Of the plummet, smooth and even, then a man would throw the lead.
And we’d pass her back to Jason and he’d turn the plummet up,
Taste the scrimp of soil that stuck there on the taller in the cup,
And he’d tell us where we headed, though the night be black’s a coal,
For he knew the taste of bottoms from the Cow to Quero Shoal.
--Didn’t need the sun or quadrant with old Jason at the wheel;
He was only once mistaken in the memory of men,
--And we’ve always kept insistin’ that he wa’n’t mistaken then.
The storm came down upon us from the nor’- nor’east by east,
The sky was hasty puddin’ and the sea beneath was yeast.
When the Hanks went tossin’ up’ards it really seemed we flew,
And the sky seemed splittin’ open for to let our vessel through;
When we wallowed down wher-rooshin’ in the gulf that gawped beneath,
We’d’a’ left our hearts behind us if we hadn’t clinched our teeth.
We’d really seem to feel Old Hankses’ battered keel
Go bumpin’ on the bottom when she made her downward reel.
--His whiskers whipping snappin’ as the wind went screamin’ through.
So we hung to brace and riggin’ and we let her roar and roll,
While each man pinned to Ellison the safety of his soul.
Then at last we knew’twas night-time by the thick’nin’ overhead,
And Jason licked his taster and he yelled: “Now throw the lead!”
An’ we--we blinked to watch him from the darkness where we clung,
And waited for the verdict, of that long and peak-ed tongue.
He tasted--then he waited, and he smacked his lips a spell,
He tasted--tasted--tasted, then he gave an awful yell:
And howled: “The world is endin’! It’s the final Judgment Day!
That plummet, there, has brought us up a hand- ful of the loam
From the Widder Abbott’s garden on the Neck ro’d, back at home.
A tidal wave has lifted us--the Hanks has run away!
’Less ye pray, ye sin-struck critters,’less ye pray, pray, pray!”
Each clung to rope and stanchion, each hung to stay and brace,
Each prayed up at the heavens while the spin- drift lashed his face;
Lit up the sea around us, and it also lit our case;
Then we found an explanation Of the sing’lar situation
That was figgered in the darkness of the night by Uncle Jase.
For we noticed there was settin’ up against the le’ward rail
Some lavender and other yarbs, a-growin’ in a pail.