Francis C. Woodworth

“ We must have people to kill whales, though you never will catch me chasing after a whale again, as long as my name is Jack Mason.
Whales do not always run like the one I have told you about. Sometimes they fight. After they are struck with the harpoon, they lift their tail, or fluke, as they call it, and strike the boat so hard as to dash it in pieces. Then the poor sailors have to swim to the ship if they can. If they cannot, and if there is no other boat near them that they can get into, they must drown. ”

“ There was a man in the ship who was looking out for whales. In a whale-ship there is always one man who gets up as high as he can, and keeps a bright look-out all round for whales. Whales do not stay under water all the time. The trout, and the shad, and the eel, and most other kinds of fish can stay under water all the time. They cannot live out of the water only a few minutes, and I suppose they feel almost as bad out of the water as we do in it. But the whale wants to come up to the top of the water. He wants to come up to breathe. ”

“ I should think he was a mile from the ship.
Well, the captain told some of us to get into a boat, and to go out after the whale. We did so. The boats are always kept ready, and it takes only a minute to let the boat down, and start off. We rowed as fast as we could, until we came up near where the whale was lying. Oh, what a large whale! As soon as the boat got near enough, one man threw two harpoons at the whale, and they both stuck fast in his flesh. A harpoon is a long and sharp iron, made like a spear, so that when it strikes the whale, it goes in deep, and you cannot pull it out. ”

“ Jack is a good man. He is not like a great many sailors that I have seen. He does not use bad words. He never drinks rum, or any thing of the kind. Sailors are apt to swear; but Jack Mason never swears. He is a Christian: he loves to pray and read his Bible. The book which he holds in his hand, as he is talking to that boy, is a Bible. He often has a Bible in his jacket pocket, when he is on board of his ship ”

“ The man who used to come to the ship so often, brought his little girl with him one day. She was not more than six or seven years old. She had never seen any white men before, and at first she was afraid of us all. But when she saw that the white folks would not hurt her any more than the Indians would, she liked us very well, and wanted to stay with us all the time. The captain showed her his watch, and she looked at it a long time. ”

“ The poor men in the ship will get drowned, if you do not go. I will go if my father will let me. I do not think father's boat will get lost. God will not let us drown, if we go and try to save the men.'" Well, the boy said so much, that the fishermen told him they would go, and they did go.
This little boy's name was George, and this is the one that I told you we all liked so well. The captain was so pleased with him, that he asked his father to let the little boy come and sail in his ship. His father said he wished his boy to be a sailor, and the boy wanted to be a sailor, too ”

“ One of the women who came to the ship had a little girl about four years old, and she said she would give us that girl, if we would let her have a tin pan which she saw.
These Indians tie their children on their backs, when they have to walk a great way. They licked the oil on the outside of our lamps, just as a dog or a cat would have done. Oh, what dirty people! They eat their meat raw. We killed a seal one day, and our captain gave it to one of the young women. ”

“ It was in the North Sea. This whirlpool does mischief sometimes. When vessels happen to get on the edge of it, they begin to go round and round, all the time coming near the middle of the whirlpool. When the captain of the vessel knows that he is in the whirlpool, he can get his vessel out, if it has just begun to go round. But after it has been in a while, he cannot get out. The vessel keeps going round and round. The people on board hear the roar of the whirlpool. It is too late to get away. ”

“ The sailors saw then that all they had to do was to row the bear to the shore. So they went to work. When they got to the ship, the captain and all the sailors laughed a good deal, you may be sure. The shore was not far off. The sailors rowed until the boat touched the shore, and the bear got out, and walked slowly away. He did not so much as thank the men for the ride he had been taking. ”

“ They are made of stone, and are very large. I should think it would take a great many years to make one of them, if there were a hundred men at work all the time. They must have been built a very long time. ”