E. Boyd Smith

“ It was all exciting and dangerous work, for sometimes the whale would attack the boat and splinter it to pieces with a blow of his tail, and the men, often badly hurt, be thrown into the sea, and sometimes lost. The dead whale was towed off to the ship, here he was moored to the side, and the body cut up. The great pieces of fat blubber "tried out," that is, melted in pots over the fire on the deck, and the oil run off into barrels and stowed away in the hold.
[Pg 41]
LOADING THE SHIP
Captain Hawes made the children a little toy schooner which they sailed in the coves along the beach. ”

“ They live by hunting and fishing. They spear seals from their skin canoes,—"kayaks,"—and fish through holes in the ice. These are the people you hear the explorers tell about when they go on expeditions to the North Pole. Captain Hawes thought they were the strangest people he had ever met. As whalers often put in up in these parts, the Captain and his mates did not have too hard a time, and were picked up by a passing ship and brought home.
[Pg 49]
THE SHIP SAILS AWAY
Summer was passing quickly now, and it would soon be time for the "long vacation" to come to an end. ”

“ But it was a great sight, and it wasn't everybody who had seen a ship being built, they knew that.
On the way home they rowed past sloops with a strange contrivance out on the end of the bowsprit; this Captain Hawes said was called a "pulpit." These boats went sword-fishing, and in the pulpit a man was stationed with lance in hand, while aloft in the rigging a "lookout" sighted the fish. When the boat was near enough, the man with the lance stood ready, and speared the fish as it passed. He promised to show them these big fish the next time a catch was brought in. ”

“ About this time they heard that the new ship, now all rigged and with all sails in place, had been taken to the neighboring port and was taking on her cargo for a long voyage. As they wanted to see the ship again, the Captain took them on this little journey to see the work being done at the docks.
Loading a ship is always a strenuous and hurly-burly affair, with much bustle, shouting, hauling, pushing, and pulling. The children, under Patsey's lead, found a good point of vantage on top of some boxes, and watched the work. ”

“ Of course you know what whales are, big sea animals, you couldn't call them fish, often sixty or seventy feet long, 'as long as a big house,' huge creatures who lived in the northern or southern seas, though once in a while a stray one had been known to come into the Sound, not far from here. ”