Project Gutenberg's The Sandman: His Sea Stories, by William J. Hopkins
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Title: The Sandman: His Sea Stories
Author: William J. Hopkins
Illustrator: Diantha W. Horne
Release Date: May 10, 2009 [EBook #28748]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SANDMAN: HIS SEA STORIES ***
Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen, Joseph Cooper and the
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[Illustration: "THEY SAILED ON, IN THE MOONLIGHT"
(See page 297)]
The Sandman:
His Sea
Stories
By
William J. Hopkins
Author of "The Sandman: His Farm Stories,"
"The Sandman: More Farm Stories," "The
Sandman: His Ship Stories," etc.
With Forty Illustrations by
Diantha W. Horne
This special edition is published by arrangement
with the publisher of the regular edition,
The Page Company.
CADMUS BOOKS
E. M. HALE
AND COMPANY
CHICAGO
_Copyright, 1908_
BY THE PAGE COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
Made in U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE SEPTEMBER-GALE STORY 1
THE FIRE STORY 31
THE PORPOISE STORY 44
THE SEAWEED STORY 57
THE FLYING-FISH STORY 74
THE LOG-BOOK STORY 85
THE SHARK STORY 102
THE CHRISTMAS STORY 120
THE SOUNDING STORY 139
THE TEAK-WOOD STORY 153
THE STOWAWAY STORY 171
THE ALBATROSS STORY 185
THE DERELICT STORY 194
THE LIGHTHOUSE STORY 210
THE RUNAWAY STORY 222
THE TRAFALGAR STORY 243
THE CARGO STORY 253
THE PRIVATEER STORY 270
THE RACE STORY 291
THE PILOT STORY 310
THE DRIFTWOOD STORY 325
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"They sailed on, in the moonlight." (See page 297) _Frontispiece_
"Sometimes he had to hold on to the fences" 11
"They saw all sorts of things going up the river" 23
"A great tree that was blown down" 29
"It floated, burning, for a few minutes" 42
"They swam in a funny sort of way" 48
"They had more porpoises on deck than you would
have thought that they could possibly use" 55
"The surface of the sea seemed covered with them" 65
"They amused themselves for a long time" 72
"A school of fish suddenly leaped out of the water" 78
"The sailors were having a good time" 81
The Hour Glass 90
"Little Jacob liked to watch Captain Solomon" 93
"'Right there,' he said, 'you can see his back fin'" 109
The Shark 114
"'Yes, little lad,' he said. 'For you--if you want it'" 129
Christmas Island, 1st View, bearing N by E 132
Christmas Island, 2nd View, bearing SW 133
"Little Jacob watched it ... settle into the ocean" 138
The Lead 149
"He walked all around the great yard with the boys on
his back" 167
"He was in the hold of the ship" 177
The Albatross 188
"They watched it the day after the next, too" 192
"Captain Solomon ... was watching the moon" 199
"The fire blazed up, higher and higher" 207
"At last he went to sleep" 213
The Lighthouse 220
"It was a beautiful farm" 225
"Took up his bundle and went out the wide gate" 231
"He started up, thinking of the farm at home" 235
The Bags of Money 251
"Ran to get another bucket" 267
"With guns and swords and cutlasses" 272
"That was a signal for the _Industry_ to stop" 277
"It was a bigger flag than the first one" 280
"He took it up and looked, very carefully" 315
"The sloop was on her way" 319
"Many times had she been tied up at that wharf" 329
"At last the arm-chair was all done" 338
The Model of the _Industry_ 342
_The Sandman: His Sea Stories_
MORE STORIES OF THE BRIG "INDUSTRY"
THE SEPTEMBER-GALE STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.
Once, more than a hundred years ago, when ships still came to that
wharf, the brig _Industry_ came sailing into that river. For she was
one of the ships that used to come to that wharf, and she used to sail
from it to India and China, and she always brought back silks and cloth
of goats' hair and camels' hair shawls and sets of china and pretty
lacquered tables and trays, and things carved out of ebony and ivory and
teakwood, and logs of teakwood and tea and spices. And she had just got
back from those far countries and Captain Solomon and all the sailors
were very glad to get back. For it was more than a year since she had
sailed out of the little river, and they hadn't seen their families for
all that long time. And a year is a pretty long time for a man to be
sailing on the great ocean and not to see his wife and his dear little
boys and girls.
So they hurried and tied the _Industry_ to the wharf with great ropes
and they went away just as soon as they could. And the men that had
wives and little boys and girls went to see them, and the others went
somewhere. Perhaps they went to the Sailors' Home and perhaps they
didn't. But Captain Solomon went to the office of Captain Jonathan and
Captain Jacob, who were the owners of the _Industry_. Their office was
just at the head of the wharf, so he didn't have far to go. And Captain
Jonathan and Captain Jacob were there waiting for him, and they shook
hands with him and sent him packing off home, to see his wife and baby.
For Captain Solomon hadn't been married much more than a year and he had
sailed away on that long voyage after he had been married four months
and he had left his wife behind. And the baby had been born while he
was gone, so that he hadn't seen him yet. That baby was the one that was
called little Sol, that is told about in some of the Ship Stories.
Captain Solomon wanted to see his wife and his baby, so he hurried off
when Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob told him to.
Then the mate of the _Industry_ got a lot of men and had them take out
of the ship all the things that she had brought from those far
countries. And they wheeled them, on little trucks, into the building
where Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had their office, and they
piled them up in a great empty room that smelled strangely of camphor
and spices and tea and all sorts of other things that make a nice
smell.
At last all the things were taken out of the _Industry_, so that she
floated very high up in the water and the top of her rail, which the
sailors look over, was high above the wharf. And Captain Jonathan and
Captain Jacob came out of their office to speak to the mate. And the
mate said that the _Industry_ was all unloaded; for he was rather proud
that he had got all those many things out so quickly.
And Captain Jonathan answered the mate and said how quick he had been.
But Captain Jacob didn't say anything, for he was looking around at the
sky. The mate saw that Captain Jacob was looking at the sky, and he
looked up, too.
"Looks as though we might have a breeze o' wind," he said. For little
white feathery clouds were coming up from the southwest and covering
the sky like a thin veil.
Captain Jacob nodded. "More than a breeze," he said; for Captain Jacob
had been a truly captain and he knew about the weather.
"I've got out double warps," said the mate; and he meant that he had
tied the _Industry_ to the wharf with two ropes instead of one at each
place.
Captain Jacob nodded again. "That's well," he said. "That's just as
well."
And the mate said "Good night, sir," to Captain Jonathan and he said it
to Captain Jacob, too, and they bade him good night, and he went home.
That evening Captain Jacob heard the wind as he was playing chess with
Lois. Lois was Captain Jacob's wife. And Captain Jacob listened to the
wind and forgot about the game of chess that he was playing, so that
Lois beat him two games. That made Captain Jacob angry, for Lois didn't
care much about chess and couldn't play as well as Captain Jacob could.
She only played to please Captain Jacob, anyway. And Captain Jacob got
so angry that he put the chessmen away and went to bed; but he didn't
sleep very well, the wind howled so.
Very early in the morning, long before daylight, Captain Jacob got up.
He had been awake for some time, listening to the sound of the rain
against his windows and to the howling and shrieking of the wind. And he
wondered what was happening down on the river and if the _Industry_ was
all right. He knew well enough what was happening along the shore, and
that they would be hearing of wrecks for the next two weeks. They didn't
have the telegraph then, so that they wouldn't read in a morning paper
what had happened far away during the night, but would have to wait for
the stage to bring them the news, or for some boat to bring it. So
Captain Jacob got more and more uneasy, until, at last, he couldn't
stand it any longer.
And he dressed himself as fast as he could and put on his heavy boots
and his great cloak, and he pulled his hat down hard, and he lighted a
lantern and started down to the wharf. It was hard work, for the wind
was so strong that it almost took him up right off the ground, and blew
him along. And sometimes he had to hold on to the fences to keep
himself from blowing away; and he had to watch for a chance, when the
wind wasn't so strong for a minute, to cross the streets. Once he heard
a great crash, and he knew that that was the sound of a chimney that the
wind had blown over. But he couldn't stop to attend to that.
[Illustration: "SOMETIMES HE HAD TO HOLD ON TO THE FENCES"]
When he got to the wharf, he was surprised to see how high the hull of
the _Industry_ was. It wasn't daylight yet, but he could just make out
the bulk of it against the sky. And he was surprised because he knew
that it would not be time for the tide to be high for three hours yet,
and the _Industry_ was floating as high as she would at a very high
tide. So Captain Jacob made his way very carefully out on the wharf,
holding on to ropes and to other things when there were other things
to hold on to, and crouching down low, for he didn't want to be blown
off into the water.
At last he got to the edge, and he held his lantern over and looked down
at the water. And the top of the water was only about three feet down,
for the wind was blowing straight up the river from the ocean, and it
was so strong that it had blown the water from the ocean into the river.
And it was still blowing it in, and was getting stronger every minute.
Captain Jacob looked at the water a minute. "Hello!" he said. But nobody
could have heard him, there was such a noise of the wind and of the
waves washing against the wharf. He didn't say it to anybody in
particular, so he wasn't disappointed that nobody heard him. And he
listened again, and he thought he heard a noise as though somebody was
on the _Industry_. So he climbed up the side, with his lantern, and
there he saw the mate, for it was just beginning to be a little bit
light in the east. The mate was trying to do something with an anchor;
but the anchors were great, enormous, heavy things, and one man couldn't
do anything with them at all.
Captain Jacob went close beside the mate. "What you trying to do?" he
yelled, as loud as he could.
"What, sir?" asked the mate, yelling as loud as he could.
"What--you--trying--to--do?" asked Captain Jacob again. The wind was
playing a tune on every rope on the ship and singing a song besides, so
that the noise, up there on the deck, was fearful.
"Trying to get an anchor out in the river," yelled the mate, putting his
hands to his mouth like a trumpet. "Wharf's going to be flooded as the
tide rises. Afraid she'll capsize!"
"You can't do it alone," yelled Captain Jacob.
"No," yelled the mate. "Can't! Get some men!"
"Good!" yelled Captain Jacob. And the mate climbed down the side.
But the mate didn't have to go far, for some men were already coming as
well as they could, holding on by the fences on the way, and the mate
met those men. And they came on the _Industry_, and lowered the biggest
boat that she had into the water, and they all managed to get in,
somehow or other, and to hold the boat while Captain Jacob and the mate
lowered the anchor into the boat, winding the chain around the capstan.
The anchor was so heavy that it nearly sunk the boat, but it didn't
quite sink it. The end of the boat that the anchor was on was so near
the water that water kept splashing in.
Then the men all rowed very hard and the boat went ahead slowly, while
Captain Jacob and the mate let out more of the anchor chain. But they
couldn't go very far, for the wind was so strong and the waves were so
high and the heavy anchor chain held them back near the ship. When they
had got as far as they could, they managed to pry the anchor overboard.
It went into the water with a tremendous splash, wetting all the men;
but they didn't mind, for they were all wet through already with the
rain and the splashing of the waves. And the boat turned around and went
back to the shore. But the men didn't try to row it back to the
_Industry_. The wind blew them up the river, so that they got to the
shore three or four wharves up, beyond the railway where they pulled
ships up out of the water to mend them. They then walked back as quickly
as they could.
Captain Jacob and the mate had been working hard, taking in some of the
anchor chain. They put two of the bars in the capstan head and pushed as
hard as they could, and they had managed to get a strain on the anchor
by the time the men got back. It was daylight, by this time, and the
tide had risen so much that the men had to go splashing through water
that was up to their ankles all over the top of the wharf. But they
didn't care, and they got up on the ship, and some of them put more bars
in the capstan head and pushed, and some of them let out more of the
great ropes that held the ship to the wharf. They wanted to get her away
from the wharf and out in the river, for they were afraid that the wind
might blow her right over upon the wharf and tip her over. Then it would
be very hard to get her into the water again.
When the anchor chain was pulled in enough, they fastened it and went to
the stern and down one of the great ropes that held the _Industry_ to
the wharf. They went down, half sliding and half letting themselves down
by their hands, and Captain Jacob and the mate and all the men that were
on the ship went down that way. They all had been sailors, and a sailor
has to learn to do such things and not to be afraid. And they all
splashed into the water that was on the top of the wharf. Then they let
out the ropes from that end, but they didn't let them go. And the
_Industry_ lay out in the river, at anchor, about five fathoms from the
end of the wharf. A fathom is six feet, and sailors generally measure
distances in fathoms instead of in feet.
As soon as Captain Jacob had got to the wharf he yelled to the men and
waved his hand to them, for he was afraid that they could not hear him
if he tried to tell them anything. And he started very carefully across
the wharf, holding on to anything he could get hold of, and all the men
followed him. It was very hard work and very dangerous, too, going about
on top of the wharf, for the water was nearly up to the men's knees, and
it was all wavy. And Captain Jacob led the way to the office and opened
the door and they all went in.
As soon as they were inside, they began taking all the things that were
piled up in that great room that had the nice smell, and they carried
them up stairs. They didn't wait to be told what to do, for they knew
well enough that Captain Jacob was afraid that the tide might rise so
high that the floor of that room and of the office would be covered
with water and all the pretty things would be wet and spoiled. Of
course, water wouldn't spoil the china and such things, but it would
spoil the shawls and the silks and the tea and the spices. So they
worked hard until they had all the things up stairs.
And, by that time, the water was beginning to come in at the door and to
creep along over the floor; and Captain Jacob and the mate and all the
men went outside, and stood where they were sheltered from the wind, and
they watched the river, that stretched out very wide indeed, and they
watched the things that were being driven up on its surface by the wind,
and they watched the _Industry_.
They were all standing in the water, but they didn't know it. And they
saw all sorts of things going up the river, with the wind and the
waves: many small boats that had been dragged from their moorings or off
the beaches; and some larger boats that belonged to fishermen; and some
of the fishermen's huts that had stood in a row on a beach; and a part
of a house that had been built too near the water; and logs and boards
from the wharves and all kinds of drifting stuff. It was almost high
tide now, and the wind was stronger than ever. None of the men had had
any breakfast, but they didn't think of that.
"About the height of it, now," said the mate to Captain Jacob. They
could hear each other speak where they were standing, in a place that
was sheltered by the building. "Not so bad here, in the lee of the
office. And the wind'll go down as the tide turns, I'm thinking."
[Illustration: "THEY SAW ALL SORTS OF THINGS GOING UP THE RIVER"]
Captain Jacob nodded. He was watching the _Industry_ pitching in the
great seas that were coming up the river.
"She ought to have more chain out," he said anxiously. "I wish we could
have given her more chain. It's a terrible strain."
"If a man was to go out to her," began the mate, slowly, "he might be
able to give her more. He could shin up those warps----"
"Don't think of it!" said Captain Jacob. "Don't think of it!"
As he spoke, the ship's bow lifted to a great sea, there was a dull
sound that was scarcely heard, and she began to drift, slowly, at first,
until she was broadside to the wind. The anchor chain had broken; but
the great ropes that were fastened to the wharf still held her by the
stern. Then she drifted faster, in toward the wharves. There was a sound
like the report of a small cannon; then another and another. The great
ropes that had held her to the wharf had snapped like thread.
"Well," said Captain Jacob, "now I wonder where she'll bring up. We
can't do anything."
So they watched her drifting in to the wharf where the railway was,
where they pulled ships up out of the water to mend them. And Captain
Jonathan was coming down to the office just as the _Industry_ broke
adrift, and he saw that she would come ashore at the railway. So he
stopped there and waited for her to come. They had there a sort of
cradle, that runs down into the water on rails; and a ship fits into the
cradle and is drawn up out of the water to be mended. And Captain
Jonathan thought of that, and he thought that it wouldn't do any harm to
lower the cradle and see if the _Industry_ wouldn't happen to fit into
it. It might not do any good, but it couldn't do any harm; and the
_Industry_ was all unloaded, and floated very high in the water.
So Captain Jonathan and two other men, who belonged at that railway,
lowered the cradle as much as they thought would be right, and the
_Industry_ drifted in and she did happen to catch on the cradle. She
didn't fit into it exactly, for she was heeled over by the wind, and
she caught on the cradle more on one side than the other; but Captain
Jonathan thought that she would go into the water all right when the
tide went down a little and the cradle was lowered more. And he was glad
that he had happened to think of it.
Then, pretty soon, the tide began to go out again, and the wind stopped
blowing so hard. And, in an hour, there was not more than a strong gale
blowing, and men began to go out in row boats that hadn't broken adrift,
and to pick things up as they came down with the tide. The sea was very
rough, but they were afraid that the things would drift out to sea if
they waited.
And, in a couple of hours more, Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob and
the mate and all the men had the _Industry_ afloat again and were
warping her back to her wharf. There was no great harm done; only some
marks of scraping and bumping and the anchor down at the bottom of the
river.
[Illustration]
Then Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob went home to dinner, and pretty
soon all the men went, too. And they saw a great many chimneys blown
over into yards and a great many fences blown down; and they came to a
great tree that was blown down across the street, and then they saw
another and a third. And they had to go through somebody's yard to get
around these trees. And, when they got home, they heard about an old
woman who had tried to go somewhere, who had been picked up by the wind
and carried a long way and set down again on her own doorstep. And she
had taken the hint and gone into the house.
That great wind, they called the Great September Gale, for it happened
in the early part of September. That is the time of the year that such
great winds are most apt to come. And all the people had it to talk
about for a long time, for there wasn't another such gale for more than
twenty years.
And that's all.
THE FIRE STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.
One day, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ sailed away from that
wharf, on a voyage to India. And she sailed down the wide river and out
into the great ocean and on and on until the land was only a dim blue
streak on the horizon; and farther on, and the land sank out of sight,
and there was nothing to be seen, wherever Captain Solomon looked, but
that great, big water, that was so blue and that danced and sparkled in
the sunshine. For it was a beautiful afternoon and there was just a
gentle wind blowing, so that the _Industry_ had every bit of sail set
that could be set: mainsail and foresail and spanker, main-topsail, and
fore-topsail, main-topgallantsail and fore-topgallantsail and main-royal
and fore-royal and main-skysail and fore-skysail and staysails and all
her jibs and a studdingsail on every yard, out on its boom. She was
sailing very fast, and she was a pretty sight, with that cloud of
canvas. She looked like a great white bird. I wish that you and I could
have seen her.
And the crew didn't have much to do, when they had got all those sails
set. They had already been divided into watches, so that every man knew
what his duty would be, and when he would have to be on deck, ready to
work, and when he could sleep. And they stood at the rail, mostly, and
they leaned on it and looked out over the water in the direction of that
little city that they were leaving behind them and that they wouldn't
see again for nearly a year. They couldn't see the little city because
it was down behind the roundness of the world; but they saw the sun,
which was almost setting. And the sun sank lower and lower until it sank
into the sea. And there were all sorts of pretty colors, in the west,
which changed and grew dim, and disappeared. And the stars came out, one
by one, and it was night.
Captain Solomon didn't have any of those many sails taken in, because
he knew that it would be pleasant weather all night, and that the wind
would be less rather than more. And it was such a beautiful night that
he didn't go to bed early, but stayed on deck until it was very late;
and he watched the stars and the water and he listened to the wash of
the waves as the ship went through them and he saw the foam that she
made; and he felt the gentle wind blowing on his cheek, and it all
seemed very good to him. Captain Solomon loved the sea. Then, when it
was very late, and they were just going to change the watch, he went
into the cabin to go to bed.
Before he had got his clothes off, he heard a commotion on deck, and the
mate came running down.
"The ship's on fire, sir," he said. "There's smoke coming out of the
forward hatch."
Captain Solomon said something and threw on his clothes that he had
taken off and ran out on deck. It was less than half a minute from the
time the mate had told him. And he saw a little, thin column of smoke
rising out of the forward hatchway, just as the mate had said. They had
the hatch off by this time, and the sailors were all on deck. The
hatchway is a square hole in the deck that leads down into the hold,
where the things are put that the ship carries. It has a cover made of
planks, and the cover fits on tightly and can be fastened down. It
usually is fastened when the ship is going.
Captain Solomon spoke to the mate. "Put her about on the other tack,"
he said, "and head for Boston, while we fight it. If we get it under, as
I think we will, we'll lose only a couple of hours. If we don't, we can
get help there. We ought to make Boston by daylight."
"Aye, aye, sir," said the mate. And he gave the orders in a sharp voice,
and most of the crew jumped for the sails and the ropes and pulled and
hauled, and they soon had the ship heading for Boston. But the second
mate and a few of the sailors got lanterns and lighted them.
And, when they had lighted their lanterns, the second mate jumped down
the hatchway into the smoke, and four sailors jumped down after him. And
they began tumbling about the bales of things; but they couldn't tumble
them about very much, for there wasn't room, the cargo had been stowed
so tightly. And the second mate asked Captain Solomon to rig a tackle to
hoist some of the things out on deck.
"Doing it, now," answered Captain Solomon. "It'll be ready in half a
minute."
And they got the tackle rigged right over the hatchway, and they let
down one end of the rope to the second mate. This end of the rope that
was let down had two great, iron hooks that could be hooked into a bale,
one on each side. And the second mate and the sailors that were down
there with him hooked them into a bale and yelled. Then a great many of
the sailors, who already had hold of the other end of the rope, ran away
with it, so that the bale came up as if it had been blown up through
the hatchway. Then other sailors caught it, and threw it over to one
side and unhooked the hooks, and they let them down into the hold again.
They got up a great many bales in this way, and they did it faster than
the _Industry_ had ever been unloaded before. And the sailors that ran
away with the rope sang as they ran.
"What shall we do with a drunken sailor?"
was the chanty that they sang. And, at last, the second mate and the
four sailors came out of the hold, and they were choking with the smoke
and rubbing their eyes.
"Getting down to it, sir," said the second mate, "but we couldn't stand
any more."
So the first mate didn't wait, but he took the second mate's lantern and
jumped down.
"Four men follow me!" he cried; and all the other sailors, who hadn't
been down yet, jumped for the lanterns of the four sailors who had been
down, and Captain Solomon laughed.
"That's the way to do it!" he cried. "That's the sort of spirit I like
to see. We'll have it out in a jiffy. Four of you men at a time. You'll
all have a turn. Man the pumps, some of you, and be ready to turn a
stream down there if it's wanted."
So the four who had been nearest to the lanterns went down, and some of
the others tailed on to the rope, and still others got the pumps ready
and rigged a hose and put the end of it down the hatchway. But they
didn't pump, because Captain Solomon knew that water would do harm to
the cargo that wasn't harmed yet, and he didn't want to pump water into
the hold unless he had to.
Then they all hurried some more and got out more bales, until the mate
and his four men had to come up; but there were more men waiting to go
down, and, this time, Captain Solomon led them.
He hadn't been there long before he called out. "Here she is!" he said.
And the sailors hoisted out a bale that was smoking. As soon as it was
on deck, out in the air, it burst into flames.
Captain Solomon had come up. "Heave it overboard!" he cried. And four
sailors took hold of it and heaved it over the side into the water. The
_Industry_ was sailing pretty fast and quickly left it astern, where it
floated, burning, for a few minutes; then, as the water soaked into the
bale, it got heavier, and sank, and the sailors saw the light go out,
suddenly.
[Illustration]
Captain Solomon drew a long breath. "Put her on her course again, Mr.
Steele," he said to the mate. "We won't lose any more time. You can have
this mess cleared up in the morning."
And the sailors jumped for the ropes, although they were pretty tired,
and they swung the yards around, two at a time, with a chanty for each.
The _Industry_ was sailing away for India again. And, the next day they
cleared the smoke out of the hold, and they stowed the cargo that had
been taken out in the night, and they put on the hatch and fastened it.
And that's all.
THE PORPOISE STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.
Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed away from the
wharf and out into the great ocean on a voyage to India. And she had
been gone from the wide river three or four days, and she was well out
into the ocean and no land was in sight, but only water and once in a
while another ship. But they didn't see ships as often as they had at
first, and it was good weather and the wind was fair, so that there
wasn't anything much for the sailors to do. The mates kept them as busy
as they could, washing down the deck and coiling ropes, and doing a lot
of other things that didn't need to be done, for the _Industry_ had just
been fixed up and painted and made as clean as she could be made. And
that was pretty clean. So the sailors didn't care very much about doing
a lot of things that didn't need to be done, but they did them, as
slowly as they could, because, if they said that they wouldn't do things
that the mates or the captain told them to do, that would be mutiny. And
mutiny, at sea, is a very serious thing for everybody. It satisfied
Captain Solomon and the mate well enough to have the men do things
slowly, so long as they did them. For they knew that the men would do
things quickly if there was any need for quickness.
Then, one morning, just as it began to be light, the man who was the
lookout thought that he saw something in the water about the ship that
didn't look quite like waves. And it got a little lighter so that he
could make sure, and he called some others of his watch and told them to
look and see the school of porpoises. And they all looked, and those men
told others who looked over the side, too, and pretty soon all the men
of that watch were leaning on the rail and looking at the porpoises.
That made the mate who was on watch look over, too, so that every man on
deck was looking over the side into the water. Then the sun came up out
of the water.
[Illustration]
What they saw was a great many big fishes, all black and shining, and
each one had spots of white on its side and a funny-shaped head. Most of
them seemed to be about the size of a man, and they swam in a funny sort
of way, in and out of the water, so that their backs showed most of the
time, and they glistened and shone and their spots of white made them
rather a pretty sight. And now and then they spouted little jets of
water and spray out of their heads into the air, just as if they were
little whales. Porpoises are more like little whales than they are like
fishes, for they have to breathe air, just as whales do, and they spout
just as whales do, and they are like whales in other ways. They aren't
really fishes, at all.
The _Industry_ was sailing very fast, for the wind was fair and strong,
and she had all the sails set that she could set; but the porpoises
didn't seem to think she was going very fast, for they had no trouble at
all to keep up with her and they could play by the way, too. And so
they did, hundreds of them. Some of them kept just ahead of her stem,
where it cut through the water, and they leaped and gambolled, but the
ship never caught up with them. And they were doing the same thing all
about.
Seeing the porpoises that kept just ahead of the _Industry_ made the
sailors think of something and they all thought of the same thing at
once. Perhaps it was because it was about breakfast time. Four of the
men went aft to speak to the mate, who was standing where the deck is
higher. And the mate didn't wait for them to speak, for he knew just
what they were going to ask him. The men had their hats in their hands
by the time they got near.
The mate smiled. "Yes, you may," he said. "I'll get 'em." And he went
into the cabin.
When he had gone the men grinned at each other and looked pleased and
each man was thinking that the mate was not so bad, after all, even if
he did make them do work that didn't need to be done, just to kept them
busy. But they didn't say anything.
Then the mate came out, and he had two harpoons in his hand.
"There!" he said. "Two's enough. You'd only get in each other's way if
there were more. Bend a line on to each, and make it fast, somewhere."
Then Captain Solomon came on deck, and he offered a prize of half a
pound of tobacco to the best harpooner. And the men cheered when they
heard him, and they took the harpoons and ran forward.
They hurried and fastened a rather small rope on to each harpoon, in the
way a rope ought to be fastened to a harpoon, and two of the sailors
took the two harpoons and went down under the bowsprit, in among the
chains that go from the end of the bowsprit to the stem of the ship.
They went there so as to be near the water. They might get wet there,
but they didn't care about that. And the other end of the rope, that was
fastened to each harpoon, was made fast up on deck, so that the harpoon
shouldn't be lost if it wasn't stuck into a porpoise, and so that the
porpoise shouldn't get away if it was stuck into him.
One of the sailors was so excited that he didn't hit anything with his
harpoon, and the sailors up on deck hauled it in. The other sailor
managed to hit a porpoise, but he was excited, too, and the harpoon
didn't go in the right place. When the sailors up on deck tried to haul
the porpoise in, it broke away, and went swimming off.
Then those sailors came back on deck and two others took their places.
One of those others had been harpooner on a whaleship before he went on
the _Industry_. He didn't get excited at harpooning a porpoise, but
drove his harpoon in at just exactly the right place, and the sailors up
on deck hauled that porpoise in. Afterwards, that sailor got the half
pound of tobacco that Captain Solomon had offered as a prize, because he
harpooned his porpoise just exactly the right way.
The sailor that went with him struck a porpoise, too, but it wasn't
quite in the right place, and the men had hard work to get him.
And then other sailors came and tried, and they took turns until they
had more porpoises on deck than you would have thought that they could
possibly use.
And all the men had porpoise steak for breakfast that morning and
porpoise steak for dinner, and porpoise steak for supper. Sailors call
porpoises "puffing pigs," and porpoise steak tastes something like pork
steak, and sailors like it. But they had it for every meal until there
was only one porpoise left, and that one they had to throw overboard.
And that's all.
[Illustration: "THEY HAD MORE PORPOISES ON DECK THAN YOU WOULD HAVE
THOUGHT THAT THEY COULD POSSIBLY USE"]
THE SEAWEED STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they made up their
minds that they ought to move their office to Boston. And so they did.
And, after that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston and Captain
Jonathan and Captain Jacob had their office on India street. Then the
change began in that little city and that wharf.
Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from Boston for a
far country, and little Jacob had gone on that voyage. Little Jacob was
Captain Jacob's son and Lois's, and the grandson of Captain Jonathan,
and when he went on that voyage he was almost thirteen years old. And
little Sol went, too. He was Captain Solomon's son, and he was only a
few months younger than little Jacob. Captain Solomon had taken him in
the hope that the voyage would discourage him from going to sea. But, as
it turned out, it didn't discourage him at all, but he liked going to
sea, so that afterwards he ran away and went to sea, and became the
captain of that very ship, as you shall hear.
The _Industry_ had been out a little more than a week, and she had run
into a storm. The storm didn't do any harm except to blow her out of her
course, and then she ran out of it. And the next morning little Jacob
came out on deck and he looked for little Sol. The first place that he
looked in was out on the bowsprit; for little Sol liked to be out there,
where he could see all about him and could see the ship making the wave
at her bow and feel as if he wasn't on the ship, at all, but free as
air. It was a perfectly safe place to be in, for there were nettings on
each side to keep him from falling, and he didn't go out beyond the
nettings onto the part that was just a round spar sticking out.
When little Jacob got to the bow of the ship, he looked out on the
bowsprit, and there was little Sol; but he wasn't lying on his back as
he was most apt to be, nor he wasn't lying down with one hand propping
up his head, which was the way he liked to lie to watch the wave that
the ship made. He was lying stretched out on his stomach, with both
hands propping up his chin, and he was looking straight out ahead, so
that he didn't see little Jacob. And the _Industry_ was pitching a good
deal, for the storm had made great waves, like mountains, and the waves
that were left were still great. The ship made a sort of growling noise
as she went down into a wave, and a sort of hissing noise as she came
up out of it, and little Jacob was--well, not afraid, exactly, but he
didn't just like to go out there where little Sol was, with the ship
making all those queer noises. You see, it was little Jacob's first
storm at sea. It was little Sol's first storm, too; but then, boys are
different.
So little Jacob called. "Sol!" he said.
Little Sol turned his head quickly. "Hello, Jake," said he. "Come on
out. There's lots to see out here to-day."
"Are--are there things to see that I couldn't see from here?" asked
little Jacob.
"Of course there are," answered little Sol, scornfully. "You can't see
anything from there--anything much."
"The ship pitches a good deal," remarked little Jacob. "Don't you think
so?"
"Oh, some," said little Sol, "but it's safe enough after you get here.
You could crawl out. I walked out. See here, I'll walk in, to where you
are, on my hands."
And little Sol scrambled up and walked in on his hands, with his feet in
the air. He let his feet down carelessly. "There!" he said. "You see."
"Well," said little Jacob. "I can't walk on my hands, because I don't
know how. You show me, Sol, will you?--when it's calm. And I'll walk out
on my feet."
Little Jacob was rather white, but he didn't hesitate, and he walked out
on the bowsprit to the place where he generally sat. It was rather hard
work keeping his balance, but he did it. And little Sol came after, and
said he would show him how to walk on his hands, some day when it was
calm enough. For little Sol didn't think little Jacob was afraid, and
the two boys liked each other very much.
"There!" said little Sol, when they were settled, "you look out ahead,
and see if you see anything."
So little Jacob looked and looked for a long time, but he didn't know
what he was looking for, and that makes a great difference about seeing
a thing.
"I don't see anything," said he. "What is it, Sol--a ship!"
"No, oh no," answered little Sol. "It's on the water--on the surface.
We've almost got to one of 'em."
[Illustration]
So little Jacob looked again, and he saw what looked, at first, like a
calm streak on the water. There seemed to be little sticks sticking up
out of the calm streak. Then he saw that it looked like a narrow island,
except that it went up and down with the waves. Sometimes he saw one
part of it, and then he saw another part. And the island was all covered
with water, and the water near it was calm, and it was a yellowish
brown, like seaweed. In a minute or two the _Industry_ was ploughing
through it, and he could see that it was a great mass of floating
seaweed that gave way, before the ship, like water, and the little
sticks that he had seen, sticking up, were the stems. A little way ahead
there was another of the floating islands; and another and another,
until the surface of the sea seemed covered with them. They were really
fifteen or twenty fathoms apart; but, from a distance, it didn't look as
if they were.
"Why, Sol," said little Jacob, in surprise, "it doesn't stop the ship at
all. I should think it would. What is it?"
"Well," answered little Sol. "I asked one of the men, and he laughed and
said it was nothing but seaweed--that the ship would make nothing of it.
I was afraid we were running aground. And the man said that the rows--it
gets in windrows, like hay that's being raked up--he said that the
windrows were broken up a good deal by the storm; that he's often seen
'em stretching as far as the eye could see, and a good deal thicker than
these are."
Little Jacob laughed. "What are you laughing at?" asked little Sol,
looking up.
"'As far as the eye could see,'" said little Jacob.
"Well," said little Sol, "that's just what he said, anyway."
"I'm going to ask your father about it," said little Jacob. "He'll know
all about it. He always knows." And he got up, carefully, and made his
way inboard; then he ran aft, to look for Captain Solomon.
He found Captain Solomon on the quarter deck, leaning against the part
of the cabin that stuck up through the deck. He was half sitting on it
and looking out at the rows of seaweed that they passed. So little Jacob
asked him.
"Yes, Jacob," answered Captain Solomon, "it's just seaweed, nothing but
seaweed. We're just on the edge of the Sargasso Sea, and that means
nothing but Seaweed Sea. The weed gets in long rows, just as you see it
now, only the rows are apt to be longer and not so broken up. It's the
wind that does it, and the ocean currents. It's my belief that the wind
is the cause of the currents, too. I've seen acres of this weed packed
so tight together that it looked as if we were sailing on my south
meadow just at haying time. I don't see that south meadow at haying time
very often, now, but I shall see it, please God, pretty soon."
"Well," said little Jacob, "I should think that it would get all tangled
up so that it would stop the ship."
"My south meadow?" asked Captain Solomon. He was thinking of haying, and
he had forgotten the Seaweed Sea.
Little Jacob laughed. "No, sir," he answered. "The seaweed. Why doesn't
it get all tangled like ropes, so that it stops the ship?"
"The plants aren't long enough," said Captain Solomon. "Come, we'll get
some of it for you."
"Oh!" cried little Jacob. "Will you? Thank you, sir."
And Captain Solomon told two of the sailors to come and to bring a big
bucket. The bucket had a long rope fastened across, and the end was long
enough to reach from the water up to the deck of the _Industry_. They
use buckets like that to dip up the salt water; and, when the ship is
going the sailors have to be very careful and very quick or they will
lose the bucket, it pulls so hard.
So one sailor dipped the bucket just as they were passing over one of
the rows of seaweed; and the other sailor took hold of the rope, too, as
soon as he had dipped the bucket, and they pulled it up and set it on
deck. Captain Solomon stooped and took up a plant. There were two plants
in the bucket. Little Sol had come when he saw the sailors with the
bucket.
And Captain Solomon showed the boys that a plant was about the size of a
cabbage, and that it had a great many little balloons that grew on it
about as big as a pea, and these balloons were filled with air to make
the plant float. Some of them were almost as big as a nut, and little
Sol and little Jacob had fun trying to make them pop.
[Illustration]
Then little Sol found a tiny fish in the bucket that was just the color
of the weed; and little Jacob saw another, and then he saw a crab drop
from the weed that Captain Solomon was holding, and the crab was just
the color of the weed, too. And they amused themselves for a long time
with hunting for the queer fishes and crabs and shrimps, and something
that was like a mussel, but it wasn't just like one, either. And they
found a place in the weed where were some little balls. And they opened
the balls, and little Sol said he'd bet that they were where some
animal laid its eggs. But little Jacob didn't say anything, for he
didn't pretend to know anything about it. But Captain Solomon got tired
of holding that weed, so he dropped it back into the bucket and went
away. And, at last, when little Jacob and little Sol got tired of
hunting for things in the weed, the sailors threw it over into the ocean
again.
And that's all.
THE FLYING-FISH STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from Boston for a far country and
she had got down into the warm parts of the ocean. Little Jacob and
little Sol had gone on that voyage. Little Sol always got out on deck,
in the morning, a little while before little Jacob got out. And, one
morning, he had gone on deck and little Jacob was hurrying to finish his
breakfast, when little Sol came running back and stuck his head in at
the cabin door.
"Oh, Jake," he called, "come out here, quick! There are fishes with
wings on 'em, and they are flying all 'round."
Then little Jacob was very much excited, and he wanted to leave the rest
of his breakfast and go out. All of a sudden he found that he wasn't
hungry. But Captain Solomon was there, and he smiled at little Jacob's
eagerness.
"Better finish your breakfast, Jacob," he said. "The flying fish won't
go away--not before you get through."
"Thank you, sir," said little Jacob. "I'm all through. I don't feel
hungry for any more."
"All right," said Captain Solomon. "But if you and Sol get hungry you
can go to the cook. I have an idea that he will have something for you."
Little Jacob was already half way up the cabin steps. "Thank you, sir,"
he said; but there was some doubt whether he had heard. Captain Solomon
smiled again and got up and followed him.
Little Sol was in his favorite place on the bowsprit, and little Jacob
was going there as fast as he could. He settled himself in his place
and began to look around.
"Where, Sol?" he asked. "Where are the--oh!"
[Illustration]
For, just ahead of the ship, a school of fish suddenly leaped out of the
water, and went flying about fifteen or twenty feet above the water for
a hundred feet or more. And they kept coming. Little Jacob could hear
the humming of their long fins, but he couldn't see their fins, they
went so fast. Little Sol had thought they were wings; and it was as
nearly right to call them wings as to call them fins.
"Oo--o, Sol!" cried little Jacob. "_Aren't_ they pretty? And aren't they
small? And don't they fly fast?"
"M--m," said little Sol.
"Look at these over there!" cried little Jacob, again. "See! They are
flying faster than the ship is going. They are beating us!"
Little Jacob was pointing to some fish that were flying in the same
direction that the _Industry_ was sailing. They went ahead of her and
dropped into the water.
"H'mph!" said little Sol. "There isn't much wind, anyway. If there was,
I'll bet they wouldn't beat us." There really was a good deal of wind.
"But aren't they pretty colors, Sol?" said little Jacob. "They're all
colors of blue and silvery. I can't see them very plainly, they go so
fast. I wish I could see them plainer."
Captain Solomon was standing near enough to hear what little Jacob said.
"If you'll come inboard, Jacob," said Captain Solomon, "you can see
them. We're catching them."
[Illustration: "THE SAILORS WERE HAVING A GOOD TIME"]
And little Jacob turned his head, and then he scrambled in. Now and then
some of the flying fish flew right across the deck of the _Industry_.
And some of them came down on the deck, and some struck against the
masts and ropes; and the sailors were standing all about, looking
excited, as if they were playing a game. They had their caps in their
hands, and when the fish flew across the deck, they tried to catch
them in their caps. And some they caught and some they didn't; but the
sailors were having a good time, and they laughed and shouted at their
play.
And a sailor who had just caught a fish in his cap brought it to little
Jacob.
"Now you can see it plainer," said Captain Solomon.
Little Jacob looked and he saw a fish that was less than a foot long,
and the color on its back was a deep, ocean blue, and the fins were a
darker blue, and it was all silvery underneath. And it had long fins
coming out of its shoulders, almost as long as the fish, and they looked
very strong and almost like a swallow's wings.
By and by little Jacob looked up at Captain Solomon. "Why do the men
want to catch so many of them?" he asked. "Because it's fun?"
"Well, no," said Captain Solomon. "It is great fun. I've done it myself,
in my day. But these fish are very good to eat. Any kind of fresh meat
is a good thing, when you know there's nothing better than salted meat
to fall back on. You'll see how good they are, at dinner."
Little Jacob sighed. "Oh," he said. "Thank you for showing me."
And he was rather sober as he went back to his place on the bowsprit to
watch. But when dinner time came, he ate some of the flying fish and
thought they were very nice, indeed.
And that's all.
THE LOG-BOOK STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from Boston for a
far country, and little Jacob and little Sol had gone on that voyage.
Little Jacob and little Sol were very much interested in the things that
they saw every day and in the things that were done every day on the
ship by the sailors and by the mates and by Captain Solomon. But those
things that happened the same sort of way, every day, interested little
Jacob more than they did little Sol. Little Sol liked to see them a few
times, until he knew just what to expect, and then he liked to be out on
the bowsprit, seeing the things that he didn't expect; or he liked to be
doing things. And the things that he did were the sort of things that
nobody else expected. So the things that little Sol did were an
amusement to the sailors and to the mates; and sometimes they were an
amusement to Captain Solomon and sometimes they weren't. When they
didn't amuse Captain Solomon they didn't usually amuse little Sol,
either.
Every captain of a ship keeps a sort of diary, or journal, of the voyage
that ship is making. This diary is usually called the ship's log. And
every day he writes in it what happened that day; the courses the ship
sailed and the number of miles she sailed on each course; the sails that
were set and the direction and strength of the wind; and the state of
the weather and the exact part of the ocean she was in and the time that
she was there.
The exact part of the ocean that the ship is in is usually found by
looking at the sun, just at noon, through a little three-cornered thing,
called a sextant, that is small enough for the captain or the mate to
hold in his hands; and by seeing what time it is, by a sort of clock,
when the sun is the very highest. Then the captain goes down into the
cabin and does some arithmetic out of a book, using the things that his
sextant had told him, and he finds just exactly where the ship was at
noon of that day. Then he pricks the position of the ship on a chart,
which is a map of the ocean, so that he can see how well she is going on
her course.
Sometimes it is cloudy at noon, so that he can't look at the sun then,
but it clears up after dark. Then the captain looks through his sextant
at the moon, or at some bright star, and finds his position that way.
And sometimes it is cloudy for several days together, so that he can't
take an observation with his sextant in all that time. Captains don't
like it very well when it is cloudy for several days together, for then
they have nothing to tell them just where the ship is, but what is
called "dead reckoning."
[Illustration]
Captain Solomon usually had the speed at which the ship was sailing
measured several times every day. When he wanted that done, he called a
sailor to "heave the log;" and the sailor came and took up a real log,
or board, fastened to the end of a long rope, while one of the mates
held an hour glass. But there wasn't sand enough in the glass to run for
an hour, but it would run for half a minute. And when the mate gave the
word, the sailor dropped the log over the stern of the ship and the mate
turned the glass. And the sailor held the reel with the rope on it, so
that the rope would run off freely, and he counted, aloud, the knots in
the rope as it ran out. For the rope had knots of colored leather in it,
and the knots were just far enough apart so that the number of knots
that ran out in half a minute would show the number of sea miles that
the ship was sailing in an hour. And when the sand in the glass had all
run out, the mate gave the word again, and the sailor stopped the rope
from running out. So Captain Solomon knew about how many miles the
_Industry_ had sailed on each course, and he could put it down in his
book.
That wasn't a very good way to tell where the ship was, by adding up all
the courses she had sailed and getting her speed on each course, and
adding all these to the last place that they knew about, but, when
Captain Solomon couldn't get an observation with his sextant, it was the
only way there was. That isn't the way they tell, now-a-days, how many
miles a ship has sailed, for there is a better way that gives, more
exactly than the old-fashioned "log," the number of miles. But they
still have to add up all the courses and the miles sailed on each course
to find a ship's place, when they can't take an observation. That is
what is called "dead reckoning," and it isn't a very good way at its
best.
[Illustration: "LITTLE JACOB LIKED TO WATCH CAPTAIN SOLOMON"]
Little Jacob liked to watch Captain Solomon writing up the log for the
day. He always wrote it just after dinner. And when he had finished
dinner, he would get out the book and clear a place on the table to put
it; and then he took a quill pen in his great fist and wrote, very
slowly, and with flourishes. And when he had it done he always passed
the book over to little Jacob.
"There, Jacob," he said, with a smile. "That please you?"
"Oh, yes, sir," answered little Jacob. "Thank you, sir." And he began to
read.
One day, when they had been out of Boston about three weeks, little
Jacob watched Captain Solomon write up the log, and, when he got it, he
thought he would turn back to some days that he knew about and read what
Captain Solomon had said about them. And so he did.
October 2, 1796. 8 days out. Comes in fresh gales & Flying clouds.
Middle & latter part much the same, with all proper sail spread.
Imploy'd varnishing Deck and scraping Foreyard. Saw a Brig and two
Ships standing to the N. & W. A school of porpoises about the ship
a good part of the Morning, of which the Crew harpooned a good
number and got them on deck. I fear they are too many for us to
acct. for before they go Bad.
Course ESE 186 miles. Wind fresh from S. & W. Observatn, Lat. 34 20
N. Long. 53 32 W.
That didn't seem to little Jacob to be enough to say about the
porpoises. He sighed and turned to another day.
October 5, 1796. 11 days out. Comes in Fresh breezes and a rough
sea fr. S. & E. Spoke Brig Transit of Workington fr.--S. Salvador
for Hamburg. Middle & latter part moderate with clear skies and
beautiful weather. Ran into some weed and running threw it off and
on all day.
Courses ESE 98 m. Wind strong fr. N. & E.,
moderating to gentle airs.
SSE. 54 m. Observatn.,
---- Lat. 30 22 N.
152
Long. 47 30 W.
And it seemed to little Jacob that it was a shame to say no more than
that about that strange Seaweed Sea and the curious things that were to
be found in it. But it was Captain Solomon's log and not little Jacob's.
He turned to another day, to see what there was about the flying fish.
October 11, 1796. 17 days out of Boston. Comes in with good fresh
Trades and flying clouds. Middle & latter part much the same. Saw a
ship standing on our course. Not near enough to speak her. At
daylight passed the ship abt. 5 miles to windward. All proper sail
spread.
Great numbers of Flying Fish (Sea Swallows) all about the ship,
and the men imploy'd in catching them. It gave the men much
pleasure and a deal of sport and the Fish very good eating.
Course SSE 203 miles. Wind NE. strong, Trades. Observatn., Lat. 18
10 N. Long. 37 32 W.
Chronometer loses _too much_.
Took Spica and Aquila at 7 p. m., Long. 35 30 W.
Little Jacob didn't know what Spica and Aquila were, and he asked
Captain Solomon.
"They are stars, Jacob, and rather bright ones," said Captain Solomon.
"My chronometer--my clock, you know--was losing a good deal, and I
looked through my sextant at them to find out where we really were."
"Oh," said little Jacob; but he didn't understand very well, and Captain
Solomon saw that he didn't. It wasn't strange that he didn't
understand.
Little Jacob sat looking at the log book and he didn't say anything for
a long time.
Captain Solomon smiled. "Well, Jacob," he said, at last, "what are you
thinking about? I guess you were thinking that you wished that you had
the log to write up. Then you could say more about the things that were
interesting. Weren't you?"
Little Jacob got very red. "Oh, no, sir," he said. "That is, I--well,
you see, the things that are new and interesting to me--well, I s'pose
you have seen them so many times that it doesn't seem worth while to you
to say much about them."
"That is a part of the reason," answered Captain Solomon. "The other
part is that it doesn't seem necessary. Anything that concerns the ship
is put down. We don't have time--nor we don't have the wish--to put down
anything else."
"Of course," said little Jacob, "it isn't necessary."
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Jacob," said Captain Solomon. "I'll let you
write up the log, and then you can write as much as you like about
anything that interests you."
Little Jacob got very red again. "_Oh!_" he cried, getting up in his
excitement. "Will you let me do that? _Thank_ you. I thank you very
much. But--but how shall I put down all those numbers that show how the
ship goes?"
"I'll give you the numbers, as you call them," said Captain Solomon,
"and I'll look over the log every day, to see that you put them down
right."
"I'll put them down just exactly the way you tell me to," said little
Jacob. "And I thank you very much. And I--I write pretty well."
And little Jacob ran to find little Sol and to tell him about how he was
going to write the log of the voyage, after that. And he did write it,
numbers and all, and it was a very interesting and well written log. For
little Jacob could write very well indeed; rather better than Captain
Solomon. Captain Solomon knew that when he said that little Jacob could
write it.
And that's all.
THE SHARK STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's, and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once the brig _Industry_ had sailed for a far country. Little Jacob and
little Sol had gone on that voyage, and they always raced through their
breakfast so that they could get out on deck and see what there was to
see. Little Sol generally beat and went on deck first, but sometimes
little Jacob was first. The reason that little Sol generally beat was
that little Jacob had been brought up not to hurry through his meals,
but to wait for the older people; and he had to wait, anyway, because he
couldn't get the second part until his father and his mother, and any
company they had, had finished the first part. Then the first part was
carried out and the second part was brought in; and little Jacob had to
sit quietly in his chair with his hands folded in his lap until it came
in. But little Sol didn't bother much about those things.
One morning little Jacob and little Sol had raced through breakfast, as
they always did, and they had finished at exactly the same time, because
little Jacob hurried. Then they both tried to go on deck at the same
time. They managed to go up the cabin steps together, but they couldn't
get through the door together without squeezing very tightly. And, in
that squeezing, little Jacob caught his jacket on the lock of the door
so that the jacket tore. But little Jacob didn't know it, and he kept on
pushing, and at last he and little Sol went bouncing out and fell
sprawling on the deck.
Captain Solomon was sitting in the cabin, and he laughed to see them go
sprawling out, but he thought that he guessed the little boys had done
enough of that racing business. For somebody would have to mend little
Jacob's jacket and, besides, there was danger that little Jacob would
forget his manners, and that would never do. Little Jacob had beautiful
manners. So Captain Solomon made up his mind that Sol would have to
wait until little Jacob finished his breakfast, after that, and then
they should go up the cabin steps like little gentlemen and not push and
crowd and tear their jackets. And that would be a good thing for little
Sol, too, but he wouldn't like it at first. Captain Solomon didn't care
whether he liked it or not.
The little boys didn't know what Captain Solomon was thinking about, and
they laughed and picked themselves up and looked around. And they didn't
see anything but water all about, and the bright sunshine, and one or
two little hilly clouds, and all the many sails of the _Industry_. For
they were still in the trade winds where it is generally good weather.
And they saw the mate, and he was standing at the stern and looking
down into the water behind the ship.
"Let's see what Mr. Steele is looking at," said little Sol.
"All right," said little Jacob, "let's."
So the two little boys walked to the stern and leaned on the rail and
looked down at the water. But first little Jacob said "Good morning" to
the mate.
"Good morning, Jacob," said the mate. "Now, what do you see there?"
"I know," cried little Sol. "It's a shark."
"Oh, is it?" cried little Jacob. He was very much interested and
excited. "Where is it, Sol?"
Little Sol pointed. "Right there," he said. "You can see his back fin,
just as plain."
And little Jacob looked again, and he saw all the little swirls and
bubbles and foam that made the wake of the ship, and right in the middle
of it all he saw a great three-cornered thing sticking up out of the
water. It was dark colored, and it followed after the ship as if it were
fastened to it.
"Is that his back fin?" asked little Jacob, "that three-cornered thing?
I don't see the rest of him."
"If you look hard," said Mr. Steele, "you'll make him out. He's clear
enough to me."
[Illustration: "'RIGHT THERE,' HE SAID, 'YOU CAN SEE HIS BACK FIN.'"]
Little Jacob looked hard and at last he saw the shark himself; but there
were so many bubbles and swirls, and the shark was colored so exactly
like the water, as he looked down into it, that it wasn't easy to see
him. Both the little boys watched him for some time without saying
anything.
At last little Jacob sighed. "He's pretty big," he said. "Why do you
suppose he follows the ship that way? It's just as if we were towing
him."
"Well," said the mate, "I never had a chance to ask any shark that
question--and get an answer--but I think it's to get what the cook
throws overboard." The mate turned and looked forward. "I see the cook
now, with a bucket of scraps. You watch Mr. Shark."
Little Jacob and little Sol both looked and they saw the cook walking
from the galley with his bucket. The galley is the kitchen of the ship.
And he emptied the bucket over the side. Then the two little boys
looked quickly at the shark again, to see what he would do.
They saw the shark leave his place at the stern of the _Industry_ as the
things came floating by, and they saw him turn over on his side and eat
one or two of the things. He took them into his mouth slowly, as though
he had plenty of time; or it seemed as if he ate them slowly. Really, he
didn't. They lost sight of him, for he stayed at that place until every
scrap was gone.
Little Jacob smiled. "He doesn't have to race through his breakfast," he
said, "does he, Sol? Did you see that his underneath parts were white? I
wonder why that is. I s'pose it's because anything that looks down looks
into darkness, and anything that looks up looks into lightness. Is that
why, Mr. Steele?"
"So that the fish wouldn't see him coming?" asked Mr. Steele. "Well,
Jacob, to tell you the truth, I never thought much about it. And I don't
really know how a shark would look from underneath, in the water. The
pearl divers in India could tell you. But I guess that comes as near to
the reason as any other--near enough, anyway. I've no doubt that his
coloring makes him very hard to see, in the water."
"I would like to see the pearl divers," said little Jacob, "but I s'pose
I can't. And I'm rather glad the shark is gone."
"Huh!" said little Sol. "He isn't gone. He only stopped a minute. He'll
be back. Won't he, Mr. Steele?"
Mr. Steele smiled. "There he comes, now."
[Illustration]
And the boys looked and they saw the three-cornered fin cutting through
the water at a great rate. The shark caught up with the ship easily and
took his old place, just astern.
The shark stayed with the _Industry_ all of that day, and little Jacob
watched him once in a while. He thought the shark was kind of horrible
and he wished that he would go away. But he didn't, that day or that
night, or the next. And Captain Solomon didn't like it, either.
So, when Captain Solomon saw him on the third morning, he spoke to the
mate.
"Better get rid of that fellow, Mr. Steele," he said. "Got a shark
hook?"
"Yes, sir," answered the mate. "But I'm afraid it isn't big enough for
him."
But Captain Solomon told him to try it, anyway. And he called some of
the sailors and told them to rig a tackle on the end of the mainyard.
That was so that it would be easy to haul the shark in, when they hooked
him. And he went down and got the shark hook. It was a great, enormous
fishhook and it had about a yard of chain hitched to it, because if it
was rope that went in the shark's mouth, he might bite it off. And a
large rope ran through the blocks of the tackle, and the sailors hitched
the end of that rope to the end of the chain. A lot of sailors took hold
of the other end of the rope, and they stood with the rope in their
hands ready to run away with it, just as they did when they were
hoisting a yard with a sail.
Then the cook came with a big chunk of fat salt pork, and he put it on
the hook so that the point of the hook was all covered. And the mate
looked at it, to see if it was done right, and he saw that it was.
"Slack away on the line," he called to the sailors.
And they let out the rope, until the mate thought that there was enough
let out, and then he threw the hook, that was baited with the salt pork,
overboard, and it trailed out astern.
The shark saw the pork and he left his place at the stern and went over
to see about it. First he seemed to smell of it and make up his mind
that it was good to eat. Then he turned lazily over upon his side,
showing his whitish belly, and opened his mouth and swallowed the pork,
with the hook inside it, and nearly all of the chain. Little Jacob was
watching him, and he saw that the shark's mouth was not at the end of
his nose, as most fishes' mouths are, but it was quite a way back from
his snout, on the under side. And he saw his teeth quite clearly. There
were a great many of them, and they seemed to be in rows. Little Jacob
didn't have time to count the rows, but he thought that the teeth looked
very cruel. The shark's mouth was big enough to take in a man whole. And
then the mate, who still had his hand on the rope, jerked it with all
his might.
What happened then was never quite clear to little Jacob. He heard the
sailors running away with their end of the rope and shouting a chanty
and stamping their feet. And he saw the water alongside the ship being
all foamed up by an enormous monster that seemed large enough for a
whale. Then some water came up from the ocean and hit him in the face,
so that he couldn't see for a few minutes and his jacket was all wet
through. But the noise kept on.
When little Jacob could see again, the enormous monster was half out of
the water and rising slowly to the yard-arm, while he made a tremendous
commotion with his tail in the water, and a sailor was just reaching out
with an axe. The sailor struck twice with the axe, but little Jacob
didn't see where. Then the shark dropped back into the ocean with a
great splash and out of sight.
"Well!" said the mate. "He's a good one! Took a good shark hook with him
and pretty near a fathom of new chain!"
And when little Jacob had got his breath back again, he ran down into
the cabin to write all about the shark in the log-book.
And that's all.
THE CHRISTMAS STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from Boston for
far countries, and she had been gone about three months. She was going
to Java, first, to get coffee and sugar and other things that they have
in Java; and then she was going to Manila and then back to India and
home again. It was almost Christmas time. Little Jacob and little Sol
were on board the _Industry_ on that voyage, and it seemed very strange
to them that it should be hot at Christmas time. But they were just
about at the equator, or a little bit south of it, and it is always hot
there; and besides, it is summer at Christmas time south of the equator.
So little Jacob and Sol had on their lightest and coolest clothes, and
they had straw hats on; but they didn't run about and play much, it was
so hot.
The two little boys were lying stretched out in the shadow of a great
sail, and they had their hands behind their heads, and they looked up at
the tall masts and the yards and the great white sails and once in a
while they saw a little hilly cloud, and they didn't say anything for a
long time. Finally little Jacob spoke to little Sol.
"What are you thinking about, Sol?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing, much," answered little Sol. "I was thinking it would be
fun to be sitting up on the very tip top of the mainmast and letting my
feet hang down and swinging back and forth with the mast. Maybe I could
see Java."
Little Jacob shivered to think of sitting on top of the mast. "My, Sol!"
he said. "You'd fall. There's nothing to hold on to."
"Oh, I'm not going to try it, Jake," said little Sol. "Father'd give it
to me, if I did. You know the time I fell overboard?"
Little Jacob nodded. "Well, then," said little Sol. "I guess a boy'd be
foolish to try that twice."
Little Jacob nodded again. "Did he thrash you, Sol?" he asked.
Little Sol smiled. "_Didn't_ he, though?" he said. "Ever get a
thrashing, Jake?"
Little Jacob hesitated. "Well," he said, slowly, "sometimes--with a
slipper."
"Huh!" said little Sol, with much scorn. "That's nothing. My father
don't use any slipper."
Little Jacob thought it was time to change the subject. "What makes you
think that you could see Java from up there?"
"I don't s'pose I could, really," answered little Sol. "But father said
that we ought to sight it within two days."
"To-morrow is Christmas," remarked little Jacob, thoughtfully. "I'd
rather like to be at home, on Christmas."
"Well, you can't," said little Sol. "You're thousands of miles from
home. I wonder what they'll have for dinner."
"We generally have lots of things for Christmas dinner," said little
Jacob, in a stifled little voice, "goose and apple sauce, and potatoes
and squash and----"
"I don't mean at home, Jake," said little Sol, gently. "I mean here. We
always have good things at home, too. But we haven't any goose or
anything else except salt junk and plum duff. I s'pose it'll be that."
But little Jacob didn't say anything because he couldn't speak. He
tilted his hat over his eyes and thought how nice it was at home at
Christmas time, and how sorry Lois, his mother, would be that he wasn't
there, and how sorry his little sister Lois would be. He didn't know
about his father, Captain Jacob, but he thought that perhaps he would be
sorry, too; and he knew that his grandfather, Captain Jonathan, would be
sorry. He was very fond of his grandfather because Captain Jonathan was
always nice and kind and gentle and he seemed to understand little boys.
And, at last, little Jacob jammed his hat on straight and got up and ran
down into the cabin to write his mother a letter. Captain Solomon would
leave the letter in Java for some ship to take home. When he had written
the letter he felt better.
When the two little boys came out on deck the next morning, they went
forward among the sailors; and they wished each man a Merry Christmas
and they gave each one some little thing that they had found. The
things were some things that Captain Solomon had brought to give away,
although he did not expect, when he brought them, to give them to the
sailors. And the men seemed very much pleased, and they wished little
Jacob and little Sol a Merry Christmas, too, and some of the men had
presents for the boys. These presents were usually something that the
men had whittled out of ivory or bone or ebony. And little Jacob and
little Sol hadn't expected that the men would give them any presents,
and they were delighted; and, by the time they had got through giving
the men presents their jacket pockets bulged out with all the things the
men had given them.
But one thing little Jacob didn't put in his pocket, for fear that he
would break it. That was a little model of the brig _Industry_, about
three inches long. The hull of the model was cut out of ebony, and the
masts and spars were little ebony sticks stuck in, and the sails were of
ivory, scraped thin, and the ropes were silk thread. And the sails were
bulging, as if the wind was filling them and making them stand out from
the yards. Altogether, it was a most beautiful model, and little Jacob
was so surprised and pleased that, for some time, he couldn't say
anything to the sailor who had given it to him.
"Is this for me?" he said, at last. "For _me_?"
[Illustration: "'YES, LITTLE LAD,' HE SAID. 'FOR YOU--IF YOU WANT IT.'"]
That sailor was an old man. The little crinkles came around his eyes as
he smiled down at little Jacob.
"Yes, little lad," he said. "For you--if you want it. And with a Merry
Christmas!"
"Oh," cried little Jacob, "if I want it! I think it is
the--most--beautiful--thing I ever saw. I can't thank you enough."
You should have seen the old sailor's face when little Jacob said that.
The crinkles were so deep that you could hardly have seen his eyes.
"To see your face now is thanks enough for me," he said.
"But--but," said little Jacob, "Sol hasn't got anything half so pretty
as this."
"Never you mind about Sol," said the old man, in a whisper that Sol
could hear perfectly well. "He'll be havin' a ship of his own, one o'
these days soon. What does he care about models?"
And he looked at Sol and winked. And Sol straightened his shoulders and
stopped looking disappointed. "That's what I will," said Sol.
And the boys stayed with the old sailor for a long time, and the sailor
pointed to something that was blue and dim on the water, far away.
"See that land?" he said. "That's Christmas Island on Christmas
mornin'."
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS ISLAND 1st VIEW, BEARING N BY E]
And the boys asked if they would go near the island, and he said that
they would go pretty near. And little Jacob said that he would get some
paper and draw the island when they came near it, and he would put it
in the log book. And so he did, and he made it look like the pictures
here. When little Jacob had it all written in the log-book about the
presents and about his little model of the _Industry_ and about
Christmas Island, it was time for dinner.
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS ISLAND, 2nd VIEW, BEARING SW]
When the little boys went in to dinner, they were both very much
surprised; for there, on the table, was a real goose, beautifully
browned over and smoking hot, and there was apple sauce to eat with it.
And there was squash and potato and cabbage and ham and almost as many
different things as little Jacob would have had if he had been at home.
And behind the goose stood Captain Solomon sharpening the carving knife,
and he was smiling.
Little Jacob didn't ask how he managed to have fresh goose, but he
evidently wanted to; so Captain Solomon told him that the cook had kept
it alive in the long boat all that long time, so as to be sure to have
goose for their Christmas dinner. The long boat was kept high up above
the men's heads, on a sort of framework, so that little Jacob had never
seen the goose; but the cook had had a great deal of trouble to keep the
boys from hearing it, and he had had to make it a secret with the
sailors and sometimes he had the sailors take it down into the
forecastle while little Jacob and little Sol were playing about. The
forecastle is the place where the sailors sleep, and the little boys
never went there. But little Sol rather suspected that there was
something that the cook was hiding from them, although he had never
found out what it was.
And, when they were through eating their goose, they had squash pie and
apple pie, two kinds, and potato pie; but they weren't quite like the
pies they would have had at home because the cook didn't have any butter
to make the crust with, and his lard wasn't very good because they had
been in the hot oceans for so long. And they had some very nice steamed
pudding with raisins in it, and there were lots of raisins.
When they were through eating their pudding and all the kinds of pies,
little Jacob was filled up about to his chin, and there was just room
enough left for an apple and some nuts and raisins. And they had the
apples and the nuts and raisins; all the kinds of nuts that they had at
home and another kind of nut that little Jacob had never seen before. He
didn't know whether to call it a nut or a raisin. It had a thin shell
and it was nearly as big as an English walnut, but inside the shell was
a raisin; and the raisin had a single stone inside it, a little bigger
than a cherry stone. Little Jacob and little Sol thought that these
raisinuts tasted very good indeed, and they didn't care whether they
were raisins or nuts. Little Sol invented the name, raisinuts.
[Illustration]
At last they were through dinner, and the little boys got up, very
slowly, for they were filled as full as they could hold. And they
walked slowly to the cabin steps and up the steps and out on deck. It
was rather squally and, just as little Jacob went out of the cabin door,
a great gust of wind came and took his straw hat and carried it sailing
away over the ocean. You can't stop a ship to get a straw hat, and
little Jacob watched it go sailing away on the gust of wind and settle
into the ocean; but he was sorry, for it was the only straw hat he had,
and it was too hot to wear his white beaver hat. But he thought that he
wouldn't wear any hat until they got to Java and then he would get
another straw.
When little Jacob had watched his hat out of sight, he went into the
cabin again to write some more on his letter to his mother.
And that's all.
THE SOUNDING STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from Boston for
far countries and little Jacob and little Sol had gone in her. And she
had got to Java and anchored near the place where they got water and
they had sent some sailors ashore in boats to fill the water casks. And
they had got the water and come back; and the boats and the water casks
had been hoisted on board, and they had hoisted the anchor and sailed
away, through the straits, for Anger. You might not be able to find that
place on a map of Java, but that is what Captain Solomon says in his
log-book, so it must be right.
They got to Anger the next morning, and Captain Solomon went ashore in
his boat, with sailors to row it; for he wanted to send some letters and
he wanted to find out what he would have to pay for sugar and for
coffee. He had the letters in a bag. There were three that sailors had
written; that doesn't seem many letters for a whole crew of sailors to
write after they have been at sea for three months, but sailors aren't
much at writing letters, anyway. And there were about half a dozen that
Captain Solomon had written, and some from the mates; and there was one
that little Sol had scrawled to his mother, and there was the great
thick letter that little Jacob had written to his mother. Captain
Solomon couldn't take little Sol and little Jacob ashore with him
because he thought he would be too busy to look after them. The
_Industry_ didn't even anchor, but she sailed back and forth, in front
of the town, waiting for Captain Solomon's boat to come back.
At last Captain Solomon had heard all the news and had sent his letters
and had found out the price of sugar and of coffee and had learned what
ships were at Batavia. Batavia is a city in Java, not far from Anger,
and Captain Solomon was going there on his way back. And he had got
some fresh vegetables and some turtle and some fresh fowl of a Chinaman,
and all his errands were done. So he came back to the ship and got on
board and the boat was hoisted up and more sail was set; and the
_Industry_ sailed on her way through Sunda strait. Captain Solomon
called it Sunday strait. A strait is a rather narrow passage from one
sea to another. Sunda strait leads from the Indian Ocean to Java Sea;
and, after that, there were some more straits leading to the China Sea.
Late in the afternoon the wind got lighter; and as there was a strong
current setting towards the southwest, through the straits, they
couldn't sail as fast as the current carried them. So the _Industry_ was
carried back to Anger; but she started again very early in the morning,
when there was more wind and when the tide was different.
When little Jacob and little Sol came on deck they saw three ships,
going the other way. They wondered what they were, and they asked the
mate. And the mate smiled and said that two of the ships were Dutch and
he supposed that they were going to Batavia. And he thought that the
other ship was American and he hoped that it would take the letters they
had left at Anger. Little Jacob hoped that it would; but little Sol
didn't seem to care. And, all of that day, they watched for more ships,
and they saw land, now and then, far off on the horizon. It was very
hot, for they were almost at the equator; so that even little Sol was
contented to keep still. And, towards night, they saw one of the
sailors getting the lead line ready.
The lead is just a big lump of lead, like a sinker that is used on a
fishing line, and it is tied to the end of a long line that has the
fathoms marked on it in much the same way that the log line has the
knots marked; but the marks on the lead line are really six feet apart.
And the lead itself has the lower end just a little bit hollowed. The
sailor who was getting it ready first made sure that the line was all
clear, without any knots or kinks in it. And, when he had seen that the
line was all right, he took up the lead and smeared some grease on the
bottom of it. The sailor was the old man who had given little Jacob the
model of the brig.
Little Jacob was surprised. "What is that?" he asked. "Is it grease?"
The sailor was amused. "It's grease," he said, "sure enough."
"And what is it for?" asked little Jacob again. "I hope you don't mind
telling me."
"No, lad," said the sailor. "Be sure I'll tell you. It's to bring up
some of the bottom so's the cap'n can tell where we are."
Little Jacob didn't understand. "I don't see," he said, "how Captain
Solomon can tell where we are, that way."
The sailor laughed. "Well, no," he said. "I s'pose you don't. Well, it's
this way. The bottom of the sea is different in different places. In
some parts it's mud and in other parts it's gray sand and in others
it's black sand and in others yet it's yellow sand, and so on. In the
deep oceans it's different yet, but no lead will reach it. And every
good sailor man, such as Cap'n Solomon is, should know the bottom he'll
find on the course he sails. And when I heave this lead, it tells him
how much water he's got under him and the kind of bottom, for the lead
brings up a little of the mud or the sand that sticks to the grease.
That's how it is."
Little Jacob thought that he understood. "And will you heave the lead
now?" he asked.
"I heave the lead when I'm ordered to," said the old man. "But I'm
thinking the cap'n won't want it hove till after dark. There's no
lights, hereabouts, you see. Lighthouses," he added, seeing that little
Jacob didn't know what he meant.
"Oh," said little Jacob. And he went off to find Captain Solomon and to
ask him if he might stay up that night, until they hove the lead.
Heaving the lead is called sounding. And Captain Solomon laughed and
said that he guessed so.
So little Jacob didn't go to bed so early as he generally did, but he
stayed up to see them heave the lead. And, about nine o'clock, Captain
Solomon called little Jacob and little Sol and told them that they had
better be ready, for he was just going to begin taking soundings. So the
two boys went to look for the sailor with the lead line.
They found him standing by the rail just where the ship was widest, and
by his side was a lantern, lighted. The mate had another lantern, and
the light from those two lanterns was the only light that they could
see. And, just as the boys came up, the sailor began to swing the lead
to and fro.
[Illustration]
He swung it farther and farther, each time, like a pendulum to a clock.
And, when it was swinging pretty far, he let the line go, so that the
heavy lead went ahead of the ship and fell into the water. As soon as he
heard it strike the water, the sailor grabbed for the line quickly, and
he caught it, but he let it slip through his hand. And he felt the lead
strike the bottom. By the time the lead had struck the bottom, the ship
had almost caught up to the place where it had gone into the water, so
that the line was straight up and down.
The sailor began to pull it in, feeling, with his fingers, for the wet
part. When he had come to that, he held it in the light of the lantern
for a moment.
"Ten fathom," he called. Then he pulled the lead up.
The mate took it and looked at the part that had been greased. "Mud," he
said; and he wiped it off on his finger and showed it to Captain
Solomon.
"All right," said Captain Solomon, when he had looked at the mud.
"Better keep the lead going for a while."
So the sailor wiped the bottom of the lead clean, and smeared it with
grease again. Little Jacob watched him swing it and heave it and pull it
in. He wondered whether it was hard or easy to do what the sailor did;
whether he could do it when he grew up. The great lead would be too much
for a little boy, he knew. But it looked easy.
"Ten and a half," called the sailor, "and mud. I could tell by the feel
of it."
"Yes, mud," said the mate, looking at the bottom of the lead.
The lead was kept going, every half hour or so, all night. And, towards
sunrise, they got twenty fathoms, and the lead brought up grains of
black sand and grains of yellow sand, and they put away the lead line.
But little Jacob didn't know about that, for he was sound asleep in his
bunk.
And that's all.
THE TEAK-WOOD STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalks were much worn.
Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob owned the wharf and all the ships
that sailed from it. The brig _Industry_ was one of the ships that used
to sail from that wharf, and after Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob
moved to Boston she sailed from a wharf in Boston. And she had sailed
from the wharf in Boston on a voyage to the far country, and little
Jacob and little Sol had gone in her. And she had sailed through the
great ocean and past the country where the monkeys lived and through
another ocean to India, and she had anchored in a wide river. And many
little boats came off to her from a city that there was on the shore of
the river, and they began to take out of the _Industry_ all the things
she had brought to that country.
Little Jacob and little Sol were as quiet as little boys could be
expected to be, for they knew that Captain Solomon was very busy at
first. But, at last, the things were all out of the _Industry_; and
Captain Solomon had to go ashore to buy things for the ship to take home
again. So he had the sailors let down a boat, and he looked around for
the boys. And they were so close behind him that he didn't see them
until little Sol touched him.
"Hello, boys!" cried Captain Solomon. "Want to go ashore with me?"
"Yes, sir," called out little Jacob and little Sol, together, so that it
sounded as if there was only one boy.
"Well, hop in, then," said Captain Solomon.
And little Sol hopped in, and little Jacob hopped in; and Captain
Solomon got in, and the sailors rowed them ashore. And they got out of
the boat upon some wide stone steps that went down to the water, and the
boys were very glad, for it was the first time that they had set foot
upon the ground for a long time. And little Jacob was surprised to find
that the ground seemed to be waving around just like the deck of the
ship, so that he couldn't walk very well. And he spoke of it to little
Sol, and Captain Solomon heard him, and he gave a great laugh.
"So it does," Captain Solomon said. "So it does. And so it will for the
next three days, Jacob, if I'm not mistaken. It's queer ground, Jacob,
isn't it, to be waving around so? Must be an earthquake."
And little Jacob looked up at Captain Solomon to see whether he was
joking or not. For Captain Solomon was very apt to joke, but you
couldn't tell whether he was or not unless you looked at him, and you
couldn't tell, even then, unless you knew him pretty well.
And little Jacob decided that Captain Solomon was joking, so he smiled.
"Yes, sir," he said. "It must be an earthquake. We were very lucky,
weren't we, to be just in time for an earthquake?"
It was Captain Solomon's turn to look at little Jacob to see what he
meant.
"Ha! Ha! Very lucky, indeed, Jacob," said Captain Solomon. "We're lucky
dogs, Jacob."
And little Sol didn't say anything, but only grinned; and he could do
that pretty well. And they went, by queer streets, to the office of
Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's agent, who sold the things for
them. And after that they went about among the shops and saw all the
things that the men had to sell, and Captain Solomon went with them. And
the men were very polite to Captain Solomon because they thought he
might buy some of their things, but he didn't. And so they did all that
day, and, late in the afternoon, they were rowed back to the ship.
Little Jacob and little Sol were very tired, and went to sleep right
after supper.
The next morning the boat was waiting for them, and in it were bundles
for little Jacob and little Sol. And, after breakfast, they were rowed
ashore again to the stone steps. And, at the head of the steps, two
bullock carts were waiting for them. Little Jacob was surprised, and he
asked Captain Solomon if they were going to see the elephants that his
grandfather had spoken of. And Captain Solomon said that they were going
to that place, but he didn't know whether the elephants that Captain
Jonathan had spoken of had been obliging enough to wait thirty years or
not. And little Jacob smiled and got into the bullock cart.
The bullocks went very slowly indeed; and the little boys saw the
villages that they passed through on the way, and they saw the women
washing the clothes in the water of the river, and they saw the
crocodiles that looked like so many old logs. And, in time, the bullocks
got to the place where the elephants were. It was late one afternoon
that they got there, so that Captain Solomon thought that they wouldn't
go to see the elephants that night. And, just as Captain Solomon said
that, they heard a great gong ring. And Captain Solomon said that it
wouldn't be any use to go to see them then, anyway, for the elephants
stopped work when that gong rang, and nobody could get them to do
anything after that. And the little boys thought that was queer.
So, early the next morning, they went to the elephant place. It was a
great big place, and a high, strong fence was around it on three sides,
and on the fourth side was the river. And, next to the river, were
great piles of teak-wood logs, and the logs were piled very nicely and
evenly, so that the piles wouldn't fall down. And, far off at the back
of the great yard, next to the forest, were a lot of the logs which were
not piled, but were just as they had been dumped there, pell-mell, when
they had been brought in from the forest. The logs that were all piled
up nicely were to be sent down the river.
Little Jacob and little Sol had just time to see all that, when the
great gong rang. Then the elephants began to come out of a big shed that
was in the back of the yard, and the little boys saw that some of the
elephants had mahouts, or drivers, on them but the most of them didn't
have any drivers. And the mahouts sat on the necks of their elephants,
just back of the heads, and each mahout had an elephant-goad, something
like an ox-goad, only that it was shorter and the end that was sharp was
bent around so that it was something like the claws of a hammer, but the
claws were sharp.
And the elephants that knew their business walked slowly over to the
logs that were piled pell-mell, and they made the elephants that didn't
know their business go there too; and if any elephant, that didn't know,
tried to go another way, the old elephants would butt him and jab him
with their tusks. And then there was great squealing and noise. And when
the elephants got to the logs, each one knelt down and put his tusks
under a log and curled his trunk over and around it, and then he got up
and walked slowly to the place where the logs were piled so nicely. And
he put his log on the pile so that it wouldn't fall down, and when the
pile was so high that he couldn't reach then he began to make a new
pile. But some of the elephants didn't have any tusks and they just
curled their trunks around the logs and carried them that way.
Little Jacob and little Sol were very much interested in watching the
elephants and in seeing how wise they were; for they piled the logs just
as well as if a man had told them where to put each one. And Captain
Solomon said that they piled the logs better than any man there could
have done it. And little Jacob caught sight of one elephant that had his
ears torn and had only one tusk.
When he caught sight of that elephant, little Jacob called out. "Look,
Captain Solomon!" he cried. "See! There is the elephant that grandfather
told about, that will let little boys ride him."
And the elephant was pretty near and he heard little Jacob, but he
couldn't understand what he said, for those elephants only understand
the language that they speak in India. But the old elephant stopped and
turned his head as far as he could, which wasn't very far, for elephants
haven't any neck worth mentioning, so he had to turn his whole body
before he could see the little boys. And, when he saw them, he began to
walk up to the place where they were. And little Jacob was a little bit
scared, for the elephant was very big and he didn't know what he might
do. But little Jacob didn't run or look scared, and little Sol wasn't
frightened at all.
And, when the old elephant had got near the little boys, he stopped and
stretched out his trunk toward them. And little Sol gave him a lump of
sugar that he had in his pocket, and the elephant ate the sugar and
stretched out his trunk again, but he didn't move.
"I know what he wants," cried little Jacob. And he got up from the log
where he was sitting, and raised his arms, and the old elephant curled
his trunk about little Jacob and put him up high on his back, very
gently. And little Jacob grabbed hold of a sort of harness that the
elephant had on, and he laughed. Then the elephant stretched out his
trunk for little Sol and put him up behind little Jacob. And little Sol
held on to the harness, too.
Captain Solomon didn't know what to do while the elephant was putting
the little boys up on his back, but then he made up his mind that the
boys were well enough off; and the old elephant walked away, very
carefully, and he walked all around the great yard with the boys on his
back. And the boys laughed and said that it was fun. But Captain Solomon
called to them to hold on tight. And they held on tight. And when they
had been all around the great yard, the old elephant came back to the
place where Captain Solomon was sitting. And he reached up with his
trunk and took the boys down, first little Sol and then little Jacob,
and he set them down on the ground very carefully. And the boys gave
him some more sugar and stroked his trunk, and then he went away to his
log piling again.
[Illustration: "HE WALKED ALL AROUND THE GREAT YARD WITH THE BOYS ON HIS
BACK."]
And when they had been watching a long while, the gong rang. And the
elephants all stopped their work at once and went into the shed. And
that amused the boys very much, and the gong reminded them that they
were very hungry, so they went away to get their dinner. And, after
dinner, they watched the elephants again all the long afternoon, and by
that time they were tired of watching elephants.
So, the next morning, they got into the bullock carts again, and they
went back to the ship. And the boat was waiting for them at the stone
steps, and the sailors rowed them to the _Industry_. And they were very
tired and glad to get back, and they went to bed right after supper.
And that's all.
THE STOWAWAY STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalks were much worn.
That wharf and all the ships that sailed from it belonged to Captain
Jonathan and Captain Jacob; and after they had moved their office to
Boston the ships sailed from a wharf in Boston. And once, in the long
ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from the wharf in Boston, and she
had got to that far country and all the things that she had brought
there had been taken out of her and sold. And Captain Solomon had bought
the things that she would carry back to Boston, but they were not loaded
on the _Industry_ yet. And Captain Solomon had gone off with little
Jacob and little Sol to see some elephants, for he thought the mate
could attend to loading the ship.
After Captain Solomon had gone off, the sailors who had rowed him ashore
stood there for a few minutes looking after the dust that the bullocks
kicked up, and then they turned to get into the boat again. And one of
the sailors, who was named Ephraim, saw a man coming toward them, and he
knew the man, for the man was a sailor, too, and he and Ephraim had
sailed together a long while before, but not in the _Industry_. So he
waited for the man to come, and the man and Ephraim were glad to see
each other and Ephraim asked him where he came from and what ship he was
on. For no other ship was in the river at that time.
Then the man said that he had sailed in a ship from England, but the
ship had gone off without him while he was ashore; and he wanted to get
back to Boston, for he hadn't been there for several years. And he asked
Ephraim if there was a chance to be a sailor on the _Industry_. But
Ephraim said that they had a full crew and there wasn't any chance, for
the old man was very strict. He called Captain Solomon the old man, but
he wasn't an old man at all, for he wasn't quite forty years old; but
sailors always call the captain the old man. And Ephraim was afraid of
Captain Solomon, but he needn't have been afraid, for Captain Solomon
was a kind man, although he was rather gruff and stern to the sailors.
And so Ephraim advised the man to try to stow himself away on the
_Industry_ until she was clear of the land and on blue water, and then
to come out and see what would happen. For he knew that Captain Solomon
wouldn't go back just to land the man, and he couldn't throw him
overboard. And the man said that he would do that, and he thought he
should be able to stow away when the ship was loading, but he would have
to depend upon Ephraim to feed him for a few days. And Ephraim said that
he would, and the man went away and the sailors rowed the boat back to
the _Industry_.
So the sailors began to load the ship with all the things that Captain
Solomon had bought, and many little boats began to go back and forth and
there was a good deal of confusion. And in the confusion of the loading
the man managed to stow himself away on the _Industry_; and he was in
the hold of the ship, as far forward as he could get, so that Ephraim
could bring him food and water without much trouble. And the sailors got
all the things aboard, and Captain Solomon came back with little Jacob
and little Sol. And they got the things to eat on board, and the water
that they would drink, and when everything was ready they hoisted up the
anchor from the bottom of the river, and they hoisted the sails, and
they sailed away down the river and out into the great ocean. And on the
second day out, the stowaway came out and worked with the other sailors.
And Captain Solomon was on the quarter deck, looking out over the ocean
and at the ship and at the sailors, and he saw the stowaway.
[Illustration: "HE WAS IN THE HOLD OF THE SHIP"]
"Who is that man and where did he come from?" he said to the mate.
And the mate looked and saw the man, and he didn't know. "I'm sure I
don't know, sir," answered the mate.
"Call him up," said Captain Solomon.
So the mate called him and he came and stood at the foot of the steps
that led to the quarter deck, and Captain Solomon stood at the head of
the steps with his hand upon the railing. And the man stood first upon
one foot and then upon the other and he looked very uncomfortable.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the man; and he touched his cap.
And Captain Solomon didn't say anything for a long time, but he looked
the man over from head to foot, and he looked very fierce and stern, so
that the man was more uncomfortable than ever. And little Jacob and
little Sol stood just behind Captain Solomon.
"Who are you, and where did you come from?" asked Captain Solomon. "Give
an account of yourself."
Then the man began to tell that he was a sailor and had been a sailor
for many years. And he had shipped, last on an English vessel bound to
India, and she had got there all right, but had sailed away without him
while he was ashore on leave.
Captain Solomon had to smile at that, though he didn't mean to. And the
man went on to say that he wanted to get a passage to Boston and he
would have been glad to ship as one of the crew, but he understood that
the ship had a full crew and that the captain didn't want any more
sailors, and so he had stowed away. But he was an able seaman and would
be only too grateful for a chance to work with the other sailors if
Captain Solomon pleased, sir.
Then Captain Solomon was very angry, and asked how he heard that he had
a full crew and didn't want any more sailors; and who told him that an
able seaman who wanted to get back to Boston couldn't get a passage on
that ship. And the man wouldn't tell, but Captain Solomon saw that
Ephraim looked very uneasy, so he knew it was Ephraim. And he called
Ephraim, and blew him up sky high, and he said that he had a good mind
to put him and the stowaway both on bread and water for a month. When
little Jacob heard Captain Solomon say that, he stepped forward to
speak, for he couldn't bear to think that men should be put on bread and
water for a month just for that. But little Sol gave him a nudge and
whispered to him not to say anything, for he knew well enough that his
father hadn't any idea of doing it.
And Ephraim and the stowaway both turned pale and looked as if they were
going to be seasick, but they weren't. And after everybody had stood
there without speaking for a good while, Captain Solomon spoke to the
whole crew, who had all come near, and told them that he didn't want any
such actions on his ship again; and if they ever heard of any such case,
he wanted them to come right to him, and he would inquire into it. For
he didn't want them to think that he would ever refuse a passage home to
a good sailor. And he told Ephraim and the stowaway that he would think
about putting them on bread and water, but he wouldn't do it yet. And if
the stowaway did his duty well and proved himself an able seaman he
would try to get pay for him when he got back to Boston and saw his
owners. But if the man wasn't what he said he was, or didn't attend to
his duty, he would be put on bread and water, as sure as his own name
was Solomon, and so would Ephraim.
Then the sailors all went about their business, and Captain Solomon blew
up the mate for letting a man stow away on the _Industry_. And when
Captain Solomon had blown everybody up that he could, he felt very
pleasant indeed, and he played with little Sol and little Jacob.
And that's all.
THE ALBATROSS STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, in the long ago, little Jacob and little Sol had gone in the brig
_Industry_ on a voyage to far countries; and they had been to the
countries and had sailed again for home, but they had not got out of the
warm oceans. And one morning little Jacob and little Sol came on deck
together. They didn't race through their breakfast as they had been
used to doing, because Captain Solomon had put a stop to that. And, as
soon as they got on deck, they looked all around to see what was up that
morning. Far away they saw the upper sails of a ship that was going the
same way they were, but they didn't see anything else except the blue
water, although they looked very carefully out ahead and on both sides.
But, right astern of the ship, and pretty near, was a great, enormous
bird.
The bird was so near that the little boys could see it very well, and
they could see what color it was, and the shape of its bill, but they
couldn't see its back nor the top of its head, because the bird was
above them. If they had climbed up on the mast they could have seen its
back, but they didn't think of that then. The bird was all white, so
far as they could see, and it had a bill that was rather long and
straight, and was hooked at the end. And the bird just sailed along and
waved a little, up and down, but it didn't move its wings, so far as the
boys could see, and they watched it for a long time.
[Illustration]
Its wings were enormous. Little Sol thought they were almost as long as
the main-top-gallant yard if you could measure them spread out, as the
bird was sailing. And little Jacob looked very wise and he said that he
didn't know how long the main-top-gallant yard was, but he should think
they might measure two fathom and a half from tip to tip. And little
Jacob felt rather proud when he had said that, because he had guessed in
fathoms.
Little Sol looked rather scornful and said "Huh!" And then little Jacob
asked him what kind of a bird it was, and little Sol didn't know. Then
little Jacob said "Huh!" So they went to ask Mr. Steele or Captain
Solomon. Captain Solomon was standing right behind them, and he was
smiling because he had heard what the boys said. And he said that the
bird was an albatross, and that little Jacob was pretty nearly right
about the length of its wings. Little Sol was taken down a peg and
didn't say anything.
Then Captain Solomon went on to say that albatrosses often followed
ships for days together, and the sailors never could see that they had
to move their wings, but they sailed along just as fast as the ship
sailed. He had seen lots of them in his time, but he had never seen them
do anything else but sail, just as that one was doing then. And how they
managed it, he didn't know, and nobody else knew, so far as he had ever
heard.
Then little Sol asked what the bird was following the ship for. And
Captain Solomon said that he supposed that the albatross was following
the ship to get the scraps that the cook threw overboard. At least, he
didn't know any other reason, and the albatross took the scraps,
anyway. They were like sharks in that way.
Then little Sol asked him if they couldn't catch the albatross with a
hook and a piece of pork, as they had caught the shark. And Captain
Solomon said that they could, but that Sol had better not try it, if he
knew what was good for him; for the sailors thought that it always
brought the worst kind of luck to a ship to kill an albatross, and he
didn't know but they were right. And little Jacob was glad Captain
Solomon said that, for he didn't want the albatross killed, but he would
rather watch it sailing along with the ship.
[Illustration]
So nobody tried to do any harm to the albatross, but the men were all
glad that it was there. And the little boys watched it almost all of
that day. And the next day it was there, and they watched it, and they
watched it the day after the next, too; but the morning after that it
wasn't there.
Little Jacob was sorry that it had gone, and the sailors were sorry, and
they said that there would be a change of weather. And little Jacob went
down into the cabin to write all about the albatross in the log-book and
to see the barometer, to see whether it said that the weather would
change. The barometer was what Captain Solomon called "the glass," and
people could tell, by looking at it, whether it was going to be stormy
or not.
And that's all.
THE DERELICT STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's, and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston.
Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ was tied up at a wharf in
Boston. The wharf was much longer than any wharf in Boston is now, for
they have filled up the dock that was there with stones and dirt, and
they have put more stones and dirt on the top of the old wharf and under
it, and they have built a street there, so that the wharf is not half so
long as it used to be. And Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had their
office on India Street, not very far from the head of the wharf, as it
used to be, so that they could go to their ships easily and the captains
could go to them.
The _Industry_ had aboard all the things that the sailors would eat and
the water that they would drink; and the cargo was all stowed, and the
sailors were all on the ship and the sails were loosed. And Captain
Solomon came from the office of Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob, and
he walked down the wharf and he went aboard the ship. Then the sailors
cast off the ropes that had held her, and they hoisted the sails and
sailed away. They sailed out of the harbor and past the islands and into
the bay and then into the great ocean, and Boston was left far astern.
And, when they had been gone from Boston nearly a week, the sailors
fixed the sails so that the wind would blow on them the right way, and
then they didn't have to change them for a long time, for they were in
the part of the ocean that the trade winds blow over. In this part of
the ocean the winds blow nearly always from about north-east, so that
they are fair winds for a ship that is going south. That is one reason
why ships don't always go the way that you would think would be the
shortest, for it may be that, by going a way that is a little longer,
they will be helped so much by the winds that they will get to the place
where they are going sooner than if they went a shorter way.
And there is another reason why ships do not always go the shortest way.
In some parts of the ocean the ocean water is moving in one direction
and in other parts of the ocean the water is moving in another
direction. So, if a captain knows about these ocean currents, he can
sail in that part of the ocean where the water is moving in the
direction that he wants to go, and the ocean and the winds will both
help the ship. Every captain of a ship knows about these ocean currents
and these winds, and chooses the part of the ocean where they will help
his ship along. Captain Solomon knew all about them.
[Illustration: "CAPTAIN SOLOMON ... WAS WATCHING THE MOON"]
So the _Industry_ sailed along, and she had got almost to the place
where she would be past the trade winds; and it had got to be the
evening of that day, and the sun had set a long time, but the moon
had just risen. And Captain Solomon was standing by the rail, and he was
watching the moon and the reflection of the moonlight on the water, and
he was thinking that he wished the _Industry_ could sail right up that
broad path of moonlight forever; for it was very beautiful. Captain
Solomon had such thoughts sometimes, but he didn't tell anybody about
them, for they would think he was crazy, and the mates and the sailors
wouldn't like to sail in any ship that he was the captain of. And while
he was thinking these thoughts he was startled by the cry of the lookout
who was on the forecastle near the bow.
"Hard a-port! Hard a-port!"
And Captain Solomon gave one great jump for the wheel. "Hard a-port,
you lubber!" he cried. "Can't you hear?"
And he grabbed the wheel and whirled it over, and the ship swung off,
but she didn't swing very quickly, for the _Industry_ wasn't very quick
at minding her helm. But she did mind it in time, and just as she swung
off she shot past something floating. And Captain Solomon looked and he
saw that the floating thing was the hull of a great ship. The masts were
all gone close to the deck and the hulk barely showed above the water,
so that the waves washed over it, although there wasn't much of a sea
and the waves weren't high at all. And when he saw that they were safely
past the wreck, he turned the wheel the other way, and brought the
_Industry_ back again, and he had the sailors change some of the sails
so that she wouldn't go ahead.
Then he called the sailor who had been on the forecastle, looking out,
and he gave that sailor a blowing up, and he was very angry and he blew
the man sky-high. He said that it was nothing but luck that they weren't
all sent to the bottom, for the _Industry_ was heading straight for the
floating hulk, and if they had struck it, their chances wouldn't have
been worth one of his grandmother's cookies. And he said some other
things; and the sailor didn't answer back, for it is not a good plan to
answer back to the captain, especially if that captain was Captain
Solomon and was angry. But he seemed ashamed and slunk back muttering
that he wasn't blind and he was keeping as good a lookout as could be
expected, and nobody could have imagined that there would be that old
hulk right in their course, anyway. But Captain Solomon didn't hear him,
which was lucky for him.
Then Captain Solomon ordered the mate to have out a boat and go and see
what the hulk was, and whether, by chance, there was anybody aboard of
it, or anything to tell when she had been abandoned. And he told the
mate to take with him a good supply of oil and some oakum and to set
fire to the wreck as soon as he was through with her. And the mate had
the sailors get out the boat, and he took the oakum and a big bucket of
oil, and he was rowed away to the wreck, that was about a quarter of a
mile away by that time and shining in the moonlight. And Captain
Solomon saw the boat come near the wreck and make fast under her stern,
and he saw the mate go on board.
The mate went a little way down the cabin stairs, but he couldn't go all
the way down because the cabin was full of water that washed to and fro
as the hulk rolled in the ocean. And nobody was there. And the mate
looked everywhere that he could go, and he found nobody. He couldn't
look into the cook's galley, because the galley had been washed
overboard; but he looked into the forecastle, and that had water in
it, too, washing to and fro over the floor. But he saw that the clothes
of the sailors were all gone except one thing which was washing about in
the water on the floor, that looked as if it had been there a long
time, and he couldn't make out what it was.
So he went back to the stern and asked the sailors if they could make
out the name or the port of the ship on the stern; for every ship has
its name and the name of the city where it belongs painted on the stern.
And the sailors said that there wasn't enough of the name left to tell
what it was, but it seemed to be a French name. So the mate went back
and he put three piles of oakum, one up in the bow, and one in the
stern, and one half way between the two. And he soaked the oakum with
oil and he poured oil on everything that was dry, and he set fire from
the lantern which he carried. Then he hurried to get off and into the
boat, and the sailors cast off. And, before they got off, the mate saw
that there was seaweed high up on the hulk, which showed that she had
drifted about, as she was, for a long time. And the fire blazed up, and
they hurried to get away from the wreck.
[Illustration]
The fire blazed up, higher and higher, as the boat went back to the
_Industry_, so that it was roaring by the time the sailors climbed
aboard. And they hoisted the boat up, and put it in its place, and
Captain Solomon had the sailors change the sails so that the ship would
go ahead on her course. And the mate was on the quarter deck, telling
Captain Solomon what he had seen. When the mate had got through Captain
Solomon thought for a long time.
"That's the Frenchman that was abandoned off Hatteras more'n a year
ago," said Captain Solomon at last. "They thought she was sinking. She
must have been carried by the currents up towards Norway, maybe, and
then down past the west coast of France and Spain. I've heard of
derelicts doing that, but I've never seen it before."
And the mate didn't say anything, but they watched the wreck burning. It
burned fiercely, but the flames didn't blaze very high, for she hadn't
any masts nor any rigging. And the light of the fire made the moonlight
look pale and white. And they watched her getting farther and farther
away as the _Industry_ sailed on her course.
"I hope," said Captain Solomon, "that there's something aboard of her to
sink her."
And just as he said that they saw the light of the fire go out suddenly,
and where it had been there was nothing but some smoke in the air and
the moon was shining brightly all around.
And that's all.
THE LIGHTHOUSE STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once the brig _Industry_ was coming back from far countries to that
wharf in Boston, and little Jacob and little Sol were on her. And, when
she was nearly in sight of the end of Cape Cod, a great storm came up,
and the wind blew like Sam Hill. It blew harder than it had blown at any
time while the _Industry_ was sailing over the wide ocean to the far
countries and back again. So, at last, Captain Solomon had to turn her
around and run for it. But he ran as slow as he could, for he wanted to
get to Boston; and he growled and grumbled all the time because he had
to go the way he didn't want to.
Little Jacob had been feeling rather excited and very glad because he
was so nearly home again. But, when the _Industry_ turned around and
sailed away from Boston, he didn't feel glad any more, but he felt
rather mournful. And he was just a little bit frightened at the great
wind and at the great waves; for Captain Solomon hadn't turned around
until he was obliged to, and that was the last minute that it was safe
to keep on. It was getting dark, and Captain Solomon thought it would be
a pity to run the risk of getting wrecked on the Cape when the brig
had gone all the way to Manila and back safely. So little Jacob crept
into his bunk and held on tight, because the ship was pitching and
rolling so much, and he tried to go to sleep. At last he went to sleep;
but he had horrid dreams.
[Illustration: "AT LAST HE WENT TO SLEEP"]
Captain Solomon was on deck all that night, and he had on his oilskins
and he was sopping wet outside the oilskins, but inside them he was dry
as a bone; for oilskins keep the water out beautifully. And the spray
was flying high above the rail and, once in a while, the top of a wave
would come aboard in solid green water. But Captain Solomon didn't mind
the water. He was only very angry at having to sail away from Boston.
The storm kept on for nearly three days and little Jacob was pretty
miserable but little Sol enjoyed it. Little Sol wasn't so anxious to get
home as little Jacob was. And, at last, one morning when little Jacob
woke he didn't feel the ship pitching as she had been, and he was
surprised to find that he was a little bit excited once more. And he
went on deck as soon as he could, and he found that the wind was still
blowing pretty hard but not so hard as it had been blowing, and the ship
was headed for Boston again. And all the sailors looked cheerful. And
Captain Solomon was the most cheerful of all, although he needed some
sleep.
"Well, Jacob," he said, "we're headed for home again. I guess you're
glad."
"Yes, sir," said little Jacob, smiling, "I am glad. When shall we get
there?"
"If this breeze holds," said Captain Solomon, "we'll get in before dark
to-night. But I'm afraid it won't hold."
"Oh," cried little Jacob, "I _hope_ it will."
"So do I, Jacob," said Captain Solomon. "We'll see."
But the wind got less and less. They passed Provincetown, on Cape Cod, a
little while after Captain Solomon and little Jacob and little Sol had
finished their dinner, and Jacob felt hopeful. But the _Industry_ kept
going slower as the wind died down, and Jacob's heart kept going down
and down. But he watched, to see if he could see Boston. And, at last,
it was almost dark and he hadn't sighted Boston, and his heart was
almost down in his boots. He thought that he saw some land away off on
the western horizon, but he couldn't be sure whether he did or not, for
it was only twilight and the western horizon was all dim and misty. And,
suddenly, a little friendly star shone out, just where he was looking.
"Oh," he cried, "what is that star? It just came."
Captain Solomon was standing near him, and he smiled at little Jacob's
question.
"That star, Jacob," he said, "is Boston light. We can't get in to-night,
but we'll go a little nearer and we'll stand back and forth until
daylight. Then we'll go in. But we sha'n't be there to breakfast."
Little Jacob gave a long, shivering sigh. "Well," he said, "I suppose
you can't go in to-night. That light is a long way off, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Captain Solomon, "it's a long way off. And, besides, the
wind is dying out."
Little Jacob didn't say anything for some time.
"The light-keeper must have to stay up all night," he said, then, "to
see that his light doesn't go out."
"Yes, Jacob," answered Captain Solomon, "he stays up all night, taking
care of you and me. Or he looks out for his end of it. There are two or
three of them--the light-keepers. And, in the daytime, he sees that his
lamps are filled and his wicks trimmed and his brasses bright and his
glasses polished. When night comes he lights his lamp, and he looks at
it every little while to make sure that it is burning all right. If it
wasn't, there might be a wreck."
[Illustration]
Little Jacob stood and watched the light for a long time without saying
anything. Captain Solomon stood and watched it, too.
"That is a very friendly light," said little Jacob, at last, drawing a
long breath and smiling at the light. Captain Solomon couldn't see the
smile, because it was dark; but he heard it in little Jacob's voice.
"It is, Jacob," said Captain Solomon, "a very friendly light."
"I guess it's my bed-time," said little Jacob. "Good-night, captain."
"Good-night, Jacob," said Captain Solomon. "By the time you're up, in
the morning, we'll be almost in."
And little Jacob laughed happily and went down to bed.
And that's all.
THE RUNAWAY STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The brig _Industry_ was one of the ships that used to sail from that
wharf and Captain Solomon was her captain for many years. But, after he
had been sailing to far countries for a long time, he thought it would
be nice to stop going to sea, for he found that what he wanted was a
farm where he could settle down and stay in one place. And, besides, he
had three sons; and he didn't want his three sons to go to sea because
he knew what a hard life it was.
Little Sol was the oldest of his three sons, and he had been one voyage
to far countries. Captain Solomon took him, thinking that the voyage
would show him how much better it was to stay ashore and be a farmer
than to go to sea and be a captain and have to stand all sorts of storms
and perhaps be wrecked. But the voyage to those far countries hadn't
made Sol think what Captain Solomon had hoped it would make him think,
but it had only made him want to go to sea all the more. Little Sol
wasn't little any longer, but he had got to be about sixteen years old.
And Captain Solomon's youngest son was the one that was, afterwards,
Uncle John and the father of little John, that it tells about in the
Farm Stories. And what was the name of the middle son of Captain Solomon
I have forgotten. Perhaps it was Seth.
[Illustration]
So Captain Solomon bought the farm that he wanted. It was a beautiful
farm, with a river running through it, and a great pond in it, and you
would have thought that it would have suited Sol exactly. But it didn't.
For the one thing that Sol wanted, and that all these beautiful things,
the river and the great pond, and the hills and the woods, wouldn't make
up for, was the ocean. The farm was twenty miles from the ocean. Sol
would have given anything if he could just _hear_ the ocean. Where he
had lived he could hear it all the time, sometimes loud and sometimes
soft. It put him to sleep many and many a night, that sound of the sea
as it broke on the shore. And he wanted it so badly that he was almost
sick, but his father wouldn't let him go to sea, and he wouldn't even
let him go to Wellfleet to visit his cousins; for he was very much
afraid that Sol wouldn't come home again, but would go off to sea. And
at last Sol couldn't stand it any longer. He felt sick all the time and
he couldn't sleep and he just hated that farm. So he made up his mind
that he would have to run away from home.
It was on his sixteenth birthday that he made up his mind to run away
from home. Captain Solomon was a kind father, but he had been a captain
for such a long time that he wanted to run his family and his farm just
like a ship and to have everybody do just exactly as he said and ask no
questions; and, when anybody didn't seem to want to do just as he said,
but began to ask questions and argue, he got very angry. Sol was very
sorry to leave his mother, but there was nobody else except his two
brothers. And he was very sure that Seth would run away to sea when he
got old enough, unless Captain Solomon let him go. But, long before it
came to be Seth's time, Captain Solomon had learned better. And John, at
that time, was a little boy.
So Sol made his plans. And, when the time came, he left a letter to his
father. The letter was scribbled on a leaf that Sol tore out of a book,
and it was very short, for Sol didn't like to write letters. The letter
said that he just _had_ to go to sea, and that he hoped that his father
wouldn't blame him, and that he would come back some day when he had got
to be a mate or a captain.
Then there was a letter to his mother. It was longer than the letter to
his father and in it Sol said that he was just sick for the sea and
that, if he stayed on the farm, he knew he should get sicker and die.
The farm was a beautiful farm, but farms were not for him for many years
yet. He would rather plough the ocean than plough the earth. Sol was
rather proud when he wrote that about ploughing the ocean, for he
thought it sounded rather well when he read the letter over. And he
subscribed himself, with a great deal of love, her loving son.
Then Sol made a bundle of the clothes he thought he would need, but the
bundle was a small one, for he didn't think that he would need many
clothes. And, when it got late that night, and everything was quiet
about the house and even his brothers, Seth and John, were sound asleep,
Sol opened the window and threw his bundle out. Then he got out and slid
down the rain spout. The rain spout made a good deal of noise, but it
was wooden and not made of tin, so it didn't make as much noise as a
rain spout would make now. Sol was afraid that his father would hear the
noise and wake up, so he hid behind the lilac bushes in the corner of
the fence. But Captain Solomon had been doing a hard day's work,
haying, and he slept very soundly. And, when he found that his father
didn't wake up, Sol crept out from behind the lilac bushes and took up
his bundle and went out the wide gate.
First he turned north and walked quietly along until he had passed the
old schoolhouse and had got well into the village. He went carefully,
while he was in the village, for he was afraid that somebody might be
about and see him. Almost everybody in the village knew Sol, and anybody
who met him, at that time of night, would know that he was running away.
Perhaps they would call up the constable and have him sent back. Sol
shivered when he thought of that. Then he came to the old turnpike road
to Boston and he turned toward the east into the turnpike. He hadn't
met anybody in the village nor seen a single light.
[Illustration: "TOOK UP HIS BUNDLE AND WENT OUT THE WIDE GATE"]
It doesn't take a good, strong boy of sixteen all night to walk a little
more than twenty miles, and Sol loafed along and didn't hurry. Once in a
while he sat down to rest or sleep for a few minutes, but he didn't dare
to really go to sleep, for fear that he would sleep all the rest of the
night; and he had to be in Boston by daylight. And, once in a while, he
had to sneak around a toll-house, because he didn't have any money. And,
at each toll-house, they made each person that was walking on the
turnpike pay some money; perhaps it was a penny that they had to pay.
They charged more for each wagon that passed. At last he came into
Boston and it wasn't daylight yet. So he walked over to the Common and
lay down under some bushes and went to sleep.
Sol was wakened by the snuffling noise that a cow makes when it is
eating the grass and by the sound of the grass being bitten off. And he
started up, thinking of the farm at home, and there was a cow almost
near enough to touch. When he started up, the cow was frightened and
galloped off, and Sol saw that the sun was up and it must be about six
o'clock. He laughed at the cow and opened his bundle and took out some
bread that he had brought, and some gingerbread, and he ate them. It
wasn't much of a breakfast, but he hadn't been able to get anything
better. And, when he had finished, he walked down to Spring Lane and got
a drink of water at the spring, and he washed his face and hands.
Then he kept on down to India street, for he was afraid his father would
come after him and there was no time to lose.
[Illustration: "HE STARTED UP, THINKING OF THE FARM AT HOME"]
Sol needn't have been afraid that his father would come after him, if he
had only known what was happening at the farm. Captain Solomon had been
surprised that Sol didn't come down stairs and, finally, he had gone up
after him. There were Seth and John just waking up and rubbing the sleep
out of their eyes; but there was no Sol and his bed hadn't been slept
in. And Captain Solomon looked around until he saw the two letters
pinned to the pin-cushion. Then he looked angry, and he took the two
letters and marched down stairs again. He didn't say anything, but he
gave the letter that was directed "For Mother" to his wife.
And Sol's mother didn't say anything, either, but she opened her letter
and read it. It didn't take very long to read it but it took longer than
Captain Solomon's. And the tears came into her eyes as she handed the
letter to Captain Solomon and asked him not to be hard on the poor boy
but to be gentle with him, for he must have felt that very same way when
he first went to sea.
And Captain Solomon read her letter and then he sat without saying
anything for a long time, looking out of the window. Perhaps he didn't
see the things that were there; perhaps, instead of the fields of tall
grass and of wheat, waving in the breeze, he saw the blue ocean
sparkling in the sun and stretching away until it met the sky. Perhaps
he saw the tall masts and the white sails of the _Industry_ rising far
above his head, and felt her buoyant hull under his feet.
Whatever he saw, as he sat there, he laughed aloud, at last, and brought
his fist down on the kitchen table.
"Let him go!" he said. "It's in the blood. The sea's salt is in the
blood and the only thing that will take it out is the sea itself. He can
no more help it than he can help breathing. I'll write him a letter."
And so it happened that there was a letter for Sol in Captain Jonathan's
and Captain Jacob's office the next morning. They didn't know where he
was, but they sent to all their ships that were in port to see if he
could be found. The _Industry_ happened to be in port, but she was just
ready to sail, and she was to sail that afternoon. And it happened that
Sol had shipped as one of her crew and he was on board of her. Captain
Jonathan and Captain Jacob didn't know that Sol was one of the crew of
the _Industry_, because they didn't generally look over the crew lists
any longer, but they left that to the captains and the mates. But when
they found Sol, they had him come to their office, and they gave him the
letter from his father. And Sol read the letter and he was very happy,
and he wrote a long letter to his father.
In that letter he said that he knew, now, that it was very foolish for
him to run away, because Captain Solomon would have let him go if he
had made him understand how he felt. But Sol had always thought that his
father was very stern and he hadn't told him how badly he felt at being
kept away from the salt water. It may have been Captain Solomon's fault,
too; and when he got Sol's letter he went to a field that was far from
the farm-house. But he didn't do any work. He sat there, under a tree
that grew beside the stone wall, all the morning looking up at the
clouds.
It would be all the more foolish for any boy to run away to sea,
now-a-days. For things have changed very much in the last hundred years.
Steamers have taken the place of sailing ships, and the crews of the few
ships that there are aren't made up of men like Captain Solomon and
Sol.
But, when the _Industry_ sailed away from that wharf in Boston for far
countries, more than a hundred years ago, Sol was a sailor.
And that's all.
THE TRAFALGAR STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The brig _Industry_ was one of the ships that used to sail from that
wharf and, afterwards, she sailed from a wharf in Boston. And Captain
Solomon had been the captain of her for many years; but he had got tired
of going to sea and had bought a farm that was not near the ocean. And
Sol, Captain Solomon's son, had got tired of staying on the farm and had
gone off to sea, and he had risen to be the captain of the brig
_Industry_.
Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ sailed from a wharf in Boston
for Manila and Singapore and other far countries; but, first, she was
going to Leghorn. She carried flour, apples, salt fish, tobacco,
lumber, and some other things that Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob
thought that the people in Leghorn would buy. It was Captain Sol's first
voyage as captain and he had been a sailor about four years.
The _Industry_ sailed along over the great ocean for many days, and she
had good weather and nothing happened that was worth mentioning. Captain
Sol had his eyes open, because there was a war between England and
France and sometimes an English warship would meet an American ship and
stop her and do things that neither the captain nor the crew of the
American ship liked to have done. But there didn't seem to be anything
that the American ship could do except run away; and sometimes they
could get away and sometimes it wouldn't do any good to try.
And the _Industry_ kept getting nearer to the coast of Spain and to the
Straits of Gibraltar. It was the twenty-second of October, 1805, and
Captain Sol thought that he should sight Cape Trafalgar the next day.
So, the next morning, he began to look out for Cape Trafalgar before it
was light. And, when it was light enough to see anything, he saw that
they were very near to a lot of great ships. They were warships and they
were battered and there were great shot holes in their sides and some of
the yards and topmasts had been shot away and there were great rents in
their sails and, altogether, they looked like a lot of wrecks. It didn't
take a man as smart as Captain Sol very long to guess that there had
been a great battle a few days before. And he was right. The battle of
Trafalgar was fought between the English fleet of ships and the fleets
of France and Spain; and the ships that Captain Sol saw were English
ships. The sailors were mending the ships, as well as they could, so
that they would be fit to sail.
And Captain Sol wanted to know what was going on, so he sailed nearer;
and, when he was as near as he dared to go, he had the sailors fix the
sails so that the ship wouldn't go ahead, and he waited there.
Pretty soon some sailors got into a boat from one of the English ships,
and then an officer got in, and they rowed the boat over to the
_Industry_, and the English officer came on board of the _Industry_.
Captain Sol met him and he had some of the sailors stand in line on
each side of the gangway. And Captain Sol and the English officer talked
together, very politely, although the officer was plainly very much
surprised to see so young a man as captain. Captain Sol was only
twenty-one.
And the officer told Captain Sol about the battle, and he told him that
Lord Nelson had been shot in that battle, and he had died on board the
_Victory_ a few hours after the battle was over. And the officer saw the
lumber that the _Industry_ had on her deck, and he asked Captain Sol
what other cargo he carried. And Captain Sol told him about the flour
and the apples and the salt fish and the tobacco, and the officer got
into his boat again and was rowed back to the _Victory_.
Captain Sol stayed there, waiting to see what would happen; for he
thought that, perhaps, he might sell some of his cargo to the English
ships and not have to carry it to Leghorn. And, sure enough, the officer
got into the boat again and came back. And he told Captain Sol that the
commander of the fleet would be much obliged to him if he would sell
some of his lumber and some flour and some apples; but he didn't ask for
any of the salt fish nor for any of the tobacco. And Captain Sol agreed
and the officer rowed away.
Then the _Victory_ made signals to the other ships, telling them to send
boats for the lumber and the flour and the apples that they needed. And
a boat came to the _Industry_ for each ship, until they were clustered
about her as thick as bees about a hive. And the sailors were very
busy, putting into the boats the lumber and the flour and the barrels of
apples. Captain Sol had to have a tackle rigged over the hatchway of the
_Industry_ to hoist out the barrels. And when each boat had got its
load, it was rowed back to its ship.
It took them a long time to get all those things out of the _Industry_,
but at last it was all done and the last boat had rowed away; and
Captain Sol found that he had sold all of his lumber and about half of
his flour and about half of his apples. The English sailors needed all
that lumber to mend the ships. Then another boat came from the
_Victory_, and it was rowed to the _Industry_, and the paymaster of the
English fleet came aboard and two men came after him carrying bags of
gold money.
Captain Sol and the paymaster and the men with the bags of money went
down into the cabin; and the paymaster counted out the gold money for
the lumber and the flour and the apples, and left it on the cabin table.
And, besides, he thanked Captain Sol for selling them the things. Then
he went away.
[Illustration]
Then Captain Sol had the sailors fix the sails so that the ship would go
ahead, and he had a sailor stand at the flag halliards and dip the flag
for a salute to the English ships. And the _Industry_ sailed away from
those English ships towards Gibraltar, and pretty soon the ships were
out of sight.
And that's all.
THE CARGO STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
That wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once the brig _Industry_ was all ready to sail from Boston for far
countries. She had her cargo all stowed, but Captain Sol hadn't seen it
stowed, for he had had to be away from Boston while it was being put
aboard. So a lumper, or 'longshoreman, had told the men where to put
things. A lumper was a man who did the work of carrying things into a
ship, or out of it. This man was a pretty good 'longshoreman, but a
lumper wasn't a sailor and couldn't be expected to get the things stowed
quite so well as a captain or a mate. The captain or the mate would be
more interested in having the things stowed well, for it makes a great
difference, in the sailing of a ship and in her behavior, how the cargo
is stowed. Captain Sol generally liked to attend to those things
himself.
They had put on board all the things that they would eat and the water
that they would drink; and Captain Sol came back and the _Industry_
sailed away from that wharf out upon the great ocean. And she sailed the
length of the Atlantic, but she met a good deal of rough weather and
she ran into three or four storms.
Captain Sol soon found that the cargo hadn't been well stowed and it
bothered him a good deal. For, in his log-book, he wrote things like
these:
Aug. 27, Heavy sea from the eastward. Ship labors very badly.
Sept. 1, Squally with rough, heavy sea. Ship labors very much.
Sept. 10, Ship rolls and labors hard through the night.
Sept. 22, Heavy gales & Squally with tremendous sea. Ship'd much
water.
Sept. 25, Strong gales and rough sea. Ship rolls heavy.
Sept. 30, Hard squalls and tremendous sea from N. & E. Ship labors
very hard.
Oct. 3, A very heavy sea running during the 24 hours. Ship labors
too much, owing to bad stowage of cargo. It must be corrected.
So, before the _Industry_ had got around the Cape of Good Hope, Captain
Sol had made up his mind that he would have that cargo overhauled and
stowed the way it ought to be. For he thought that the ship would sail
enough faster to make up for the time it would take, and all hands would
be more comfortable. And he had the sailors steer her to a little island
that he knew about, where there was a good harbor and where he wouldn't
be bothered. And she got to that island and the sailors let her anchor
down to the bottom of the harbor, and they began to take out her cargo.
First they rigged tackles to the yards high up on the masts, and they
swung the yards so that the tackles would be just above the hatchways;
and one was over the forward hatchway and one was over the after
hatchway. Then Captain Sol sent one gang of men down into the hold of
the _Industry_ by the after hatch, with the mate to tell them what to
do; and he sent another gang of men into the hold by the fore hatch,
with the second mate to tell them what to do. And he divided the sailors
that were left into two parts, six men for the fore hatch and six men
for the after hatch. The sailors were all stripped to the waist and
barefooted, for they knew, from the way the crew was divided up, that
they would have to work hard and as quickly as they could. Captain Sol
was a driver for work, but his crew didn't think any the less of him for
that.
And Captain Sol called to the mates. "Are you all ready?" he said.
And the mates answered that they were all ready when he was.
"Well, rout it out, then, as fast as you're able," said Captain Sol;
"I'll see that we keep up with you."
And he ordered four men to tail on to each rope. He meant for four men
to take hold of the free end of the rope that ran through the blocks of
the tackle.
"And run away with it," he said. "And when I say run I don't mean walk,
either."
The sailors already had hold of the ropes, and they grinned when Captain
Sol said that.
"Aye, aye, sir," they shouted.
And he ordered the other two men at the fore hatch and the other two men
at the after hatch to be ready to handle and loose the bales and to be
lively about it.
"All ready!" he called to the mates.
Then the fun began. The bales and the barrels and the boxes seemed to
fly out of the hatchways and to alight on the deck like a flock of great
birds. And the men who had to handle them and to cast off the hooks did
it in the liveliest way that can be imagined, and they hustled the boxes
and the barrels and the bales to one side so that there should be room
for the next thing that came up. And there was a great noise of a lively
chanty, that the sailors sang all the time, without stopping. It wasn't
worth while to stop; for then, as soon as they had stopped singing, they
would have to begin again, so they kept on all the time. And there was
the soft noise of their bare feet stamping on the deck but they didn't
stamp very hard because that would hurt their feet.
Pretty soon the bodies and the faces of the sailors began to glisten;
and, before long, the sweat was running down in streams. For, working
there, at that island, was just about the same as it would have been if
they had been working at Charleston or Savannah in May. It was pretty
hot for such hard work. But the sailors were merry at it, and grinned
and shouted their chanty, and they kept at it until all the things were
out on the deck of the _Industry_ that had to be taken out. The things
that were the heaviest they didn't take out, but just moved them to one
side and left them in the hold.
By dinner time, they had all the cargo taken out that had to be taken
out, and the heaviest freshly stowed in the middle of the ship at the
very bottom. Then Captain Sol told the mates and the sailors to come up.
"There!" said he. "I'll bet dollars to buttons there never was a ship
unloaded any quicker than we've unloaded this one. Now go to your
dinner, and we'll finish this stowing this afternoon."
And he told the mate to serve out to the sailors a little rum. They had
been working very hard and they would have a lot more hard work to do
before the day was done. It was the custom, in those days, to serve out
rum to the crew now and then; perhaps once a week. It wasn't a good
custom, perhaps, but it was a custom. Captain Sol never once thought of
breaking that custom, but he gave each man a very little, and then they
had their dinner.
And, after they had finished their dinner, the sailors who had been on
deck in the morning went down into the hold and the sailors who had been
in the hold in the morning stayed on deck. But the mates had to go down,
and sometimes Captain Sol was in the hold and sometimes he was on deck.
For he wanted to see for himself how the work was being done.
They put the heaviest things they had left next to those great, heavy
things that were stowed in the middle of the ship at the very bottom.
And they kept lowering down the heaviest things that they had on deck,
and the sailors who were in the hold stowed them. They packed them very
tightly, so that, no matter how much the ship should pitch and toss and
roll, the cargo should not get loose. For it is a very bad thing for the
cargo to shift, and a ship might be lost if its cargo shifted, in a
storm. It is only in a storm that such a thing is likely to happen.
At last they had lowered the last bale and the last box that they had on
deck, and they had been stowed. And the men who were in the hold called
out for more, and the men on deck said that there wasn't any more. The
mates were surprised, for there was some room left in the hold that
there hadn't been the way the cargo was stowed at first. And the mates
came up, and the sailors came up, and they were just dripping wet.
And Captain Sol thanked the men for working so willingly all day, and he
said that he thought that they would all be glad because the ship would
ride easier, after this, and wouldn't take in so much water; and it
would be much easier to handle sail in rough weather. And he said that
he supposed they thought they ought to have a little more rum. He was
going to serve it out to them, but he warned them that it would be a
very little.
And, at that, the men all roared out, and Captain Sol went to the
quarter deck and stood by the railing that divided it from the rest of
the ship. He had a jug beside him. And the men came up, with their tin
cups in their hands, and they held their cups up high, one at a time.
And Captain Sol poured a very little rum into each cup, and the man with
the cup went forward.
But, while Captain Sol was doing that, there was one sailor near the
middle of the ship who felt as if he would rather have a dousing of cold
water than all the rum in the jug. And that man got one of those buckets
that were used to get salt water from the ocean for washing down decks
and for other things. The bucket had a long rope for a handle. And he
dropped the bucket overboard and gave the right jerk to the rope, and he
pulled it up, full of water. Then he stopped a man who was going by with
his cup, and asked him to throw the water over him. The other man asked
him where he would have it.
"Alow and aloft," said the sailor who had got the water, "and fore and
aft."
[Illustration]
So the other sailor began to throw the water over him. But, just then,
there was another sailor just going by, and the temptation was too
great. He threw what water was left in the bucket over that other
sailor. And that sailor gave a great roar, and ran to get another
bucket. And he filled it and tried to throw the water on the man who had
wet him down; but he couldn't find him. So he threw the water over
another man.
And that man ran for a bucket, and in about a minute all the sailors
were chasing each other around, throwing water over everybody they met.
There was a great noise and uproar, but everybody was good-natured about
it, for they were all very hot and the salt water felt very pleasant to
them. And, of course, the clothes that they had on were all wet through,
but nobody had on anything much besides his breeches, and it didn't
matter. And Captain Sol and the mate stood on the quarter deck and
laughed at them.
And, when the men had got tired of playing, they went down to their
supper; and Captain Sol went down to write in his log-book.
Nov. 6. Had cargo out and restowed it between 9 a. m. and 6 p. m.,
with an hour for dinner. I w'ld like to see the gang of lumpers
that can do half as well. So ends this day.
And that's all.
THE PRIVATEER STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
That wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, in the year 1807, the brig _Industry_ sailed from Boston for far
countries with Captain Sol as her captain. There was, at that time, a
great war between France and Spain, on one side, and England and some
other countries, on the other side; but the English ships had to do
almost all the fighting, for their side, that was done on the ocean.
And there were a good many English and French and Spanish privateers
sailing about, seeing how much harm they could do to the ships that
belonged to the other side.
[Illustration]
A privateer was a vessel that was fitted out by private persons, just as
if Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had made up their minds that the
_Industry_ should be a privateer, if the United States was at war. And
they would fit her out with guns and swords and cutlasses, and they
would get a crew for her, and they would ask the government if she could
be a privateer. And the government would probably have said that she
could, and they would have sent Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob some
papers, called "letters of marque and reprisal," which said that the
_Industry_ was a United States privateer and that she could take ships
as prizes and sell them. Governments do not do that, now, and a
privateer is no better than a pirate; but they all did it a hundred
years ago.
Captain Sol had thought about it a great deal, for privateers weren't
very particular what ships they captured; and he wondered whether he
ought to carry a whole lot of guns. He always had some guns on the ship,
but not enough to make a fight with, if the other vessel had a whole
lot, as privateers always did. But, finally, he decided that he had
better not, or he might be taken for a pirate. For his country wasn't
at war and, of course, he hadn't any papers. Pirates that are captured
are usually short lived. So he had sailed away without any guns worth
mentioning.
The _Industry_ sailed along over the ocean for about two weeks and
nothing much happened, and she wasn't so very far from the coast of
Spain; perhaps she was three or four hundred miles away.
For, on that voyage, she was bound to Leghorn, first, and then she was
going to Java and Manila. And, in the middle of the forenoon of that
day, the lookout in the crosstrees of the _Industry_ reported a sail
heading directly for them.
Captain Sol was worried about it and asked the sailor about the rig of
the vessel. And the sailor said that he couldn't tell what her rig was
because he couldn't see any more than her upper sails, and not much of
them; but she seemed to be a brig, and he thought she was fast, by the
way she was rising. He thought he should be able to see her hull in less
than half an hour.
Captain Sol said a bad word and took his glass and went up to the
crosstrees himself. But he couldn't see enough, there, so he went on, up
the mast. And he rested the glass against the rigging and looked. It
took him a long time to see anything, the rigging jumped around so; but
at last he managed to see. And he came down quickly and spoke to the man
at the wheel, who looked at him as if he expected some orders.
"Keep her as she goes," he said. "It won't do any good to try to run
away from that vessel. She can sail three feet to our two. And, whoever
she is, she has no business with us, anyway."
But Captain Sol knew that it would make very little difference whether
she had any right to stop them or not. If her captain wanted to he
would. And the mates knew that, and the sailors knew it. So Captain Sol
ordered one of the sailors to hoist the United States flag, and he kept
on.
[Illustration: "THAT WAS A SIGNAL FOR THE _Industry_ TO STOP"]
The brig kept rising fast and, in a short time, they could see her hull
from the deck of the _Industry_. They saw that she was a Spanish
privateer; and she hoisted the Spanish flag and kept on. And, pretty
soon, she was nearly abreast of the _Industry_; and she turned a
little, and there was a little puff of smoke from her side, and the
sound of the report came over the water a second or two later.
That was a signal for the _Industry_ to stop. But the _Industry_ seemed
to have grown deaf, and she didn't stop, and no sailor made a move to
touch a rope. And the Spanish brig seemed to be a little angry, and she
turned again and there was a bigger puff of smoke from her side and a
cannon ball came skipping across the water, ahead of the _Industry_.
That was a hint that she had better stop, if she knew what was good for
her. But Captain Sol only had another United States flag hoisted, and it
was a bigger flag than the first one.
When the Spanish brig saw that the _Industry_ wasn't going to stop, she
seemed to get very angry. There was another puff of smoke from her side,
and a solid shot tore through one of the sails of the _Industry_,
leaving a ragged hole.
[Illustration]
"Well," said Captain Sol, "she's begun to talk. I guess we may as well
heave to."
So he had the sailors fix the sails so that the ship wouldn't go ahead.
But the sailors worked slowly, and the mates didn't hurry them, either.
And, in a few minutes, a boat put off from the Spanish brig, and the
boat was filled with men. They had a pretty long way to row because
Captain Sol hadn't stopped when he was asked to. But, after a while,
they were at the side. The officer in the Spanish boat was very much
excited and talked very fast. He wanted Captain Sol to put a gangway or
a ladder over the side, so that he could get on board easily.
But Captain Sol winked at the mate and made believe that he didn't
understand.
"No compreeny," he said, leaning over the side. For he thought that they
could come aboard any way they were able. He had had the ship stopped
for them.
"Donkey!" said the officer, in Spanish. And he scrambled up, followed by
ten of his men. The other men stayed in the boat.
And Captain Sol was very polite, but he couldn't talk Spanish and he
made believe he couldn't understand what was said. Really, he knew
enough Spanish to be able to understand what the officer said, but he
couldn't speak Spanish. After a while, the officer tried French, but
Captain Sol made believe that he couldn't understand that, either, and
he said, in English, that he was very sorry that he didn't have any
Frenchmen in the crew. So the officer gave up trying to make Captain Sol
understand.
And he made the crew of the _Industry_ go in the boat, but he left
Captain Sol and the mates, and ten men for a prize crew. And he told
Captain Sol that he was to take the ship to Cadiz. He kept saying that
name over and over.
Captain Sol knew that it would be of no use to resist, and he didn't.
And the crew bade him good bye, and the boat was rowed away. Then his
new Spanish crew fixed the sails so that the ship would go ahead. He
thought they were pretty clumsy about it, but he didn't say anything.
And the _Industry_ sailed away towards Cadiz, and the Spanish brig
turned to the north.
They sailed all the rest of that day towards the coast of Spain, which
was on their way to Leghorn, anyway. Captain Sol kept his eyes open, for
he hadn't given up hoping for a chance to get the ship back again; but
the chance didn't seem very good, with only the two mates and himself
against the ten Spaniards. And, that night, there must have been
something the matter with the watch that the Spaniards kept, for, when
there was light enough to see, in the morning, there was a big English
warship close to them. She was big enough to swallow the _Industry_
whole and never to know the difference. Captain Sol laughed right out
loud when the Spaniards first saw her; he had known about her nearly
half the night.
The Spaniards never once thought of fighting, but surrendered right off.
It would have been very foolish for them to fight, for they were only
ten men, in a ship that wasn't fitted for fighting; and the English ship
was a big ship fitted up on purpose to fight, and she had a crew of
three or four hundred men.
So a boat soon put off from the English ship, with sailors in it, and
came to the side of the _Industry_. And Captain Sol was hurrying to put
a ladder over, so that the English officer could come up without any
trouble. But the officer didn't wait for any ladder; he and his men
swarmed up the side like flies. And Captain Sol met the officer, and he
laughed and said that he was glad to see him. And the officer smiled and
wondered why that was, and he shook hands with Captain Sol; and then
Captain Sol and the officer went into the cabin together. And Captain
Sol told the officer about the Spanish privateer.
When the officer had heard the story he said it was hard luck, but, as
the vessel was a Spanish prize, he should have to take her. He thought
that the Admiralty court would fix that matter all right. And Captain
Sol sighed and said that he hoped so, but he didn't know much about
Admiralty courts. He had understood that American owners were apt to get
the worst of it. And then Captain Sol and the officer had a glass of
wine together, and it was so good that they each had another glass; and
then they went on deck.
The officer bundled the Spaniards into the boat and left ten Englishmen
to take their places, apologizing to Captain Sol for leaving him so
short-handed. The _Industry_ generally had a crew of twenty-five or
thirty men. Then the officer got into the boat and rowed away. Captain
Sol was to take the _Industry_ to Gibraltar, which was right on the way
to Leghorn, too. And it was pretty near, so that he ought to get there
the next day.
Then Captain Sol had an idea. He served out a little rum, first, and he
told the crew that if nothing happened he would take the ship straight
to Gibraltar. But the Spaniards were pretty thick between where they
were and Gibraltar, so he thought he would ask them a question. If they
should be taken by the Spaniards again, and the crew should be left on
board, would they agree to sign as his crew, for a voyage to Leghorn and
other ports?
When the English sailors heard that, some of them began to grin; and
they talked together for a little while, and then they said that they
would agree to do as Captain Sol had said. And Captain Sol was pleased,
and he served out another helping of rum all around. The sailors called
it grog.
Sure enough, they were captured again, the next morning, before they had
got within sight of Gibraltar; and the Spanish ship put on board the
_Industry_ a prize crew of nine men. But she left the English crew on
board, for she had already taken several other prizes; and she had put
other prize crews on board of those prizes, and she had their crews as
prisoners. And her captain was afraid to have more prisoners because he
would have nearly as many prisoners as he had men left in his crew. Then
the Spanish ship told Captain Sol to steer for Algiers, and she sailed
away about her business.
Captain Sol did as he was told and steered for Algiers. But, in the
night of that day, the two mates went, while the Spanish crew weren't
looking, and they set free the Englishmen and gave them a paper to sign.
That paper made them Captain Sol's sailors. And then they gave each man
pistols and a cutlass, and the first mate took half of the Englishmen
and went to the forecastle, where four men of the Spanish crew were
sleeping; and the second mate took the other five Englishmen, and he
went on deck, where the other five men of the Spanish crew were on
watch, but he hid his Englishmen. And Captain Sol was walking back and
forth on the quarter deck, and suddenly he began to whistle softly. And
all the Englishmen sprang out, and they had that Spanish crew captured
before they knew what had happened. But they didn't have to hurt
anybody, they captured them so quickly.
Then Captain Sol changed the course of the _Industry_ so that she was
heading for Leghorn, and he got to Leghorn in due time; but he had some
trouble in getting rid of his Spanish prisoners.
And nobody ever knew whether Captain Sol meant to be captured by the
Spaniards, that last time, or not.
And that's all.
THE RACE STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
A long time ago the brig _Industry_ lay at that wharf in Boston, and she
was all ready to sail for far countries. And there was a ship that was
named the _Augusta Ramsay_ lying at the next wharf, and she was all
ready to sail, too, and she was going to the same country that the
_Industry_ was going to. Captain Sol had been on the _Industry_ for a
long time, seeing that the cargo was stowed as well as it could be
stowed, and trying to hurry the lumpers. But he couldn't make them hurry
very much.
Captain Sol wanted to get the _Industry_ away before the _Augusta
Ramsay_ sailed, so as to gain as much time as he could. For, in those
days, the owners of ships couldn't telegraph to far countries to find
out what they had to sell and what they wanted to buy, but the captains
of their ships had to find out those things when the ships got there.
And the captains had to sell the things they brought for as much as they
could get for them, and they had to buy what they wanted to carry back
for as low a price as they could.
So it made a good deal of difference whether a ship got there first or
not; for the ship that got there first could sell the things that she
brought at a higher price, and could buy the things to bring back for a
lower price than a ship that got there a little later. So Captain Sol
knew that it would be a race, for the whole voyage, between the
_Industry_ and the _Augusta Ramsay_. And Captain Henry, of the _Augusta
Ramsay_, knew it, too, and he was hurrying as fast as he could. The
_Augusta Ramsay_ was a good deal bigger than the _Industry_, but Captain
Sol had his mind made up to beat her if he blew the sticks right out of
the _Industry_.
So it happened that the ship _Augusta Ramsay_ pulled out from her wharf
at exactly the same time that the brig _Industry_ pulled out from hers.
And they both began to set all the sails that they possibly could. And
the ship and the brig sailed down the harbor together before a fair
wind. A fair wind is a wind that blows about the way the vessel is
going. But the _Augusta Ramsay_ was just ahead, going down the harbor,
for the wharf that she started from was a little nearer to the channel
than Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's wharf; and the channel that
led out of Boston Harbor was even more crooked and narrow than it is
now. So the _Industry_ couldn't pass the _Augusta Ramsay_, while they
were in the channel and setting all those many sails, and Captain Sol
didn't try it.
By the time the _Industry_ had got out into Boston Bay she had set her
mainsail and her foresail, and her maintopsail and her foretopsail, and
her maintopgallantsail and her foretopgallantsail, and her mainroyal and
her foreroyal, and her mainskysail and her foreskysail, and all of her
jibs and her spanker and her staysails; and the sailors were busy
getting out her studdingsail booms. The studdingsail booms are sticks
that stick out beyond the ends of the yards; and, as soon as the sailors
had got out these booms, they set the studdingsails that belonged on
them, so that it was just as if the foresail and the other sails that
had studdingsails had been made so much bigger. And the _Industry_ had
set all the sail that she could set.
The _Augusta Ramsay_ had all the sails that the _Industry_ had and,
besides those sails, she had the sails that belong on the mizzenmast:
the cross-jack and the mizzentopsail and the mizzentopgallantsail and
the mizzenroyal and the mizzenskysail and all the mizzenstaysails. But
the _Industry_ couldn't set those sails on the mizzenmast, because she
didn't have any mizzenmast. And the two vessels leaned a good deal and
the foam piled up under their bows and they just flew out of Boston Bay
into Massachusetts Bay and out past Provincetown into the great ocean;
but neither gained on the other any worth mentioning.
And night came and they didn't take in any of the sails that they had
set, but they sailed on, in the moonlight. Captain Sol had to keep his
crew pretty busy, changing the sails so that the wind would blow on
them the right way, and so did Captain Henry. It is a good deal of a job
to change these many sails. But morning came, and there was the _Augusta
Ramsay_ right abreast of them. And the wind increased, so that the two
vessels leaned a great deal; but Captain Sol said that he guessed he
could carry his sail as long as Captain Henry could carry his, and he
wasn't going to be the first to take in sail. But the sailors didn't
like to hear Captain Sol say that because they knew that it meant hard
work for them.
They sailed on, that way, for a long time, and they never lost sight of
each other. But, first, the _Augusta Ramsay_ would be a little way ahead
and then the _Industry_ would gain a little and go ahead of the _Augusta
Ramsay_. Then, one day, it began to blow harder and harder and Captain
Sol knew that they would have a storm. And he got a little worried
because he was afraid that he might have to take in some sail before
Captain Henry did. For he wouldn't risk his ship just because he had
said that he wasn't going to be the first to take in sail. And he
looked, through his glass, at the _Augusta Ramsay_, to see if she took
in any of her sails, and he waited as long as he dared to wait. Then,
just as he was going to give it up, and take his glass down, he saw the
sailors on the _Augusta Ramsay_ going up on the yards. And he was very
glad of it, and he gave orders for his sailors to reduce sail. And the
sailors were glad, too, and they swarmed up aloft and took in the sails
in a jiffy.
The storm lasted for three days and two nights. The wind blew harder and
harder and the waves got higher and higher and the rain came down in
sheets. Then it would stop raining, for a little while, and the wind
would blow harder than ever, while the flying clouds seemed to be no
higher than the masthead. Then it would begin to rain again. But they
didn't lose sight of the _Augusta Ramsay_ completely, although, at
times, she was hidden by the rain and, for one whole day, they didn't
see her at all. But she was there on the next morning. And the
_Industry_, all through that hard blow, was sailing under double-reefed
topsails, and so was the _Augusta Ramsay_. And double-reefed topsails is
very little sail, compared to the enormous spread of canvas that the
vessels had set when they left Boston.
At last, after dark of the third day, the wind began to be less and the
clouds to be more broken, and Captain Sol knew that the storm was over.
And he made up his mind that he would get out of that place just as soon
as he could, for he thought that, just as likely as not, it would be
calm there for some time. And he thought that the sooner he got out of
any place where there was likely to be no wind, the better. So he didn't
go to bed, but he watched the weather, and he waited. Finally, he
thought that the _Industry_ could stand a little more sail.
"Call all hands," he said to the mate, "and get sail on her, little by
little. We don't want to loaf around here."
It was two o'clock in the morning, and the mate thought that the sailors
would grumble; but he didn't care. "Aye, aye, sir," he said.
And he called all hands, and they came up on deck, grumbling at the
captain for routing them up at that time, to make sail, when it was
blowing hard enough, anyway. But the mate pretended not to hear them,
and he ordered some of the sailors aloft. And the sailors that went
aloft shook out the reefs in the topsails; and the sailors that were on
deck pulled away at the halliards and at the sheets, but they didn't
shout out any chanty.
And the _Industry_ began to sail faster. And pretty soon Captain Sol had
the men shake out some other sails and hoist them. And the wind was
less, and a star showed. And Captain Sol had the men set more sails, so
that the vessel had all that she could stand. Then, pretty soon, more
stars showed, and the wind kept on going down. And, by daylight, he had
nearly all the sails set, and nothing was to be seen of the _Augusta
Ramsay_. And Captain Sol chuckled to himself, and went down to bed.
He didn't sleep very long but just took a little nap and then he went on
deck again. There were two things that bothered him a little, besides
the sailing of his vessel, which couldn't be said to bother him at all;
for he always did the very best he could. Nobody can do any more than
that. And, when he had done the very best he could, Captain Sol didn't
worry about what would happen; which was very sensible on Captain Sol's
part. And the two things that bothered him were, first, where the
_Augusta Ramsay_ was; and, second, the disposition of his crew. It
seemed to him that they were likely to make trouble. Captain Sol wasn't
afraid of trouble, but he knew that the willingness of the crew made a
great difference in the speed that could be got out of a vessel in a
long voyage. So he made up his mind that he would attend to the second
matter first.
Captain Sol had all hands called; and the men came up unwillingly, and
they were very cross with Captain Sol because they thought that he had
called them to change the sails again. And they had been up nearly the
whole of three nights and wanted to sleep. But Captain Sol called them
all aft, and he stood by the railing that was at the edge of the quarter
deck and he made them a little speech. He said that the men must know
that there was a race between the _Augusta Ramsay_ and the _Industry_,
and that each vessel was trying to be the first to get to the far
country, where they both were bound. It was worth something to his
owners to have the _Industry_ get there first, and he would promise the
crew five dollars apiece if they beat the _Augusta Ramsay_, even if they
only beat her by an hour. And, for every day that they beat her, up to
two weeks, he would promise them two dollars apiece. He didn't care
about beating her by more than two weeks, because he thought that he
would have his cargo aboard, all ready to carry back to Boston, in that
time. But there must be no skulking and no unwillingness. Anything of
that kind would be severely dealt with, and he would not hesitate to put
any man in irons for the rest of the voyage who didn't jump to his duty
at the word.
And, when Captain Sol had finished his speech, the men all shouted out a
cheer for him and another cheer for Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob.
And they weren't grumbly any more but they were glad. And Captain Sol
turned away and looked through his glass to see if he could make out the
_Augusta Ramsay_. But he couldn't see any sign of her.
So Captain Sol sailed the _Industry_ across the wide ocean and down
around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean; and he
carried sail until it almost cracked the masts, and his crew were as
willing as they could be and nobody skulked. But, all that time, there
was no sign of the _Augusta Ramsay_. And they sailed into the wide river
and anchored; and Captain Sol sold the things he had brought and bought
the things to carry back, and still there was no sign of the _Augusta
Ramsay_.
And he loaded the _Industry_ with the things that he had bought, and he
hoisted his anchor and sailed away down the river. And, just as he came
to the ocean, there was the _Augusta Ramsay_ sailing in.
Captain Sol had the sails fixed so that the ship wouldn't go ahead and
so did Captain Henry. And Captain Sol had a boat lowered and sailors got
in, to row it, and he went over to make a call on Captain Henry. And he
found that the _Augusta Ramsay_ had been caught in a calm place, after
that storm, because Captain Henry hadn't been willing to rout his men
out at two o'clock in the morning; and she hadn't been able to get out
of that calm place for nearly two weeks, but had stayed there, with her
sails flapping against the masts, for all that long time. And Captain
Henry said that it was a joke on him and bade Captain Sol good bye and
wished him a good voyage home. But Captain Sol thought that it was no
joke for the owners of the _Augusta Ramsay_.
Then he got into his boat again and went back to his ship. And the
_Augusta Ramsay_ fixed her sails so that she would go ahead, and so did
the _Industry_. And they sailed away from each other; but Captain Sol
had taken Captain Henry's letters.
And that's all.
THE PILOT STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the
ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from
that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their
office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
The channel into Boston Harbor was crooked and narrow and a captain had
to know it very well to be able to take a ship in safely. A good many
captains didn't like to risk it, even if they thought they did know the
channel pretty well. So there were some men who made it their business
to take vessels out of the harbor, that wanted to go out, and to bring
vessels in, that wanted to come in. Those men were called harbor pilots,
or just pilots. And they knew just exactly how much water they would
find at each place; and they knew the whole harbor so well that they
could tell, almost, where every stone, of the size of a hat, was on the
bottom of it. In the year 1820, John Wilson was one of these pilots, and
he lived at Winthrop. Winthrop was a convenient place for a pilot to
live in, for it is on a sort of a point that bends around, so that it is
outside of Boston Harbor.
Now John Wilson's house was where he could see, from the windows of a
room upstairs, far out to sea. He could have seen Provincetown, on the
end of Cape Cod, if it hadn't been so far away that it was hidden by
the roundness of the world; and there was nothing, except the ocean and
the ships that sailed on it, between him and Europe. On clear days he
was apt to sit at his upper window, looking out over the ocean and
smoking. And whenever he saw the upper sails of some vessel beginning to
show, far away, over the waters of Massachusetts Bay, he would hurry off
to his sloop, that always lay ready at the wharf, just below; and he
would tell the man who was pottering about on the sloop, and who was
named Joe, that there was a vessel coming up and that he had better stir
his stumps. For he thought that it was the ship _Dawn_. Or, perhaps, it
was the brig _Sally Ann_ or the _Coromandel_, or the ship _Pactolys_, or
the _Savannah_, or the _Augusta Ramsay_, or the brig _Industry_. For
John Wilson knew every vessel that sailed from Boston so well that he
could tell a vessel's name as soon as he caught sight of her upper
sails.
Then Joe would hurry and John Wilson would hurry and they would sail
down to meet that vessel. And John Wilson, if he was the first pilot to
get to the vessel, which he generally was, would climb aboard, leaving
Joe to sail the sloop alone; and he would take command of the vessel and
pilot her safely in, through the channel, to her wharf.
But, if it was foggy or hazy, so that John Wilson could not see the
sails of vessels far off, over the water, even with his long glass, he
and Joe would sail back and forth before the entrance to Boston Harbor.
Sometimes there would be three or four pilot boats sailing back and
forth, waiting for the ships to come in; and, when they sighted a ship,
it would be a race to see which boat would get to her first.
One afternoon, in the late summer, John Wilson sat at his upper window,
smoking and looking out at the gulls. His long glass lay on another
chair beside him, all ready to look through; and, once in a while, he
took it up and looked, very carefully, all along the edge of the ocean.
But, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't see any ships. There was
a fisherman going out, but fishermen didn't take pilots, and, if they
had, it was too late, anyway. And he saw another small vessel coming in,
pretty soon after the fisherman had gone. It was the Portland packet.
She didn't take a pilot, either, but her captain was a pilot.
[Illustration]
John Wilson was getting tired of sitting by that window, although it was
a very pleasant place on a summer afternoon. He got up and stretched
sleepily, for it was sleepy work sitting there, doing nothing. Then he
thought that he might as well take a last look through the glass, before
he went, and he lifted it and held it against the frame of the window
and looked.
"Hello!" he said to himself. "The skysails and royals of something. It's
a brig. By the cut of her sails, she'll be the _Industry_. Haven't heard
of her since she was spoken, going out, five months ago. She must have
made a quick passage."
Then he put down the glass and hurried down to the sloop.
"Hurry up, Joe," he said. "The old _Industry_'s coming in. And she's in
a hurry, too. That Cap'n Sol's carrying royals and skysails. That's all
that showed. Like enough he's got stu'n'sails on her, too. He seems to
want to get in to-night; and we've got to hurry, for she'll keep right
on to his wharf, pilot or no pilot."
"He hasn't been reported at Manila," said Joe.
"No," said John Wilson, "he hasn't. But he'll report his own arrival
there. There's few can carry sail with Cap'n Sol."
[Illustration: "THE SLOOP WAS ON HER WAY"]
The sloop was on her way, by that time, out to the channel and down to
the bay. She was rather fast, for such a small vessel, for the pilot who
had the fastest boat had the best chance; and she had a good deal of
sail for a boat of her size. But she couldn't sail as fast as the
_Industry_. She met the _Industry_ about five miles out in the bay,
and John Wilson saw that Captain Sol had put a flag in the rigging, to
show that he wanted a pilot.
Captain Sol had the sails fixed so that the _Industry_ wouldn't go ahead
very fast, and the sloop came alongside and John Wilson scrambled
aboard. The sloop wasn't tied to the ship at all, and she didn't stay
alongside as long as a minute; then she was sailing off again, towards
Boston. For Joe had to take John Wilson home again after he had got a
vessel piloted safely in to the wharf that she was going to.
Captain Sol met John Wilson when he came on board and shook hands with
him.
"Hello, John," he said. "I hoped we should get you."
"Hello, Sol," said John Wilson. "You haven't been reported at Manila,
yet, and you have no business to be here."
"So?" asked Captain Sol. "Three ships sailed from Manila for Boston
ahead of me. They'll be along in the course of time." He smiled to
himself at the thought of his having passed those ships. But Captain Sol
didn't generally say much, and John Wilson didn't ask him anything more
about those ships. But he made up his mind that he would keep a sharp
lookout for them. "Get us in as soon as you can, John," continued
Captain Sol. "I have some business that I want to get done before dark."
"All right," said John Wilson; and he began to give his orders.
The sails were fixed so that the ship would go ahead again as fast as
she was going before. They passed the pilot boat, with Joe sailing it
all alone, and then John Wilson told the sailors to begin to take in
sail. They had so much sail spread that it would take the sailors all
the time, until they got to the wharf, to take it in, for they had
reached the beginning of the channel between the islands.
And they sailed in, past the islands, and John Wilson had the ship
steered so that she went in the deepest part of the channel. And they
came up to the wharf, gently, and the ship was tied to the wharf with
great ropes; and there was a little of the afternoon left. So Captain
Sol went to attend to the business that he wanted to do. But John Wilson
went to the office of Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob and they paid
him some money for piloting the _Industry_ up the harbor.
Then he went back to the wharf and watched the sailors, who were busy on
the _Industry_, and he waited for Joe to come, with the sloop, to take
him back to Winthrop. And, in about half an hour, there was the sloop.
And John Wilson got aboard and sailed away for Winthrop.
And that's all.
THE DRIFTWOOD STORY
Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and
beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great
ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.
Many times, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from that
wharf, on voyages to far countries, and had come back again to the
wharf, bringing spices and tea and sets of china and pretty little
tables inlaid with ivory and ebony, and camel's hair shawls, and cloth
of goat's hair, and logs of teak-wood to make things of, and many
another beautiful thing. And, when Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob
moved their office to Boston, she had sailed from a wharf in Boston to
that far country. Captain Solomon was the captain of the _Industry_
then. And Captain Solomon married and had sons, and when those sons were
beginning to get old enough to go to sea, Captain Solomon stopped being
a captain and became a farmer. For he didn't want his sons to go to sea,
and he thought that, if he had a farm, away from the salt ocean, they
wouldn't go. So he bought the farm that it tells about in the Farm
Stories. But little Sol ran away to sea, just the same; and he got to be
the captain of the _Industry_.
And Captain Jonathan got to be an old man, and he died peacefully. And
still the brig _Industry_ sailed to that far country and sailed back
again. And the years passed, and Captain Jacob got to be a very old man,
and he died, too; and Lois was an old woman, and little Jacob, her son,
had grown to be a man, and little Lois, her daughter, had grown up and
married. And still the brig _Industry_ sailed on her voyages and came
back again, but she was getting to be old, too.
[Illustration: "MANY TIMES HAD SHE BEEN TIED UP AT THAT WHARF"]
And, at last, after more years had passed, the _Industry_ was so old
that she needed to have a lot done to her to make her safe. And her
owners decided that it wasn't worth while to rebuild an old vessel, but
they would build a new one instead; for they didn't build the kind of
ship that the _Industry_ was any more, but they built a kind that they
thought was better and faster. So, when she got in the next time from
that far country, they told her captain what they had decided to do.
That captain wasn't Captain Sol. He didn't go to sea any more, but he
lived in Boston.
So, when she had been unloaded, the captain and some sailors sailed her
down to the wide river that the little city was beside. It took them
only about a half a day to go there from Boston, and the _Industry_
sailed into the river for the last time, and up to the wharf that was
all falling down. And the men tied her to the wharf with great ropes.
Many times had she been tied up at that wharf, and she had loaded there
and had been unloaded there many times. But she now would never again go
sailing out of the river into the great ocean.
And the captain went to the riggers of ships, and he had hard work to
find them; but at last he found some riggers of ships that were left,
and he told them to come to the wharf and take the sails and the yards
off the _Industry_, and the masts out of her, because she was going to
be broken up. And the riggers came, and they took the sails off the
yards and they took the yards down; and they took down the topmasts, and
they took off the bowsprit, and they took out the great masts that had
felt the strain of the winds blowing on the sails for thousands and
thousands of miles. And the _Industry_ was nothing but an old hulk
lying at an old wharf that was falling down.
Then some junk men came, and they stripped off the copper sheets that
were on her bottom, and they took the iron work out of her, and they
carried the copper sheets and the iron to their shop. Then they untied
the great ropes which held the hulk to the wharf, and they towed all
that was left of the _Industry_ to a shallow place, up the wide river,
and there they pulled it high up on the shore. And some more men came
and began stripping off the sheathing of thin boards that had been put
on outside of her planking, and they sawed this sheathing up until it
was small enough to go in a fireplace, and they split it up into small
sticks. For the sheathing, that has been next to the copper sheets and
has gone in the salt water for so many years, would burn with pretty
green and blue flames and little flashes of red. And then they began to
take off her thick planking of oak.
Lois's son, that had been little Jacob, was Squire Jacob when he had
grown up. And he heard of it, and he came to see the end of the
_Industry_. And, when he saw the remains of the ship lying there on the
shore, and saw where the men had taken the planks off, so that her great
ribs showed, like a skeleton, the sight filled his heart with sadness.
He thought of the voyage that he had made in her, when he was a little
boy, and he thought of the many times that she had sailed to that far
country and had always brought the sailors and the captains back safe;
and he stood there, looking, for a long time. But, at last, he turned
away, and he went to the men who had the sheathing all sawed and split
into small sticks, and he bought that sheathing, every bit of it. And he
told the men that he would like to have the rudder and one or two of the
ribs. And the men said that they would be glad to give him the rudder
and some of the ribs.
Then he went back to the little city, and he found an old sailor who had
sailed in the _Industry_. That sailor was an old man and he didn't go to
sea any more, he was so old; but he lived in a nice kind of a place that
was for old sailors to live in, and he liked to whittle things with his
knife. He could whittle pretty well, for sailors are great whittlers.
And Lois's son, Squire Jacob, told this old sailor about the
_Industry_, and how he had bought all the sheathing that there was, and
that he would have the rudder and some of the ribs. And he asked the
sailor if he could manage to make a model of the brig _Industry_ out of
the rudder, and fit it with sails and everything just as the _Industry_
really had been. And the sailor was sorry when he heard about it, and he
said he would like nothing better than to make the model, and it should
be exactly like the _Industry_, down to the smallest block and the least
rope. And he said that he would make the model for nothing if he might
have the rest of the rudder to make a model for himself, too.
So Squire Jacob was glad, and he told the old sailor that he could have
the rest of the rudder and welcome, and that he must come up sometimes
and sit in front of his fire when the sheathing was burning; for he had
a good deal of it, and it would be a long time before it was all burned
up. And the old man thanked him and said that he would be glad to come.
Then Squire Jacob went to some cabinet makers, and he said that he would
like to have them make a chair for him out of the ribs of the
_Industry_. It would be an arm-chair and would have a picture of the
brig carved in the wood up at the top of the back. And the cabinet
makers understood, and they said that they would make him the arm-chair.
[Illustration]
And at last the arm-chair was all done, and the model was almost done;
but the arm-chair was done first. And, one evening, Squire Jacob was
sitting in the arm-chair before the fire, and in his hand he held the
little model of the _Industry_, that an old sailor had carved, with his
jack-knife, for his Christmas present when he went on that voyage to far
countries as a little boy. The hull of that little model was made of
ebony and the masts and spars were little ebony sticks; and the sails
were of ivory, scraped thin, and the ropes were silk thread. And the
sails were bulging, as if the wind was filling them and making them
stand out from the yards. But the ivory sails were yellow with age, and
the silk thread was all yellow and rotten.
That little model was only about three inches long, so that it rested
easily on Squire Jacob's hand. He sat before the fire, looking at the
little model, and his wife sat in another chair beside him. And their
daughter, who was named Lois, was sitting in a low chair by her mother.
That Lois was pretty nearly grown up. And Squire Jacob remembered, and
he told his wife and his daughter Lois the things that it tells about in
the Christmas Story.
When he had finished telling the Christmas Story, the door-bell rang;
and Lois went to the door, and she came back and said that an old man
was out in the hall, but he wouldn't come in. And Squire Jacob went out
to the hall, and he came back with the old sailor who had carved the
model of the brig _Industry_ out of the real rudder of the ship. He had
that model in his arms. And he set the model that he had brought in the
middle of the mantel, over the fire, and sat down in the arm-chair. And
Squire Jacob didn't say anything, but he handed him the little model,
made of ebony and ivory.
The old sailor took the little model, and it made him remember many
things; and he remembered about the old man who had carved that model
and about that very voyage, for he had been one of the crew of the
_Industry_ when she went on that voyage to far countries and carried
little Jacob and little Sol. And he told some stories about that sailor
and that voyage that Squire Jacob was very glad to hear.
They all sat there for a long time, but they didn't say much. And the
old sailor looked from the little model of the _Industry_, in his hand,
to the big one, that was on the mantel before him; and Squire Jacob took
some of the sheathing of the real _Industry_ and put it on the fire. And
it blazed up with flames that were all green and blue, and red.
"A many miles o' ocean 's in that flame," said the old sailor, "a many
miles."
"And a good ship," said Squire Jacob.
"That she was," said the old sailor. "A good ship."
[Illustration]
And they watched the sheathing burning, and Squire Jacob thought that he
saw pictures in the flames. At first he saw a ship all alone on the
great ocean, and nothing could be seen from the ship but miles of
tossing water; and the flame died out. Then another flame blazed up, and
Squire Jacob saw a great river with a city on the bank, and the brig
_Industry_ was anchored in the river. And many little boats were rowed
from the city to the ship and back again. The little boats were loaded
with tea and spices and camel's-hair shawls and many other beautiful
things. And he saw Captain Solomon on the ship; and that flame died out.
And another flame blazed up, and he saw the _Industry_ just coming up
the river and tying up at the wharf that the narrow road led down to.
And that flame died out quickly, and the piece of sheathing only glowed,
for it was all burned to ashes, and the ashes dropped down where the
other ashes were.
And that's all of this book.
THE SANDMAN: HIS SEA STORIES
These stories give you a good picture of life on an old-time sailing
vessel. When you want to look up some special point, this index will
show you the right page.
Albatross, 187-193
Christmas, on shipboard, 121, 136
Communication, 141-142, 144, 293
Driftwood, 333-334
Elephants, 160-169
Equator, 122
Fish, porpoise, 47-55;
flying fish, 71, 76-84;
shark, 107-119
Food, 54, 84, 125, 133-136, 143
Lighthouses, 219-221
Ocean, 197-198; sounding, 145-151;
seaweed, 64-73
Selling and trading, 155, 245, 250-251
Transportation: bullock carts, 159;
sailing ships, 3, 32, 36-42, 45-46, 86-101, 128, 133, 143-144, 331-338
Weather, 211-216;
barometer, 193;
storm, 7-30
End of Project Gutenberg's The Sandman: His Sea Stories, by William J. Hopkins
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