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Show . BABY'S TTX20TY NEASXT ; WBECKED THE SHIP. "I may as well explain in beginning I that every first-class "pilot on the lakes ' knows, the flash of every lighthouse as . wall mi hn knows the wav to his bunk." I remarked the old lake captain, aa he re-', re-', lighted his pipe and settled down for a chat with some old friends of tha "land- - lubber" type. - "That was Just what caused all the trouble. -. "It was the first earing after I had been given a berth as first mate on the old lumber steamer John Morgan. Jimmy Jim-my Johnson was skipper. Along in May we were chartered to bring lumber from Tawas to Chicago, and we' started - out light. The run down Lake Michigan Michi-gan was just like any other, but as we went through the Straits we struck fog that bothered us a little. The compass had been a little off, and when the mist cleared up we were quite a bit to the - east' ard of our course. So we Just shaped a course for Tawas as near as we could gueaa it by dead reckoning. e v "The old man turned in about 10 - o'clock that evening, remarking he left the pilot-bouse that we were about thirty-five or forty miles from Tawas, and should fetch it as we were heading. Aa he went below he remarked: 'When you pick up the flashlight at Tawas caU me. "It was about an hour and a half before be-fore we were due off Tawas that I spied the flashlight working a way,. Just like a clock. I hailed the wheelsman and he timed it the pa me as I did. I was considerably con-siderably in the wind, but I followed orders and sent for the old man. He eaw it. Just as we did, and headed the Morgan for i but kept enough faith in his dead reckoning to alow down. ' "Just as ffe (hou)d have made out the piers I spied the white line of the sea breaking -on the send. I 'yelled like a . crazy man, and we managed to back off as the Morgan's forefoot touched the bar, , The old man kept the bridge after that, and we found Tawas an hour later, . where we had figured the town ought to be. i - - . e - " "Thg next day When we were loading I talked the puzzle over with the skipper, skip-per, and he finally told me to go back i along the beach and see if I could clear Of it up. It was my. business to load the v old hooker, but he was bothered enough to -volunteer for the Job while I was gone. I got a horse and buggy, and . about the spot where I figured we had been the night before waa a farmhouse. . Mot a algn of a lighthouse. "I went to the door and asked for a drink, and the woman invited me into the living-room. The window looked out on the lake and I noticed a table against the opposite wall with a big lamp on It. Just then I began to see things.' -Madame,' says I. as the woman came in with ft pitcher of water, 'did you have any sickness in this house last night r: " 'Kor she replied, "but the baby had the colic and father walked the floor '- with him until after midnight.' " 'In this roomr I asked. "."Why, yes,' says she, surprised like. "I tumbled at onoe. The father with that kid to his armB walking back and forth across the room had flashed that lamp Just like the Tawas light, and, without knowing it, had nearly put us on the beach. What? Oh. yes, I don't mind.' Just a little more of the same. But the story is gospel truth, Just tht game." Chicago Record-Herald. |