The Last of the Huggermuggers   By: Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813-1892)

A GIANT STORY.

BY

CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH

CONTENTS.

CHAP. I. How Little Jacket would go to Sea.

CHAP. II. His Good and his Bad Luck at Sea.

CHAP. III. How he fared on Shore.

CHAP. IV. How Huggermugger came along.

CHAP. V. What happened to Little Jacket in the Giant's Boot.

CHAP. VI. How Little Jacket escaped from Kobboltozo's Shop.

CHAP. VII. How he made use of Huggermugger in Travelling.

CHAP. VIII. How Little Jacket and his Friends left the Giant's Island.

CHAP. IX. Mr. Nabbum.

CHAP. X. Zebedee and Jacky put their heads together.

CHAP. XI. They sail for Huggermugger's Island.

CHAP. XII. The Huggermuggers in a new Light.

CHAP. XIII. Huggermugger Hall.

CHAP. XIV. Kobbletozo astonishes Mr. Scrawler.

CHAP. XV. Mrs. Huggermugger grows thin and fades away.

CHAP. XVI. The Sorrows of Huggermugger.

CHAP. XVII. Huggermugger leaves his Island.

CHAP. XVIII. The Last of the Huggermuggers.

THE LAST OF THE HUGGERMUGGERS.

CHAPTER ONE.

HOW LITTLE JACKET WOULD GO TO SEA.

I dare say there are not many of my young readers who have heard about Jacky Cable, the sailor boy, and of his wonderful adventures on Huggermugger's Island. Jacky was a smart Yankee lad, and was always remarkable for his dislike of staying at home, and a love of lounging upon the wharves, where the sailors used to tell him stories about sea life. Jacky was always a little fellow. The country people, who did not much like the sea, or encourage Jacky's fondness for it, used to say, that he took so much salt air and tar smoke into his lungs that it stopped his growth. The boys used to call him Little Jacket. Jacky, however, though small in size, was big in wit, being an uncommonly smart lad, though he did play truant sometimes, and seldom knew well his school lessons. But some boys learn faster out of school than in school, and this was the case with Little Jacket. Before he was ten years old, he knew every rope in a ship, and could manage a sail boat or a row boat with equal ease. In fine, salt water seemed to be his element; and he was never so happy or so wide awake as when he was lounging with the sailors in the docks. The neighbors thought he was a sort of good for nothing, idle boy, and his parents often grieved that he was not fonder of home and of school. But Little Jacket was not a bad boy, and was really learning a good deal in his way, though he did not learn it all out of books.

Well, it went on so, and Little Jacket grew fonder and fonder of the sea, and pined more and more to enlist as a sailor, and go off to the strange countries in one of the splendid big ships. He did not say much about it to his parents, but they saw what his longing was, and after thinking and talking the matter over together, they concluded that it was about as well to let the boy have his way.

So when Little Jacket was about fifteen years old, one bright summer's day, he kissed his father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and went off as a sailor in a ship bound to the East Indies.

CHAPTER TWO.

HIS GOOD AND HIS BAD LUCK AT SEA.