Sam and the Mermaid by Wendy Yukihiro

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Before they had any steam ships, ships were sailing by sails, you know, across the Atlantic. The Atlantic was twenty miles deep,and there were mermaids in those days. And if you called anybody's name on the ship, they would ask for it, say, "Give it to me." And if you didn't give it to them they would capsize the ship. So the captain had to change the men's names to different objects - hatchet, ax, hammer, furniture.

Whenever he wanted a man to do something, he had to call him, "Hammer, go on deck and look out." The mermaid would holler, "Give to me hammer." So they threw the hammer overboard to her, and the vessel would proceed on. The captain might say,"Ax, you go on down in the kindling room start a fire in the boiler; it's going dead."

Then the mermaid says, "Give me ax." So they have to throw an iron ax. Next day he says, "Suit of furniture, go down in the stateroom and make up those beds." And the mermaid yells, "Give me a suit of furniture. So they had to throw a whole suit of furniture overboard.

One day he made a mistake and forgot and said, "Sam, go in the kitchen an cook supper." The mermaid right away calls, Give me Sam." They didn't have anything on the ship that was named Sam; so they had to throw Sam overboard. Soon as Sam hit the water she grabbed him. Her hair was so long  she could wrap him up - he didn't even get wet. And she's swimming so fast ha could catch breath under the water. When she got home deep in the ocean, she goes in, and unwraps Sam out of her hair, says: "Ooooh, you sure do look nice. Do you like fish? Sam says, "No I won't even cook a fish." Well, we'll get married. " So they were married.

After a while Sam begin to step out with others mermaids, His girl friend became jealous of him and his wife, and they had a fight over Sam. The wife whipped her, and told her, "You can't see Sam never again." She said "I'll get even with you." So one day Sam's girl friend asked him if he missed his native home and if he wanted to go back? He said yes. So she grabbed him and wrapped him in her hair and swum the same fastness as his wife did when she was carrying him, so he could catch breath. When she came to land she put him on the sand bank. "Now if I can't have him, no mermaid will have him." That was Sam's experience in the mermaid's home in the bottom of the sea.

Then he told the others how nice her home was, all fixed up with furniture and other things. There weren't any men down there - guess that's why they ain't any mermaids any more. Sam said they had purple lips just like women are painted today.

You see pictures of mermaids with lips like that. In old days people didn't wear lipstick, and I think they got the idea seeing those pictures. 

Sam told the people the mermaid's house was built like the alligator's. He digs in the bank at water level; then he goes up;  nature teaches him how high to go- then he digs down to water level again, and there he makes his home, ten to twenty feet long. The mermaid builds in the wall of the seal like  the alligator. Sam stayed down there six years. If he hadn't got co'ting he'd a been there still , I guess.