The Dead Men's Song Part 1

The Dead Men's Song.

by Champion Ingraham Hitchc.o.c.k.

A WORD SAID BEFOREHAND

If a careless and uninformed writer in _The New York Times Book Review_ had not hazarded the speculation in his columns that it was very doubtful if Young Ewing Allison wrote the famous poem "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest," the creation and perfection of which took him through a period of about six years, the idea of undertaking a sketch of him and the stuff he has done might never have occurred to me. While not exactly thankful to the New York editor, I have abandoned a blood-thirsty raid on his sanctum and a righteous indignation has been dissipated in the serene pleasure I have found in expressing an appreciation of Allison's genius in this private volume for our friends. G.o.d bless the Old Scout! In all of our intimate years there has been such a complete understanding between us that spoken words have been largely unnecessary, and so the opportunity of saying publicly what has ever been in my heart, is a rare one, eagerly seized.

C. I. H.

Louisville, November, 1914.

DERELICT

A Reminiscence of "Treasure Island"

YOUNG E. ALLISON

_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!_

(_Cap'n Billy Bones his song._)

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

The mate was fixed by the bos'n's pike, The bos'n brained with a marlinspike And Cookey's throat was marked belike It had been gripped By fingers ten; And there they lay, All good dead men, Like break-o'-day in a boozing-ken-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of a whole s.h.i.+p's list-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Dead and bed.a.m.ned, and the rest gone whist!-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

The skipper lay with his n.o.b in gore Where the scullion's axe his cheek had sh.o.r.e-- And the scullion he was stabbed times four.

And there they lay, And the soggy skies Dripped all day long In up-staring eyes-- At murk sunset and at foul sunrise-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

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Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Ten of the crew had the Murder mark-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

'Twas a cutla.s.s swipe, or an ounce of lead, Or a yawing hole in a battered head-- And the scuppers glut with a rotting red.

And there they lay-- Aye, d.a.m.n my eyes!-- All lookouts clapped On paradise-- All souls bound just contrariwise-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

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Fifteen men of 'em good and true-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Every man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

There was chest on chest full of Spanish gold, With a ton of plate in the middle hold, And the cabins riot of stuff untold.

And they lay there That had took the plum, With sightless glare And their lips struck dumb, While we shared all by the rule of thumb-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

_More was seen through the sternlight screen-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Chartings ondoubt where a woman had been-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

A flimsy s.h.i.+ft on a bunker cot, With a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot And the lace stiff-dry in a purplish blot.

Or was she wench ...

Or some shuddering maid...?

That dared the knife And that took the blade!

By G.o.d! she was stuff for a plucky jade-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!_

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight, With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight, And we heaved 'em over and out of sight-- With a yo-heave-ho!

And a fare-you-well!

And a sullen plunge In the sullen swell Ten fathoms deep on the road to h.e.l.l-- Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

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PICTURING _the_ INDIVIDUAL

One of my earliest recollections of my friend and business a.s.sociate for very many, very short and very happy years, is a conversation in the old Chicago Press Club rooms on South Clark Street, near Madison, in the early 90's, about three o'clock one morning, when the time for confidences arrives--if ever it does. What his especial business in Chicago was at that particular moment makes no particular difference. He might have been rehearsing "The Ogallallas," or mayhap he was on duty as Kentucky commissioner to the World's Fair. As a matter of mere fact he was there and we had spent an evening and part of a morning together and were bent on extending the session to daybreak. Sunrise on Madison Street always was a wonderful sight. The dingy buildings on that busy old thoroughfare, awakening to day-life, then appeared as newly painted in the mellow of the early morning.

My companion knew something was coming. Our chairs were close together--side by side--and we were looking each in the other's face. He had his hand back of his ear. "Allison," I said--and I suppose that after a night in his company I was so impregnated with his strong personality that I had my hand back of my ear too, and spoke in a low, slightly drawling nasal, like his--"Allison," I repeated, "don't you miss a great deal by being deaf?" Now, it is said with tender regret, but a deep and sincere regard for truth, that my friend makes a virtue of a slight deafness. He uses it to avoid arguments, a.s.signments, conventions, parlor parties--and bores--and deftly evades a whole lot of "duty" conversations as well. Of course I know all this now, but in those days I thought his lack of complete hearing an infirmity calling for a sort of sympathy on my part.

Anyway it was three o'clock in the morning, and...!

"Well," he replied, after a little pause, "I can't say that I do. You see, if anyone ever says anything worth repeating, he always tells me about it anyway." Such is the philosophical trend that makes Allison an original with a peculiar gift of expression both in the spoken and written word. He is literary to his finger tips, in the finest sense of the word, for pure love, his own enjoyment and the pleasure of his friends. There is an ambition for you! With all his genuine modesty (and he is painfully modest) by which the light of his genius is hid under even less than the Scriptural bushel, he has a deep and healthy and honorable respect for fame--not of the cheap and tawdry, lionizing kind, but fame in an everlasting appreciation of those who think with their own minds. Almost any pen portraiture could but skim the surface of a nature so gifted and with which daily a.s.sociation is so delightful--an a.s.sociation which is a constant fillip to the mind in fascinating witticisms, in deft characterizations of men and things, and in deep drafts on memory's storehouse for odd incidents and unexpected illuminations. A long silence from "Allison's corner" may precede a gleeful chortle, as he throws on my desk some delicious satirical skit with a "Well, I've got that out of my system, anyway!"

Allison has a method of prose writing all his own. If you could see him day in and out, you would soon recognize the symptoms. An idea strikes him; he becomes abstracted, reads a great deal, pull down books, fills pages of particularly ruled copy paper with figures from a big, round, black pencil until you might think he was calculating the expenditures of a Billion Dollar Congress. He is not a mathematician but, like Balzac, simply dotes on figures. Then comes the a.n.a.lytical stage and that he performs on foot, walking, head bent forward, upstairs, downstairs, outdoors, around the block, in again, through the clattering press room and up and down the hall. When the stride quickens and he strikes a straight line for his desk, his orderly mind has arranged and cla.s.sified his subject down to the illuminating adjectives even and the whole is ready to be put on paper.

Though his mind is orderly, his desk seldom is. He is the type of old-school editor who has everything handy in a profound confusion. He detests office system, just as he admires mental arrangement. I got a "rise" out of him only once when making a pretence of describing his very complex method of preserving correspondence, and then he flared: "It saved us a lot of trouble, didn't it?" The fact was patent, but the story is apropos. Allison was complaining to a friend of office routine.

"Hitch has no heart," he said. "He comes over here, takes letters off my desk and puts 'em into an old file somewhere so no one can find them.

That's no way to do. When a letter comes to me I clip open the end with my shears, like a gentleman, read it, and put it back in the envelope. When in the humor I answer it. Of course there is no use keeping a copy of what I write; I know well enough what _I_ say. All I want to keep is what the other fellow said to me. When it is time to clean the desk, I call a boy, have him box all the letters and take them over to the warehouse. Then whenever I want a letter I know d.a.m.ned well where it is--it's in the warehouse." It really happened that certain important and badly needed letters were "in the warehouse" and so Allison's system was vindicated.

Just the mere mention of his system brings up the delightful recollections of his desk-cleaning parties, Spring and Fall, events so momentous that they almost come under the cla.s.sification of office holidays. The dust flies, torn papers fill the air and the waste-baskets, and odd memoranda come to light and must be discussed. While wielding the dust cloth Allison hums "Bing-Binger, the Baritone Singer," has the finest imaginable time and for several day wears an air of such conscious pride that every paper laid upon his desk is greeted with a terrible frown.

Musical? Of course. His is the poetic mind, the imaginative, with an intensely practical, a.n.a.lytical perception--uncanny at times. He is perfectly "crazy" about operas, reads everything that comes to his hand--particularly novels--and is an inveterate patron of picture shows.