But he had hands
eleven inches long, an' that give him a grip which no
typhoon could git the better of. Andy had let out that his
father was a miller up there in York State, an' a story had got
round among the crew that his granfather an' great-gran'father
was millers, too; an' the way the fam'ly got such big hands come
from their habit of scoopin' up a extry quart or two of meal or
flour fur themselves when they was levellin' off their customers'
measures. He was a good-natered feller, though, an' never got
riled when I'd tell him to clap his flour-scoops onter a halyard.
"We was all soaked, an' washed, an' beat, an' battered. We
held on some way or other till the wind blowed itself out, an'
then we got on our legs an' began to look about us to see how
things stood. The sea had washed into the open hatches till the
vessel was more'n half full of water, an' that had sunk her, so
deep that she must 'a' looked like a canal-boat loaded with
gravel. We hadn't had a thing to eat or drink durin' that whole
blow, an' we was pretty ravenous. We found a keg of water which
was all right, and a box of biscuit which was what you might call
softtack, fur they was soaked through an' through with sea-water.
We eat a lot of them so, fur we couldn't wait, an' the rest we
spread on the deck to dry, fur the sun was now shinin' hot enough
to bake bread. We couldn't go below much, fur there was a pretty
good swell on the sea, an' things was floatin' about so's to make
it dangerous.
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