Search -
The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine
The Casting Away of Mrs Lecks and Mrs Aleshine Author:Frank Richard Stockton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed Mrs. Ale- shine. " You set the oysters creepin' over me again ! First you talk of the ship sinkin' under us, and now it's the ... more »boat goin' to the bottom under our feet. Before any sinkin' 's to be done I 'd ruther get out." " Now, Barb'ry Aleshine," said Mrs. Leeks, " stand -up straight, and don't talk so much. It 'll be a great deal better to be let down gradual than to flop into the water all of a bunch." "Very well," said Mrs. Aleshine; "it may be best to get used to it by degrees; but I must say I wish I was home." As for me, I would have much preferred to jump overboard at once, instead of waiting in this coldblooded manner; but as my companions had so far preserved their presence of mind, I did not wish to do anything which might throw them into a panic. I believed there would be no danger from the suction caused by the sinking of a small boat like this, and if we took care not to entangle ourselves with it in any way, we might as well follow Mrs. Leeks's advice as not. So we all stood up, Mrs. Leeks in the stern, I in the bow, and Mrs. Aleshine on a thwart between us. The last did not appear to have quite room enough for a steady footing, but, as she remarked, it did not matter very much, as the footing, broad or narrow, would not be there very long. I am used to swimming, and have never hesitated to take a plunge into river or ocean, but I must admit that it was very trying to my nerves to stand up this way and wait for a boat to sink beneath me. How the two women were affected I do not know. Theysaid nothing, but their faces indicated that something disagreeable was about to happen, and that the less that was said about it the better. The boat had now sunk so much that the water was around Mrs. Aleshine's feet, her standing-...« less