James Otis - Jack the Hunchback - A Story of Adventure on the Coast of Maine

Tom Pratt firmly believed he was the most unfortunate boy in Maine when, on a certain June morning, his father sent him to the beach for a load of seaweed.

Tom had never been in love with a farmer's life.

He fancied that in any other sphere of action he could succeed, if not better, certainly more easily, than by weeding turnips or hoeing corn on the not very productive farm.

But either planting or digging was preferable to loading a huge cart with the provokingly slippery weeds which his father insisted on gathering for compost each summer.

Therefore, when the patient oxen, after much goading and an unusual amount of noise from their impatient driver, stood knee-deep in the surf contentedly chewing their cuds and enjoying the cool footbath, Tom, instead of beginning his work, sat at the forward part of the cart gazing seaward, thinking, perhaps, how pleasant must be a sailor's life while the ocean was calm and smiling as on this particular day.

So deeply engrossed was he in idleness that his father's stern command from the hillside a short distance away, "to 'tend to his work an' stop moonin'," passed unheeded, and the same ox-goad he had been using might have been applied to his own body but for the fact that just as Farmer Pratt came within striking distance a tiny speck on the water attracted his attention.

"It looks to me as if that might be a lapstreak boat out there, Tommy. Can you see anybody in her?"

"I reckon that's what it is, father, an' she must be adrift."

Farmer Pratt mounted the cart and scrutinized the approaching object until there could no longer be any question as to what it was, when Tom said gleefully, —

"It must be a ship's boat, an' if she hasn't got a crew aboard, we'll make a bigger haul than we could by cartin' seaweed for a week."

"Yes, them kind cost more'n a dory," the farmer replied dreamily, as he mentally calculated the amount of money for which she might be sold. "I reckon we'll take her into Portland an' get a tidy – "

"I can see a feller's head!" Tom interrupted, "an' it shets off our chance of sellin' her."

That the boat had an occupant was evident.

A closely shaven crown appeared above the stem as if its owner had but just awakened, and was peering out to see where his voyage was about to end.

Nearer and nearer the little craft drifted until she was dancing on the shore line of the surf, and the figure in the bow gazed as intently landward as the farmer and his son did seaward.

"It's a boy, father, an' he ain't as big as me!" Tom cried. "Well, that beats anything I ever saw!"

This last remark probably referred to the general appearance of the young voyager.

He was an odd-looking little fellow, with a head which seemed unusually small because the hair was closely cropped, and a bent, misshapen body several sizes too large for the thin legs which barely raised it above the gunwales. The face was by no means beautiful, but the expression of anxiety and fear caused it to appeal directly to Tom's heart, if not to his father's.

Farmer Pratt was not pleased at thus learning that the boat had an occupant.

Empty, she would have been a source of profit; but although there was apparently no one save the deformed lad aboard, he could make no legal claim upon her.

The craft was there, however, and would speedily be overturned unless he waded out into the surf at the risk of a rheumatic attack, to pull her inshore.

Although decidedly averse to performing any charitable deed, he did this without very much grumbling, and Tom was a most willing assistant.

That which had come out of the east on this bright June morning was a ship's lifeboat about eighteen feet long, and with the name "Atlanta" painted on the gunwales.

She was a much more valuable craft than Mr. Pratt had ever seen ashore on Scarborough beach, and yet he failed to calculate her value immediately, because as the bow grated on the sand the misshapen boy, from whose white lips not a word had escaped during all this time, suddenly lifted what at first appeared to be a bundle of cloth.

This act in itself would not have caused any surprise, but at the same moment a familiar noise was heard from beneath the coverings.

Farmer Pratt stepped back quickly in genuine alarm and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt as he exclaimed, —

"Well, this beats anything I ever seen!"

"It's a baby, father!" Tom cried, starting forward to take the burden from the crooked little sailor's arms; but the latter retreated as if afraid the child was to be carried away, and the farmer replied testily, —

"Of course it's a baby. Haven't I heard you cry often enough to know that?"

"But how did it come here?"

"That's what beats me"; and then, as if suddenly realizing that the apparent mystery might be readily solved, he asked the stranger, "Where did you come from, sonny?"

"From Savannah."

"Sho! Why, that's way down in Georgy. You didn't sail them many miles in this 'ere little boat?"

"No, sir. We broke adrift from Captain Littlefield's ship yesterday when she blowed up, an' the baby's awful hungry."

"Ship blowed up, eh? Whereabouts was she?"

"Out there"; and the boy pointed eastward in an undecided manner, as if not exactly certain where he had come from.

"What made her blow up?" Tom asked curiously.

"I don't know. There was an awful splosion like more'n a hundred bunches of firecrackers, an' the captain put Louis an' me in the lifeboat to wait till his wife got some things from the cabin. While all the sailors was runnin' 'round wild like, we got adrift. I hollered an' hollered, but nobody saw us." Then he added in a lower tone, "Louis cried last night for somethin' to eat, an' he must be pretty hungry now."

"Well, well, well!" and as the thought of whether he would be paid for the trouble of pulling the boat ashore came into the farmer's mind, he said quickly, "'Cordin' to that you don't own this boat?"

"She belongs to the ship."

"An' seein's how the vessel ain't anywhere near, I reckon I've as much right to this craft as anybody else. Where do you count on goin'?"

"If we could only get back to New York I'm sure I would be able to find the captain's house."

"It's a powerful long ways from here, sonny; but I'll see that you are put in a comfortable place till somethin' can be done. What's your name?"

"John W. Dudley; but everybody calls me Jack, an' this is Louis Littlefield," the boy replied as he removed the coverings, exposing to view a child about two years old.

Master Tom was delighted with the appearance of the little pink and white stranger, who was dressed in cambric and lace, with a thin gold chain around his neck, and would have shaken hands with him then and there if Jack had not stepped quickly back as he said, —

"He's afraid of folks he don't know, an' if you get him to cryin' I'll have a worse time than last night. What he wants is somethin' to eat."

"Take 'em right up to the house, Tommy, an' tell mother to give them breakfast. When I get the boat hauled around (for I've got every reason to consider her mine), I'll carry both out to Thornton's."

Jack clambered from the craft, disdaining Tom's assistance, and, taking the child in his arms, much as a small cat might carry a very large kitten, stood waiting for his guide to lead the way.

Farmer Pratt's son was in no especial hurry to reach home, for while escorting the strangers he certainly could not be expected to shovel seaweed, and Jack said as Tom walked leisurely over the hot sand, —

"If you don't go faster, the baby'll begin to cry, for he's pretty near starved."