The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 21, 1900, Page 10

10 W7 & )N n\\“" ‘ Baddest of all, she has not any playmates to frolic and quarrel with and kiss and mglte up. But Gladys has compensation. There are games adjusted to the limita- tions of shipboard that are as jolly as those on land. Think of scrambling up the ladders and hapging by her heels to the rungs! Then there are the sailors ever ready to spin their yarns. Gladys_js =& little citizeness of the world.” She has met them all, from the slant-eyed Chinaman to the olive-skinned Italian; from the fur-clad Eskimo to the baggy Turk. She’s been here, there and everywhere, and seen men of all climes and colors. This little girl of the sea is very differ- ent from her sisters on shore. In her muslin frock she looks just like any other dainty flower of childhood, with a wisp of golden halr, eyes as blue as & soGthern sea and cheeks as pink as coral. But Gladys resents petticoats as badges of her THE SUNDAY CALL. misfortune in not being a boy, and rebels against them. A pair of overalls, a eweater, a cap and even then she must needs buckle on a weapon of some kind to feel completely emancipated from dresses. It 1s not alone this picturesque make-ui that dlstlngu!uheu her and labels the chil as “something different.”” Miss Gladys' years on the sea have gilven her more than a rolling gait and nautical vocabu- lary. Constant companionship with the “grown-ups’ has added an adult repose manner that sits oddly on her tender years. er frown—upl are not the usual ones. There is mamma, of course, who is sweet and gentle, and papa, who is a captain “‘and knows everything.” But then there are the sailors who hafl from every port from lississippi to Clyde,” and it's a very pecullar budget of facts that they haye pigeonholed in the child’s memory. ““There is one saflor I like very much,” says Gladys. “He's been married twice, and the first time it was to a cannibal elements, but Gladys has seen others who have been tossed by the angry waters with nothing_but a frail raft to save them from Davy Jones’ locker, G’lflys knows what the sight of a sail me: to the v:xa-tosud mariner. When their ship picked up a party of four, a woman znd child among them, she faintly realized how fickle the seas are. On beard the good ship Erskine M. Phele the unfortunates were slowly brought back to health, “My. but they were thin,” says Gladys. “Their bones poked right through their’skin, they were so hungry. I had the best time the rest of that voyage playing with the little girl.” 1t is a strange life this on the rolling seas, and a rather pathetic one for a child. | Finny creatures of the deep are more familiar to her than children. e has a wistful longing for childish compan- ions that she does not.understand and but half expresses. “T'll write a letter to the little girls on land if you promise not to put in the bad spelling,” suggests Gladys, and scrambling up a post as neatly as a Dear Call-I thought I'd like to write a letter to the little girls who live on shore. Perhaps they'd Jike to Know.something about a little girl who lives on the big seas., My papa fays you're just as good as Uncle Sam to send it by, and my papa knows everything, 'cause he’s a captain. This is the way I write all my letters— ust say them, and somebody else writes. It's much nicer 2nd you don’t have to fuss about spelling «nd things. I was awful glad to be in during the celebration, 'caus daughter myself. I was born in Sausalito nd 1 always get haven't been hefe so ‘cause I've_been =0 about. You see, I've been Horn nine times, across the ¢ times and all around the have natural E It gets all ut by the wind. I 1t mine up in papers cept when we're in port. I don't have any little boys to play with on board ship. I fl'“eCetler io 'ihe_:lee Guris Dho Live on JShore, like them better than girls, but I can't even have girls. Sometimes I play with my dolls. I pretend that they are sailors and soldlers, 'cause they know how to mind. I'm not a sallor apy more. When I was six my {;apa sald, “Gladys, we'll have to make a boatswain of you now.” He says perhaps I'll be a third mate in a year or o, it I learn how to obey orders better. But T don’t like to mind very much, so I guess T'll have to be the captain, Sometimes we strike a_hurric¥ne, and oh, my! you ought to see the way the ship rocks. Hurricanes ain't very nice and I'd rather be one of the little girls in a safe little bed on land when they come. Big storms ain't nice, either, but 1 don’t get =0 very afraid. 1 hold mam- g se I think it makes her feel more comf{y 1 like some of the sailors and there's cne who can tell fine stories. He's a Frenchman, though, and his tongue gets 1 sted and then he talks with his But he tells the loveliest stories »me of the sailors are awful ugly and I don't like those. Sometimes I worder about all the chil- dren on land and how they'd like to be a a child of the sea, ‘cause that's what papa says I am. My papa swords and sabers and weapor ferent lands and I get dow are not too heavy and put them on. Sometimes I play that I'm leading a mu- tiny and let one of the dolls be captain, but most always I'm captain mysulf_and kill all the dolls with my sword. I don’t really kill them though. I've seen lots of things that you chii- drerf never see. Whales and queer things that live in the water. Only I'm not afraid of them, 'cause I'm a captain's daughter. When I am growed up I'm going to marry a captain. That's all [ can think of now. GLADYS GRAHAM. P. S.—I lke boys' clothes heaps better | than girls’ dresses. There was another sailor we had once and papa used to call him Rudyard Kkip- ling 'cause he could read and was al- ways reading Kipling's songs of the sea. 1 like Kipling much better than Mother Goose, 'cause he's g ps and sailors and soldiers in his rhyme: I can sing *‘On the Road to Mandal without be- ginning over once. 3 i ’ queen. Tattooed Johnny is his name, and he had to marry the lady cannibal to keep her from eating him up. Just as soon as - could escapa from her he did, and the t time he married a girl in the South Sea Islands. with lovely rings in her ears and nose, Tattoced Johnny says she’d the last of 'em; he dcn’t want no more wives. Gladys Graham has had more advent- crammed into her short life than 1y falls to the lot of three score. Bne has been In the teeth of the hur- ricane when the suilen watérs boomed When all on fety her childish no fear. Truly she is a daughter of Neptune, always smiling at his mood: The ¥ ne M. Ph the victor in all it s has come out uggles with the sallor she gravely dictates a nalve little note. Gladys would not change her four- masted home on the sea for the finest alace on land. She is 2s proud of the irskine M. Phelps as her father, who is not only captain but part owner of the vessel. She loves the spice and danger gt belng a sea rover just as much as he vs Graham is very proud of her s. The ship is about to leave this and then her record will read, “around the world twice, across the equator thirty times and ten times around the Horp ™ 7 2 i ’,f:',/(/'//é Z 5.3