Captains Courageous - Rudyard Kipling (the rosie project .TXT) š
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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āWhen Dad kerfiummoxes that way,ā said Dan in a whisper, āheās doinā some high-line thinkinā fer all hands. Iāll lay my wage anā share weāll make berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, anā the Fleet they know Dad knows. āSee āem commā up one by one, lookinā fer nothinā in particular, oā course, but scrowginā on us all the time? Thereās the Prince Leboo; sheās a Chatham boat. Sheās crepā up sence last night. Anā see that big one with a patch in her foresail anā a new jib? Sheās the Carrie Pitman from West Chatham. She wonāt keep her canvas long onless her luckās changed since last season. She donāt do much ācepā drift. There aināt an anchor made āll hold herā¦ . When the smoke puffs up in little rings like that, Dadās studyinā the fish. Ef we speak to him now, heāll git mad. Lasā time I did, he jest took anā hove a boot at me.ā
Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes that saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fishāpitting his knowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod in his own sea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive schooners on the horizon as a compliment to his powers. But now that it was paid, he wished to draw away and make his berth alone, till it was time to go up to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that roaring town upon the waters. So Disko Troop thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, food-supplies, and other domestic arrangements, from the point of view of a twenty-pound cod; was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself, and looked remarkably like one. Then he removed the pipe from his teeth.
āDad,ā said Dan, āweāve done our chores. Canāt we go overside a piece? Itās good catchinā weather.ā
āNot in that cherry-coloured rig ner them haāaf baked brown shoes. Give him suthinā fit to wear.ā
āDadās pleasedāthat settles it,ā said Dan, delightedly, dragging Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. āDad keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, ācause Ma sez Iām keerless.ā He rummaged through a locker, and in less than three minutes Harvey was adorned with fishermanās rubber boots that came half up his thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the elbows, a pair of nippers, and a souāwester.
āNaow ye look somethinā like,ā said Dan. āHurry!ā
āKeep nigh anā handy,ā said Troop āanā donāt go visitinā racund the Fleet. If any one asks you what Iām calālatinā to do, speak the truthāfer ye donāt know.ā
A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay astern of the schooner. Dan hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, while Harvey tumbled clumsily after.
āThatās no way oā gettinā into a boat,ā said Dan. āEf there was any sea youād go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet her.ā
Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart and watched Harveyās work. The boy had rowed, in a ladylike fashion, on the Adirondack ponds; but there is a difference between squeaking pins and well-balanced ruflocksālight sculls and stubby, eight-foot sea-oars. They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted.
āShort! Row short!ā said Dan. āEf you cramp your oar in any kind oā sea youāre liable to turn her over. Aināt she a daisy? Mine, too.ā
The little dory was specklessly clean. In her bows lay a tiny anchor, two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, brown dory-roding. A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under Harveyās right hand, beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and a shorter wooden stick. A couple of lines, with very heavy leads and double cod-hooks, all neatly coiled on square reels, were stuck in their place by the gunwale.
āWhereās the sail and mast?ā said Harvey, for his hands were beginning to blister.
Dan chuckled. āYe donāt sail fishinā-dories much. Ye pull; but ye neednāt pull so hard. Donāt you wish you owned her?ā
āWell, I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked āem,ā Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family till then.
āThatās so. I forgot your dadās a millionaire. You donāt act millionary any, naow. But a dory anā craft anā gearāāDan spoke as though she were a whaleboat āācosts a heap. Think your dad āuād give you one ferāfer a pet like?ā
āShouldnāt wonder. It would be āmost the ouly thing I havenāt stuck him for yet.ā
āMust be an expensive kinder kid to home. Donāt slitheroo thet way, Harve. Shortās the trick, because no seaās ever dead still, anā the swells āllāā
Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and knocked him backwards.
āThat was what I was goinā to say. I hed to learn too, but I wasnāt more than eight years old when I got my schoolinā.ā
Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown.
āNo good gettinā mad at things, Dad says. Itās our own fault ef we canāt handle āem, he says. Leās try here. Manuel āll give us the water.ā
The āPortugeeā was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan up-ended an oar he waved his left arm three times.
āThirty fathom,ā said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. āOver with the doughboys. Bait sameās I do, Harvey, anā donāt snarl your reel.ā
Danās line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of baiting and heaving out the leads. The dory drifted along easily. It was not worth while to anchor till they were sure of good ground.
āHere we come!ā Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on Harveyās shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. āMuckie, Harvey, muckle! Under your hand! Onick!ā
Evidently āmuckleā could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed over the maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled it inboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short wooden stick he called a āgob-stick.ā Then Harvey felt a tug, and pulled up zealously.
āWhy, these are strawberries!ā he shouted. āLook!ā
The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one side and white on the otherāperfect reproductions of the land fruit, except that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and slimy.
āDonāt tech āem. Slat āem off. Donātāā
The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the hook, and was admiring them.
āOuch!ā he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had grasped many nettles.
āNow ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothinā ācepā fish should be teched with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat āem off agin the guunel, anā bait up, Harve. Lookinā wonāt help any. Itās all in the wages.ā
Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, and wondered what his mother would say if she could see him hanging over the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered agonies whenever he went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way, Harvey remembered distinctly that he used to laugh at her anxieties. Suddenly the line flashed through his hand, stinging even through the ānippers,ā the woolen circlets supposed to protect it.
āHeās a logy. Give him room accordinā to his strength,ā cried Dan. āIāll help ye.ā
āNo, you wonāt,ā Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. āItās my first fish. Iāis it a whale?ā
āHalibut, mebbe.ā Dan peered down into the water alongside, and flourished the big āmuckle,ā ready for all chances. Something white and oval flickered and fluttered through the green. āIāll lay my wage anā share heās over a hundred. Are you so everlastinā anxious to land him alone?ā
Harveyās knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been hanged against the gunwale; his face was purple-blue between excitement and exertion; he dripped with sweat, and was half-blinded from staring at the circling sunlit ripples about the swiftly moving line. The boys were tired long ere the halibut, who took charge of them and the dory for the next twenty minutes. But the big flat fish was gaffed and hauled in at last.
āBeginnerās luck,ā said Dan, wiping his forehead. āHeās all of a hundred.ā
Harvey looked at the huge gray-and-mottled creature with unspeakable pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs ashore, but it had never occurred to him to ask how they came inland. Now he knew; and every inch of his body ached with fatigue.
āEf Dad was along,ā said Dan, hauling up, āheād read the signs plainās print. The fish are runninā smaller anā smaller, anā youāve took ābaout as logy a halibutās weāre apt to find this trip. Yesterdayās catchādid ye notice it?āwas all big fish anā no halibut. Dad heād read them signs right off. Dad says everythinā on the Banks is signs, anā can be read wrong er right. Dadās deeperān the Whale-hole.ā
Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the āWeāre Hereā, and a potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging.
āWhat did I say, naow? Thatās the call fer the whole crowd. Dadās onter something, er heād never break fishinā this time oā day. Reel up, Harve, anā weāll pull back.ā
They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the dory over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them to Penn, who was careering around a fixed point for all the world like a gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down again with enormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his dory swung round and snubbed herself on her rope.
āWeāll hev to help him, else heāll root anā seed here,ā said Dan.
āWhatās the matter?ā said Harvey. This was a new world, where he could not lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions humbly. And the sea was horribly big and unexcited.
āAnchorās fouled. Pennās always losing āem. Lost two this trip aāreadyāon sandy bottom tooāanā Dad says next one he loses, sureās fishinā, heāll give him the kelleg. That āuād break Pennās heart.ā
āWhatās a ākellegā?ā said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be some kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the storybooks.
āBig stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridinā in the bows furās you can see a dory, anā all the fleet knows what it means. Theyād guy him dreadful. Penn couldnāt stand that no moreān a dog with a dipper to his tail. Heās so everlastinā sensitive. Hello, Penn! Stuck again? Donāt try any more oā your patents. Come up on her, and keep your rodinā straight up anā down.ā
āIt doesnāt move,ā said the little man, panting. āIt doesnāt move at all, and instead I tried everything.ā
āWhatās all this hurrahās-nest forāard?ā said Dan, pointing to a wild tangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by the hand of inexperience.
āOh, that,ā said Penn proudly, āis a Spanish windlass. Mr. Salters showed me how to make it; but even that doesnāt move her.ā
Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or twice on the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once.
āHaul up, Penn,ā he said laughing, āer sheāll git stuck again.ā
They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor with big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely.
āOh, say, while I think of it, Harve,ā said Dan when they were out of ear-shot, āPenn aināt quite all caulked. He aināt nowise dangerous, but his mindās give out. See?ā
āIs that so,
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