Salt Water Bubbles; Or, Life on the Wave.
Sleeper, John Sherburne. [Hawser Martingale, pseud.]. Boston, MA: W.M.J. Reynolds, 1854.
Arctic Reading: United States
Stories which originally appeared in the Boston Journal, all dealing with all aspects of nautical life in the American merchant service in the early part of the nineteenth century
p. 290: It was the Sabbath day. The crew had partaken of their Sunday dinner, and, in neat and trim attire, and happy countenances, were lounging about the main deck and forecastle; some were reading their Bible, happily the present of a venerated mother ; a small group, gathered around the heel of the bowsprit, were conversing in cheerful but subdued tones, spinning yarns, or indulging in interesting reminiscences. Some were humming or attempting to hum a good old-fashioned psalm tune, such as they had listened to in the old meeting-house of their fathers in days gone by, and others were intently busied in reading , perhaps for the hundredth time, the last letters received from home, or gazing, with eyes sparkling with affection, on the gift of a dear, perhaps loved, friend. It was a pleasant day, that Sabbath on the ocean. The captain was engaged in the cabin in working out a series of lunar observations that he had taken the night before; the chief mate was employed in his state-room, in transferring the record on the log-slate to the log-book; the second officer, who had charge of the watch on deck, was comfortably seated on the hen-coop, beneath a temporary awning, reading an interesting book of adventures, and ever and anon rising to look over the quarter, and note the progress of the ship, or to peep into the binnacle, and see that the helmsman kept her strictly on her course.
p. 317, a practical joke, making fun of an "unfortunate darkey": At this moment, Jack Thompson, who, with a countenance beaming with mischief, had been for some time carefully watching the various proceedings on deck, stealthily stepped to the caboose and abstracted from the fire a live coal of goodly size, which he quietly deposited in a natural nest among the wool which grew in such luxuriance on Sambo's head. He then resumed his place on the forecastle, lighted a cigar, and, with a sedate countenance, began reading a well-thumbed edition of " Dampier 's Voyages."