Before we had been out at sea a fortnight I was able to climb up the lower rigging, and had learned several things about the ship. I was very happy, I was never tired, and was only too ready to work off my superabundant vitality. I also learned how to wash clothes. My first attempt was a failure, a heavy shower of rain was falling, and one of the sailors coming along the deck with an armful of dirty clothes, called out to me: “Now then, Tommy, now’s the time to wash clothes,” and following his example, I brought my dirty gear on to the deck in the drenching rain, and soaping them well, tried to dolly the dirt out of them by stamping and jumping on them with my feet as they lay near the scuppers. Hanson roared with laughter at my efforts, and then came along and gave me a lesson. I lost count of the days, they passed so quickly, and were so full of interest. Every day I loved the sea more and more, each day showed me some new beauty in it, and on fine days, to see the sun rise and set on the water was a marvellous picture to me, of which I never tired.
22As was the custom on board ship, I learned to tell what day it was by what we had for dinner, and what with the sea air, and the happy healthy life I was leading, I was growing taller and stronger every day. There was another boy besides myself on board, named Walter Jones, a quiet, industrious boy. He was in the port watch, and we two spent many an hour together in the dog watch, which is the sailors’ time for recreation, learning to splice ropes, make fancy knots, and other things that were necessary to the making of a good seaman. The chief officer, in his gruff fashion, told us one day that a sailing vessel was like a young lady in her best clothes—to look complete she had to have them all on, and in good order; she must be washed and kept clean, painted to look smart, have a brooch on her bosom, called a figure head, jewel blocks and earrings for decoration, her dress must fit well. Then, for adornments, you will put knots of ribbon on her, single wall knots, single diamond knots, double diamond knots, Mathew-Walkers, Turks’ Heads, and half a dozen others; then you’ve got to know how she’s built, and what the hundred parts of her are called; you’ll have to find out all about the bending and unbending of the sails, rattling down and setting up rigging, the making of small stuff and so on. The second mate took a special interest in us, and was always ready to explain and show us anything that puzzled us. At night when it was our watch, “the starboard watch,” on deck, he would23 call me aft on the poop, and teach me the names of the principal navigable stars, pointing them out to me and showing me their various positions during the night. He told me of the wonderful order they kept; how for ages they had kept their present position in relation to each other, never varying; just as the Almighty Father placed them so they remained, never tiring, never resting, never wearing out, or altering their distances, the strongest proof of the work of the Omnipotent God. While he talked to me, his young face would light up with a strange radiance.
“Ah, George,” he said to me once, “if you ever doubt God, or His love and care for mankind, raise your eyes to those stars, and think of Him who planned and placed them there, and your doubts will vanish.”
I never heard Mr. Weeler bully or swear at the men; he was firm and just, he never asked a man to do anything he could not do himself, and show others how to do; the men soon found this out, and would jump at his call. To me he was an ideal sailor and a gentleman, and I learnt to respect and love him. One day, just before we got the trade winds, the ship was becalmed, and rolling about in a north-west swell. The sailors were aloft, singing and whistling while doing their various jobs. I was on the poop assisting the sailmaker by picking the old stitches out of the sail he was repairing; he was one of the best men at spinning yarns I ever knew,24 and listening to him made the time fly and work easy. I had been thinking over what the chief mate had been saying about a ship being like a young lady, and had noticed that we always spoke of a ship as “she.”
“Sails,” I said during an interval of silence, “why is a ship always called ‘she’?”
“Why, because she is rigged out like a woman; she has stays, and crinoline, a waist, carries a bonnet on her square sails, tripping lines to trip them up; she carries thimbles, needles and pins, and above all she requires a man to manage her.”
Sails got no further with his yarn, and I had no time to reply to this explanation. The captain was sitting on the wheel gratings aft, near the helmsman; all of a sudden he jumped up and called out:
“Shark, oh, go for a hook, Sails; go to the steward, boy, and get a lump of raw pork.”
I flew along the deck to the steward, who gave me a piece of salt pork with the rind on, weighing about three pounds. The shark hook had ten feet of chain attached to it, and the hook was about the size of those you see outside the butcher’s shop for hanging quarters of beef to. Attached to the chain were about fifteen fathoms of three-inch manilla rope. When all was ready, the bait and hook were thrown over the stern, and slacked away about thirty feet. I looked round the ship, but not a sign of a shark could I see. The second mate at that25 moment called two of the sailors down from aloft to help pull up the shark.
Now to my young mind they were counting their chickens before they were hatched, but the captain, second mate and sailors were waiting to haul it up, and I supposed they knew what they were about, so I asked the second mate, whom I was standing near, if he could see the shark?