Pig in a Poke Chapter 12 Who needs sleep?

Sammy was Hungry All the Time
courtesy free clip art

 

Cindy said, “How are you? You look a little pale.”

I said, “I’m fine just a little tired and sleepy but that isn’t important, how are you doing?”

The doctor spoke up and said, “She is fine. Everything went well and she could have a dozen of these little guys.”

I said, “I think I would settle for a half dozen or so.”

He said, “Cindy needs some rest.  She should see if the boy will nurse, and then get some rest.  My wife will stay here as long as needed.  The first thing she needs to do is fix some breakfast for us. 

She had put Samuel in the cradle one of our workmen made for him and he was asleep with his thumb in his mouth. 

It was hard to keep Cindy in bed for she was restless and kept going to see how Sammie was doing.  Her favorite time was feeding him.

Sammie was becoming aware of things around him and making some unintelligible sounds.  I was kept busy handling the receiving and dispersing goods the ferries brought in. 

After Sammie was a month old Cindy setup a crib for him in the office warehouse.  She wanted to get back to helping me keep everything in order.  We were training one of the men to receive goods and do the paper work.  This would relieve us from a lot of the paper work.

Cindy nursed Sammie and I told her to cover herself up when doing so, for too many of the guys were interested in watching her feed Sammie.

She didn’t think it was out of line to feed him when he was hungry and I agreed with her but with her breast size I still insisted she find a little privacy.

Sammie was a good size boy and was hungry all the time. Cindy hired a woman to keep house and do the washing. 

Most of her time was washing Sammie’s diapers.  He began to try to stand at around six months and by eight months he could pull himself up and take a step or two.  He loved to ride on the ferry.

Cindy went to San Francisco once a week to see Bartlett and let him see Sammie.  He was as taken with him as Cindy was and tried to spoil him.

When they were gone overnight I could hardly sleep without Cindy taking the middle of the bed and Sammie waking up every couple of hours wanting to eat.

Cindy at times was too tired to stay up so she would bring Sammie to our bed where he only takes two or three sucks and goes back to sleep.  Such is fatherhood, I guess.

Time slips by and the first thing I know Sammie is three years old.  He is walking and talking using his reasoning powers to explain life to us or his version of it anyhow.

Not everything goes as well as we would like it to in shipping as in other endeavors.  Even though our ships are nearly new hitting a sand bank caused by shifting currents and storms can cause much damage.

So far the damage has been repairable still losing a ship for a time can create delivery problems.  Extra runs for the remaining ferries puts stress on both equipment and crews.  We found an older ferry in Washington that was for sale and bought it.

We had to take our time sailing it to our home base for the weather was not always predictable.  We had to duck into some harbors at times until the weather calmed down. 

Eventually we got it to San Francisco and had it worked on.  After checking it out it wasn’t in as bad shape as we thought.  Most of the repairs were more of the maintenance type. 

We decided to dock it at San Francisco due to the fact that most all of our cargo originated from there.

Now we had a backup in case of a problem with our regular ferries.  Bartlett came up with the idea of renting out the state rooms when we weren’t using it for shipping purposes. 

Some of the men living there were sailors and when we used it for hauling the over flow of merchandise we only had to get a couple of deck hands.

When Sammie first saw it he said he wanted to rename it Frisco Queen. I told him that would be a problem because it would have to be reregistered.

He was insistent so as usual we let him have his way.

To be continued