- end_line
- 1738
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1686
- text
- only made me still more incredulous. For what business had a man from
Greenland to be in my company? Why was he not at home among the
icebergs, and how could he stand a warm summer’s sun, and not be melted
away? Besides, instead of icicles, there were ear-rings hanging from
his ears; and he did not wear bear-skins, and keep his hands in a huge
muff; things, which I could not help connecting with Greenland and all
Greenlanders.
But I was telling about my being sea-sick and wanting to retire for the
night. This Greenlander seeing I was ill, volunteered to turn doctor
and cure me; so going down into the forecastle, he came back with a
brown jug, like a molasses jug, and a little tin cannikin, and as soon
as the brown jug got near my nose, I needed no telling what was in it,
for it smelt like a still-house, and sure enough proved to be full of
Jamaica spirits.
“Now, Buttons,” said he, “one little dose of this will be better for
you than a whole night’s sleep; there, take that now, and then eat
seven or eight biscuits, and you’ll feel as strong as the mainmast.”
But I felt very little like doing as I was bid, for I had some scruples
about drinking spirits; and to tell the plain truth, for I am not
ashamed of it, I was a member of a society in the village where my
mother lived, called the Juvenile Total Abstinence Association, of
which my friend, Tom Legare, was president, secretary, and treasurer,
and kept the funds in a little purse that his cousin knit for him.
There was three and sixpence on hand, I believe, the last time he
brought in his accounts, on a May day, when we had a meeting in a grove
on the river-bank. Tom was a very honest treasurer, and never spent the
Society’s money for peanuts; and besides all, was a fine, generous boy,
whom I much loved. But I must not talk about Tom now.
When the Greenlander came to me with his jug of medicine, I thanked him
as well as I could; for just then I was leaning with my mouth over the
side, feeling ready to die; but I managed to tell him I was under a
solemn obligation never to drink spirits upon any consideration
whatever; though, as I had a sort of presentiment that the spirits
would now, for once in my life, do me good, I began to feel sorry, that
when I signed the pledge of abstinence, I had not taken care to insert
a little clause, allowing me to drink spirits in case of sea-sickness.
And I would advise temperance people to attend to this matter in
future; and then if they come to go to sea, there will be no need of
breaking their pledges, which I am truly sorry to say was the case with
me. And a hard thing it was, too, thus to break a vow before unbroken;
especially as the Jamaica tasted any thing but agreeable, and indeed
burnt my mouth so, that I did not relish my meals for some time after.
Even when I had become quite well and strong again, I wondered how the
sailors could really like such stuff; but many of them had a jug of it,
besides the Greenlander, which they brought along to sea with them, _to
taper off with,_ as they called it. But this tapering off did not last
very long, for the Jamaica was all gone on the second day, and the jugs
were tossed overboard. I wonder where they are now?
- title
- Chunk 4