White Sulphur papers; or, Life at the springs of Western Virginia

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120 WHITE SULPHUR PAPERS.
among the waste wood. When, one day, oh !
of horrors !
horror
I was manufactured into a crutch, for an
invalid sailor, at the marine hospital.
My master had been in the wars in early life, and
had fought in the battles of his country on lake Erie,
where he had been slightly wounded, and now w"as
a pensioned sufferer on the government. He was a
right good old man; but, whenever he got excited,
fighting over the last action, which he did to
every
new comer, he would bring me down on the stone
pavement, or iron railing, or some other hard substance,
and I became near being banged to a splinter
then it was that I thought of the pigeons, and the
acorns, and wished that I had been sent to sea with
mast and spar.
My old master at length took sick, and was confined
to his straw bed for some months; during
which time, I had some respite in walking, but was
used as a call-boy, by pounding the floor tw^enty
times a day. I was demanded one morning, in a
case of necessity, for an officer who came to the
hospital with a fractured leg, and having been ornamented
with a red cushion at top, and sawed off two
inches below, (no end to my sufferings,) I became
the supporter of dignity with an epaulet
I was not confined, however, to the precincts of
the sailors' enclosure any more, but made occasional