Captains Courageous - Rudyard Kipling (the rosie project .TXT) š
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He was a recognized part of the scheme of things on the Weāre Here; had his place at the table and among the bunks; and could hold his own in the long talks on stormy days, when the others were always ready to listen to what they called his āfairy-talesā of his life ashore. It did not take him more than two days and a quarter to feel that if he spoke of his own lifeāit seemed very far awayāno one except Dan (and even Danās belief was sorely tried) credited him. So he invented a friend, a boy he had heard of, who drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, Ohio, and ordered five suits of clothes at a time and led things called āgermansā at parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen, but all the presents were solid silver. Salters protested that this kind of yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, but he listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the end gave Harvey entirely new notions on āgermans,ā clothes, cigarettes with gold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, champagne, card-playing, and hotel accommodation. Little by little he changed his tone when speaking of his āfriend,ā whom Long Jack had christened āthe Crazy Kid,ā āthe Gilt-edged Baby,ā āthe Suckinā Vanderpoop,ā and other pet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would even invent histories about silk pajamas and specially imported neckwear, to the āfriendāsā discredit. Harvey was a very adaptable person, with a keen eye and ear for every face and tone about him.
Before long he knew where Disko kept the old greencrusted quadrant that they called the āhog-yokeāāunder the bed-bag in his bunk. When he took the sun, and with the help of āThe Old Farmerāsā almanac found the latitude, Harvey would jump down into the cabin and scratch the reckoning and date with a nail on the rust of the stovepipe. Now, the chief engineer of the liner could have done no more, and no engineer of thirty yearsā service could have assumed one half of the ancient-mariner air with which Harvey, first careful to spit over the side, made public the schoonerās position for that day, and then and not till then relieved Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette in all these things.
The said āhog-yoke,ā an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac, Bluntās āCoast Pilot,ā and Bowditchās āNavigatorā were all the weapons Disko needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that was his spare eye. Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platt taught him first how to āfly the blue pigeonā; and, though his strength was not equal to continuous sounding in any sort of a sea, for calm weather with a seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko used him freely. As Dan said:
āāTaināt soundinās dad wants. Itās samples. Grease her up good, Harve.ā Harvey would tallow the cup at the end, and carefully bring the sand, shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to Disko, who fingered and smelt it and gave judgment As has been said, when Disko thought of cod he thought as a cod; and by some long-tested mixture of instinct and experience, moved the Weāre Here from berth to berth, always with the fish, as a blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseen board.
But Diskoās board was the Grand Bankāa triangle two hundred and fifty miles on each sideāa waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet.
For days they worked in fogāHarvey at the bellātill, grown familiar with the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, his heart rather in his mouth. But the fog would not lift, and the fish were biting, and no one can stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. Harvey devoted himself to his lines and the gaff or gob-stick as Tom Platt called for them; and they rowed back to the schooner guided by the bell and Tomās instinct; Manuelās conch sounding thin and faint beside them. But it was an unearthly experience, and, for the first time in a month, Harvey dreamed of the shifting, smoking floors of water round the dory, the lines that strayed away into nothing, and the air above that melted on the sea below ten feet from his straining eyes. A few days later he was out with Manuel on what should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the whole length of the roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing, and Harvey grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth was lost. āWhale-hole,ā said Manuel, hauling in. āThat is good joke on Disko. Come!ā and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and the others jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them to the edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand Bank. They made another berth through the fog, and that time the hair of Harveyās head stood up when he went out in Manuelās dory. A whiteness moved in the whiteness of the fog with a breath like the breath of the grave, and there was a roaring, a plunging, and spouting. It was his first introduction to the dread summer berg of the Banks, and he cowered in the bottom of the boat while Manuel laughed. There were days, though, clear and soft and warm, when it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf over the handlines and spank the drifting āsun-scaldsā with an oar; and there were days of light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steer the schooner from one berth to another.
It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his band on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythed back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, in spite of Disko saying that it would break a snakeās back to follow his wake. But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were sailing on the wind with the staysailāan old one, luckilyāset, and Harvey jammed her right into it to show Dan how completely he had mastered the art. The foresail went over with a bang, and the foregaff stabbed and ripped through the staysail, which was, of course, prevented from going over by the mainstay. They lowered the wreck in awful silence, and Harvey spent his leisure hours for the next few days under Tom Plattās lee, learning to use a needle and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he said, he had made the very same blunder himself in his early days.
Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had combined Diskoās peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jackās swinging overhand when the lines were hauled, Manuelās round-shouldered but effective stroke in a dory, and Tom Plattās generous Ohio stride along the deck.
āāTis beautiful to see how he takes to ut,ā said Long Jack, when Harvey was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. āIāll lay my wage anā share ātis moreān half play-actinā to him, anā he consates himself heās a bowld mariner. Watch his little bit av a back now!ā
āThatās the way we all begin,ā said Tom Platt. āThe boys they make believe all the time till theyāve cheated āemselves into beinā men, anā so till they dieāpretendinā anā pretendinā. I done it on the old Ohio, I know. Stood my first watchāharbor-watchāfeelinā finerān Farragut. Danās full oā the same kind oā notions. See āem now, actinā to be genewine moss-backsāvery hair a rope-yarn anā blood Stockholm tar.ā He spoke down the cabin stairs. āGuess youāre mistook in your judgments fer once, Disko. What in Rome made ye tell us all here the kid was crazy?ā
āHe wuz,ā Disko replied. āCrazy ez a loon when he come aboard; but Iāll say heās sobered up considāble sence. I cured him.ā
āHe yarns good,ā said Tom Platt. āTāother night he told us abaout a kid of his own size steerinā a cunninā little rig anā four ponies up anā down Toledo, Ohio, I think ātwas, anā givinā suppers to a crowd oā simālar kids. Curāus kind oā fairy-tale, but blame interestinā. He knows scores of āem.ā
āGuess he strikes āem outen his own head,ā Disko called from the cabin, where he was busy with the logbook. āStands to reason that sort is all made up. It donāt take in no one but Dan, anā he laughs at it. Iāve heard him, behind my back.ā
āYever hear what Simāon Peter Caāhoun said when they whacked up a match ātwixā his sister Hitty anā Lorinā Jerauld, anā the boys put up that joke on him daown to Georges?ā drawled Uncle Salters, who was dripping peaceably under the lee of the starboard dory-nest.
Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a Cape Cod man, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. Uncle Salters went on with a rasping chuckie:
āSimāon Peter Caāhoun he said, anā he was jest right, abaout Lorinā, āHaāaf on the taown,ā he said, āanā tāother haāaf blame fool; anā they told me sheās married a āich man.ā Simāon Peter Caāhoun he hednāt no roof to his mouth, anā talked that way.ā
āHe didnāt talk any Pennsylvania Dutch,ā Tom Platt replied. āYouād better leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Caāhouns was gypsies frum āway back.ā
āWal, I donāt profess to be any elocutionist,ā Salters said. āIām cominā to the moral oā things. Thatās jest abaout what aour Harve be! Haāaf on the taown, anā tāother haāaf blame fool; anā thereās someāll believe heās a rich man. Yah!ā
āDid ye ever think how sweet ātwould be to sail wid a full crew oā Salterses?ā said Long Jack. āHaāaf in the furrer anā other haāaf in the muck-heap, as Caāhoun did not say, anā makes out heās a fisherman!ā
A little laugh went round at Saltersās expense.
Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the logbook that he kept in a hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that ran on, page after soiled page:
āJuly 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to northward. So ends this day.
āJuly 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish.
āJuly 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N.E. and fine weather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish.
āJuly 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So ends this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478.ā
They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed themselves if it were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice he suggested that, if ft was not an impertinence, he thought he could preach a little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his throat at the mere notion, reminding him that he was not a preacher and mustnāt think of such things. āWeād hev him rememberinā Johnstown next,ā Salters explained, āanā what would happen then?ā so they compromised on his reading aloud from a book called āJosephus.ā It was an old leather-bound volume, smelling of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like the Bible, but enlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it nearly from cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a silent little body. He would not utter a word for three days on end sometimes, though he played checkers, listened to the songs, and laughed at the stories. When they tried to stir him up, he would answer: āI donāt wish to seem unneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing
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