There was a daughter at home, a regular high-flier.
She used to talk to me as if I was a nigger. One day when we were
having dinner, she was asking me questions about Ireland, and about
my mother, sisters, and brothers. Then I got mad, thinking how poor
they were, and I could not help them. 'Miss Small,' I said, 'my
mother is forty years old, and she has eight children, and she looks
younger than you do, and has not lost a tooth.'
"Miss Small, although quite young, was nearly toothless, so she was
mad enough to kill me; but her brother Jonathan was at table, and he
took my part, saying, 'Sarves you right, Sue;' why can't you leave
Jack alone?'
"But Sue made things most unpleasant, and I told Jonathan I couldn't
stay on the farm, and would rather go to sea again. Jonathan said
he, too, was tired of farming, and he would go with me. He could
manage a boat across Boston Harbour, but he had never been to sea.
Next time there was farm stuff to go to Boston he went with me; we
left the boat with his brother, and shipped in a whaler bound for the
South Seas. I used to show him how to handle the ropes, to knot and
splice, and he soon became a pretty good hand, though he was not
smart aloft when reefing. His name was Small, but he was not a small
man; he was six feet two, and the strongest man on board, and he
didn't allow any man to thrash me, because I was little.
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