The Last of the Huggermuggers Read online

  They were all much grieved. They took Huggermugger's great hands, ashe sat there, like a great wrecked and stranded ship, swayed to andfro by the waves and surges of his grief, and their tears mingled withhis. He took them into his arms, the great Huggermugger, and kissedthem. "You are the only friends left me now," he said, "take me withyou from this lonely place. She who was so dear to me is gone to thegreat Unknown, as on a boundless ocean; and this great sea which liesbefore us is to me like it. Whether I live or die, it is all one--takeme with you. I am helpless now as a child!"

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

  HUGGERMUGGER LEAVES HIS ISLAND

  Zebedee Nabbum could not help thinking how easily he had obtainedpermission of his giant. There was nothing to do but to make room forhim in the ship, and lay in a stock of those articles of foods whichthe giant was accustomed to eat, sufficient for a long voyage.

  Huggermugger laid his wife in a grave by the sea-shore, and covered itover with the beautiful large shells which she so loved. He then wenthome, opened the secret door in the wall, took out the ancientmanuscript, tied a heavy stone to it, and sunk it in a deep well underthe rocks, into which he also threw the key of his house, after havingtaken everything he needed for his voyage, and locked the doors.

  The ship was now all ready to sail. The sailors had made a large raft,on which the giant sat and paddled himself to the ship, and climbed onboard. The ship was large enough to allow him to stand, when the seawas still, and even walk about a little; but Huggermugger preferredthe reclining posture, for he was weary and needed repose.

  During the first week or two of the voyage, his spirits seemed torevive. The open sea, without any horizon, the sails spreading calmlyabove him, the invigorating salt breeze, the little sailors clamberingup the shrouds and on the yards, all served to divert his mind fromhis great grief. The sailors came to around him and told him stories,and described the country to which they were bound; and sometimes Mr.Nabbum brought out his elephants, which Huggermugger patted andfondled like dogs. But poor Huggermugger was often sea-sick, and couldnot sit up. The sailors made him as comfortable as they could. Bynight they covered him up and kept him warm, and by day they stretchedan awning above him to protect him from the sun. He was so accustomedto the open air, that he was never too cold nor too warm. But poorHuggermugger, after a few weeks more, began to show the symptoms of amore serious illness then sea-sickness. A nameless melancholy tookpossession of him. He refused to eat--he spoke little, and only layand gazed up at the white sails and the blue sky. By degrees, he beganto waste away, very much as his wife did. Little Jacket felt a realsorrow and sympathy, and so did they all. Zebedee Nabbum, however, itmust be confessed "though he felt a kind o' sorry for the poorcritter," thought more of the loss it would be to him, as a moneyspeculation, to have him die before they reached America. "It would betoo bad," he said, "after all the trouble and expense I've had, andwhen the critter was so willin', too, to come aboard, to go and havehim die. We must feed him well, and try hard to save him; for we can'tafford to lose him. Why, he'd be worth at least 50,000 dollars--yes,100,000 dollars, in the United States." So Zebedee would bring himdishes of his favorite clams, nicely cooked and seasoned, but thegiant only sighed and shook his head. "No," he said, "my littlefriends, I feel that I shall never see your country. Your coming to myisland has been in some way fatal for me. My secret must have beentold. The prophecy, ages ago, has come true!"

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

  THE LAST OF HUGGERMUGGER.

  Mr. Scrawler now thought it was time for him to speak. He had onlyrefrained from communicating to Huggermugger what the dwarf had toldhim, from the fear of making the poor giant more unhappy and ill thanever. But he saw that he could be silent no longer, for there seemedto be a suspicion in Huggermugger's mind, that it might be these verypeople, in whose ship he had consented to go, who had found out andrevealed his secret.

  Mr. Scrawler then related to the giant what the dwarf had told him inthe garden, and about the concealed MS., and the prophecy itcontained.

  Huggermugger sunk his head in his hands, and said: "Ah, the dwarf--thedwarf! Fool that I was; I might have known it. His race always hatedmine. Ah, wretch! that I had punished thee as thou deservest!

  "But, after all, what matters it?" he added, "I am the last of myrace. What matters it, if I die a little sooner than I thought? I havelittle wish to live, for I should have been very lonely in my island.Better it is it that I go to other lands--better, perhaps, that I diehere ere reaching land.

  "Friends, I feel that I shall never see your country--and why should Iwish it? How could such a huge being as I live among you? For a littlewhile I should be amused with you, and you astonished at me. I mightfind friends here and there, like you; but your people could neverunderstand my nature, nor I theirs. I should be carried about as aspectacle; I should not belong to myself, but to those who exhibitedme. There could be little sympathy between your people and mine. Imight, too, be feared, be hated. Your climate, your food, your houses,your laws, your customs--every thing would be unlike what mine hasbeen. I am too old, to weary of life, to begin it again in a newworld."

  So, my young readers, not to weary you with any more accounts ofHuggermugger's sickness, I must end the matter, and tell you plainlythat he died long before they reached America, much to Mr. Nabbum'svexation. Little Jacket and his friends grieved very much, but theycould not help it, and thought that, on the whole, it was best itshould be so. Zebedee Nabbum wished they could, at least, preserve thegiant's body, and exhibit it in New York. But it was impossible. Allthey could take home with them was his huge skeleton; and even this,by some mischance, was said to be incomplete.

  Some time after the giant's death, Mr. Scrawler, one day when the shipwas becalmed, and the sailors wished to be amused, fell into a poeticfrenzy, and produced the following song, which all hands sung, (ratherslowly) when Mr. Nabbum was not present, to the tune of YankeeDoodle:--

  Yankee Nabbum went to sea A huntin' after lions; He came upon an island where There was a pair of giants. He brought his nets and big harpoon, And thought he'd try to catch 'em; But Nabbum found out very soon There was no need to fetch 'em.

  Yankee Nabbum went ashore, With Jacky and some others; But Huggermugger treated them Just like his little brothers. He took 'em up and put 'em in His thunderin' big fish basket;-- He took 'em home and gave them all they wanted, ere they asked it.

  The giants were as sweet to them As two great lumps of sugar,-- A very Queen of Candy was Good Mrs. Huggermugger. But, Ah! The good fat woman died, The giant too departed, And came himself on Nabbum's ship, Quite sad and broken hearted. He came aboard and sailed with us,

  A sadder man and wiser-- But pretty soon, just like his wife, He sickened and did die, Sir. But Nabbum kept his mighty bones-- How they will stare to see 'em, When Nabbum has them all set up in Barnum's great Museum!

  Nothing is dearly known, strange to say, as to what became of thisskeleton. In the Museum, at Philadelphia, there are some great bones,which are usually supposed to be those of the Great Mastodon. It isthe opinion, however, of others, that they are none other than thoseof the great Huggermugger--all that remains of the last of the giants.

  NOTE:--I was told, several years hence, that Mr. Scrawler's narrativeof his adventures in Huggermugger's Island, was nearly completed, andthat he was only waiting for a publisher. As, however, nothing has asyet been heard of his long expected book, I have taken the liberty toprint what I have written, from the story, as I heard it from LittleJacket himself, who is now grown to be a man. I have been told thatLittle Jacket, who is now called Mr. John Cable, has left the sea, andis now somewhere out in the Western States, settled down as a farmer,and has grown so large and fat, that he fears he must have eaten someof those strange shell-fish, by which the Huggermugger race grew to beso great. Other accounts, however, say that he is as fond of the seaas ever, and has got to be the captain of a great ship; and that heand Mr
. Nabbum are still voyaging round the world, in hopes of findingother Huggermuggers.