‘WAKE UP, JONAH.’

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 35, 27 August 1892, Page 869

‘WAKE UP, JONAH.’

BY’

JOAQUIN MILLER.

ONAH was and is even now to be seen here -s®t®Lr snugly housed in one end of his huge old whaleboat by one of our Oakland wharves, an old Yankee sailor; tall, lean, lank, once as full of old sea stories as an old pincushion is full of old needles. Nearly all of these stories are made up of dreadful shipwrecks, in every one of which he bore a conspicuous part and was each time the worst shipwrecked sailorof the wholecrew. And I.think this is why the Californians, long, long ago, when it was the habit to call men by queer names, called this man ‘Jonah.’ Well, in a few days the place took fire and everything, including old Jonah, as it was thought, was burned to ashes. But as these Californians always rebuild very quickly, the workmen, while clearing away for a new foundation heard a voice away down below, and opening the mouth of the well that had been covered by falling timbers, there they found poor old Jonah, up to his neck in the water, where he had fallen while running in great haste to give the alarm of fire. This and other less important incidents in the same line gave the honest old sailor such a reputation for bad luck that few fishermen or pleasure parties were willing to embark with Jonah if other boats were to be had at hand. But on the 28th of November, 1886, the day on which the California Arbor Day was established, the old man had his big boat filled with as bright and lovely a little crowd of country boys and girls as would have been found for miles around. And this was because every other boat had been engaged to go to Yuba Buena Island, in the middle of the great and most glorious Bay of San Francisco, where the ■ ceremonies were to take place.

This great, big and ugly island in this broad and most beautiful bay on the globe—if we except the Bay of Naples, perhaps—was a barren and rocky place. It belongs to the Government and has a pretty lighthouse on it. And so, as this barren island lies almost in the middle of this magnificent bay, and is nearly between Oakland and San Francisco, where boats pass continuously, it was agreed that it would be a good thing to begin our California Arbor Day by planting this ugly and barren island with forest trees. The sun was high and hot, and you could see thousands and thousands of children in red and white and blue clambering up the stony steep of the island away out in the middle of the bay before the old man Jonah could find a customer. And then suddenly there came a crowd —a crowd that had missed the last boat by the least part of a minute —a crowd of strangers —strangers to one another mostly. They had come down from the country on the cars by twos and threes and fours. And when the plank of the last boat was pulled in this little band of young folks from the country melted in together and wandered along the shore till they found Jonah. They tumbled into his boat with a shout. They were so glad ! Nearly everyone had a brother, sister, cousin 01 something of that sort along. True, there were two or three young men who had not their own sisters. But they had some other young men’s sisters, and so did not complain. There was one pale and plain little girl who seemed quite alone. She was very plainly clad, too. Her dress was black. And there was a blonde young man, lofty and handsome and saucy, who was all alone. The pale little girl looked up to him and seemed to like him. But he was clearly in love with himself, and did not very graciously accept the seat which Jonah assigned him by the side of the solitary little girl in black. But, still, as everybody else was happy, he, too, must make merry ; and as the great boat, with its fluttering flags and living passengers, pushed off and swung about with its head towards the island, the blonde young man shouted out: • I say, old duffer, what’s your name?’ • Jonah,’ and the word came up like the growl of a grizzly bear, as the old man leaned heavily to his oars. The name and the manner, too, of the old man seemed to dampen the spirits of the handsome blonde boy who sat by the side of the plain little girl in black ; and he said no more, but sitting himself over to one side he drew out a bunch of nasty cigarettes, and, without even asking anybody’s leave, lighted one and puffed away, as if he had been smoking ever since his mother had left oil his long clothes. The old man pulled hard and steadily. The pretty girls from up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains glanced out from under their bonnets and all took in the sunlight and the sea and were silent with joy and admiration. But long before the clumsy big whale-boat, with its one pair of oars in feeble old hands could make the landing,

the ladder was drawn up and the ceremonies well under way. In this state of affairs all that could be done was to pass on around towards the Golden Gate and get as near to the music and the speakers as possible. This the old man did, and, casting anchor, was soon nodding in his seat, for the sun was hot, and then his work had been long and hard for one so old and worn. The big boat swung about, pointing towards the Golden Gate, which opens into the Pacific Ocean some five miles distant. This brought the rope by which the anchor hung close under the arm of the blonde young man with the cigarettes, where it creaked and squeaked continuously. The music ceased, and then the speaking began. But the party in the boat could not hear what was said, and some of the less thoughtful ones began togro w restless and mischievous. A freckle-faced boy, with small eyes and a sunburnt nose, tried to tickle the sleeping old Jonah on the neck with a wooden tooth-pick, but could not quite reach. This inspired the blonde young man, and sticking his burning cigarette on the point of his penknife he leaned over, and, in the midst of giggles from the whole party, with one exception, perhaps he held it close under the old man’s nose. Fortunately it did not harm him, and after coughing slightly from the smoke, old Jonah again doubled up like a pocket-knife and soon was sound asleep as before. But the spirit of mischief was abroad, and the handsome blonde boy, with his penknife in his hand, turned his attention to the creaking, squeaking rope that held the anchor. At first he only cut it a little, just for fun. And how they all did giggle ! All but one ; and that one put out a little brown hand feebly from under a black shawl and laid it reproachfully on the blonde boy’s arm. This only angered him ; and, setting his teeth he severed the rope and let the great boat swing loose and drift as it liked. The giggles burst into laughter, laughter loud and furious, as the old man’s head bobbed up and down under the action of the swiftly moving boat, and his hands, from force of habit, held stoutly to the oars. ‘ I hear the music again ; but it seems a good way off,’ said the eldest of the girls suddenly. She half arose, and, looking in the direction in which the boat was drifting, cried ; ‘ And the Golden Gate is close by ! And the great ocean ! Look ! Here is the open ocean ! Wake up, Jonah ! Wake up, Jonah !’ Blanched faces, and silence ! No one moved or spoke. But down from over the side of the boat a little white cigarette slid, and falling into the water with a scarcely audible ‘ sizz ’ was soon left behind and lost sight of. The old sailor opened his eyes slowly as his name was called. Slowly he looked from one terrified face to the other, and slowly but certainly took in the situation. He did not say one word or look right or left. He only held tightly to his oars and kept in the midst of the now roaring current, straight for the open sea. Let me explain how the Golden Gate, through which so many tons of gold have passed, is at certain times swift as the swiftest river, and at such times you cannot land at all. You must pass right on and out, as if shot from a gun. And this is the reason : a great river flows into this bay and floods it full as the tide sets in. So that when the tide sets out it goes with fearful force and swiftness through the narrow, rock-bound Golden Gate. ‘ Why don’t you land ? Why don’t you land ?’ gasped the blonde boy at last, as the racing and eddying waters of the Golden Gate began to lap and leap into the boat. ‘ Shut up ! or I’ll land you over the hull,’ was all that old Jonah said between his set teeth. Up and down ! Dow n and up, and away ! Oh, but that old boat was saucy ! She seemed to smell the rattling, salty waters without the Gate. The snap and the sparkle and the clash and the colour of the awful deep delighted her. And even old Jonah was wide awake now, wide awake as he had not been since he had retired from the sea and eked out a stint as a landsman. There was a glint in his old eyes ; a gleam of gladness, even with all this misery and helplessness at his feet in the boat. For the young folk were nearly all sick now ; fearfully sick ! Firm as the rocks that lock the walls of the Golden Gate was old Jonah all this time. The sun was setting low and fast; full and large and luminous as a world of flame lay the sun on a sea of blood for a second only ; and then it was night on the surging, heaving bosom of the sea of seas ! The girls that lay crouched in the boat were but thinly clad. They were wet and cryiug with pain from the cold. The boys were no better. In fact, they shivered harder and made a good deal more complaint than the girls. But no sign of help. At last in despair he gasped out: ‘Do any of you folk have friends? I mean, do any of you amount to anything ?’ They did not seem to quite understand, and after a painful silence and feeling that he had not put the proposition quite as mildly as he might, he again began, after once glancing back towards the Golden Gate, ‘ I mean, is your father anybody—anybody in particular I mean, miss.’ The old man spoke with effort and desperation. The cold was piercing his old bones to the marrow, and he knew he could not hold the oars or steady the boat much longer. The eldest girl, the only one who could hold up her head as he spoke, only looked at him blankly and then said ‘No’ in a husky whisper. Then all was still for a long time, and you could only hear the rattl. of the heavy salt water on the side of the great boat as she slid up and down the deep hollows of the ocean. ‘ Boy ! bigblonde boy over there ! is your father anybody ? Who is your father, I say ? And where is he ?’ ‘ Yes, yes,'gasped the blonde head from between the girls, without rising up, • Yes, my father is a great ipan. He is Sheriff of Stanislaus !’

‘ Well, let him stay in Stanislaus,' muttered the old man between his chattering old teeth. He again glanced back over his shoulder ; light-houses and stars, stars and light houses, and a great, gleaming wall of white beyond. But that was all. ‘My little girl, my quiet little girl in black, where is uour father?’ The old man's voice was quite broken now. It trembled so that he could hardly speak. His left hand had slipped from the oar. The rowlock rattled heavily, but the hand lay helpless. • Little girl, where is your father ?’ he gasped again. Her two little brown hands clasped together clumsily, hardly able to hold together from the cold and wet; but holding them so she raised her pitiful face to heaven. Her chin quivered and her lips trembled, but she could not speak. The old man understood. With his one remaining hand he lifted his hat and laid it reverently down as he said in a whisper so soft and low that maybe only He heard it : ‘ Then we must look there for help.’ And a long time he looked steadily upward. And the trembling lips and the quivering little chin were lifted also. The two rowlocks rattled and rasped and rasped and rattled. The boat was her own master now. She had turned about. Her bow was to the Golden Gate ! The tide had turned ! It is strange that some one on some of the many ships had not seen this party and its peril ; strange that some watcher from some one of the light houses had not seen this lone craft in its peril. But it is a fact that this boat passed out of the Golden Gate, spent much of the night in the open ocean, and was finally borne back with all its precious cargo saved, and with no other help than the help of Him to whom all will cry out for help, at least once, this side the River of Rest.