fierce laugh.
"God bless you, Spunyarn," replies Tom, evidently touched by the frankness and generosity of the old sailor. Indeed there was something so whole-hearted about old Spunyarn, that he was held in universal esteem by every one in jail, with the single exception of Milman Mingle, the vote-cribber. "Just think of yourself, Tom-don't mind me," pursues the sailor as Tom squeezes firmly his hand.
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