stowed. Then it blew harder. The mate swore the harder. The Captain came on deck and swore at everybody. One of the “boys” asked him if he thought it would be stormy. He considered himself privileged to ask the Captain that question. He was a native of the same village. His father and the Captain were friends, and his mother and the Captain’s wife visited each other. So he deemed it advisable to establish himself on a sociable footing with the Captain at the commencement of the voyage. Poor boy! Never again during the trip did he consult the Captain meteorologically. He learned speedily the great gulf which yawns between the cabin and the forecastle.
It grew dark, the waves became bigger and bigger, and the ship seemed taxed to her utmost trying to clamber them one after another as they presented themselves. The mates came out in their oilskins. The order was given to reef topsails. Gangs of men ran hither and thither, pulling here, hauling there, and running straight over us whenever we got in their way, and it seemed impossible to get out of their way. Everything became unsettled and uncomfortable. The ship would not keep still. New complications of ropes and hauling-gear were developed. The capstan in the waist was manned, and round and round went the sailors, while the deck they trod was inclined in all manner of uncomfortable angles. Tackle and great blocks were hooked to ringbolts, and a vast amount of what seemed to me fruitless hauling went on. Barrels of water swashed over the bulwarks, knocking us down and drenching us. Wet and shivering we clung to belaying-pins or anything within reach, of no earthly use to anybody, thinking of the cheerfully lit, well-warmed rooms and comfortable tea-tables even then set but so few miles away on the shores of Long Island. When the order came to reef, and I saw the men clambering up the fore and main rigging, I added myself to their number, though I felt I should never-come down again—at least in one piece. It was my debut aloft off soundings. Many a time had I clambered about the rigging of the old whalers as they lay at the village wharf, but they were not roaring, kicking, and plunging like this vessel. Heavy seamen’s boots kicked me in the face as I followed their wearers up this awful ascent; other heavy boots trod on my fingers; they shook the ratlines, too, in a most uncomfortable manner. The mast strained and groaned fearfully. Somehow, after climbing over some awful chasms, I got on the yard with the men. I dared not go out far. The foot rope wobbled, jerked, and gave way under me at times with the weight and motion of the men upon it. The great sail seemed in no humor to be furled. It hauled away from us, bellied, puffed, and kept up a gigantic series of thundering flaps. Laying over on the yard the men would gather in as much of the hard, wet, wire-like canvas as possible and then together haul back on it.
This I objected to. It was risky enough to lay out on an enormous stick sixty-feet in the air, while the wind tore our voices from us and seemed to hurl the words far-away ere they had well got out of our mouths, and the white-topped waves, dimly seen below, seemed leaping up and snatching at us. But at that height, and amid all that motion, to balance one’s body on the stomach, grasp with outstretched arms a hard roll of struggling, wet canvas, while the legs were as far extended the other way and the feet resting only against a rope working and wobbling and giving way here and there from the weight of fifteen hundred pounds of men unequally distributed over it, was a task and seeming risk too great for my courage. I dared do nothing but hold on. The conduct of the maintopsail was desperate and outrageous. It seemed straining every nerve— supposing, for the sake of forcible expression, that it had nerves— to pull us off the yard and “into the great deep.” I found myself between two old sailors, who lost no time in convincing me of my complete and utter worthlessness aloft. I concurred. They bade me clear out and get down on deck. I was glad to do so. Reefing topsails in reality was very different from reefing them in books or in imagination. On reaching the deck I concluded to lie down. All through the evening I had experienced an uneasy sensation in the stomach. I argued with myself it was not seasickness—something did not agree with me. But when I lay down in the scuppers I admitted being seasick. Then I only cared to lie there. Life was too miserable even to hope in. The tumult went on as ever. The sailors trampled over me. Being in the way, they dragged me aside. I cared not. Finally some one bawled in my ear, “Sick! go below.” I went. The five other boys, all similarly affected, all caring naught for life or living, lay in their bunks.
The boys’ house was about the size of a respectable pig-pen—a single pig-pen. There was room in it for two boys to turn at once, providing they turned slowly and carefully. On going on board we had bestowed such of our outfit as could be brought into this pen in the manner in which boys of sixteen bestow thing’s generally on first commencing to “keep house.” Everything was arranged on a terra firma basis. We made no calculation for the ship’s deviating from an even keel. When she did commence to pitch everything fell down. Clothing fell on the floor; plates, knives, forks, cups and bottles rolled from shelf and bunk; bread, meat, and the molasses kegs fell; plum and sponge cake, pie and sweetmeats fell; for each boy had a space in his sea-chest filled with these articles, placed there by kind, dear relatives at home. It was intended that we should not refer to them until the ship was far advanced on her voyage. But we never had such large supplies of cake and sweetmeats at hand before; so we went for these thing’s immediately. The house abounded with them the first night out. The roof leaked. We left our sliding-door carelessly open, and a few barrels of the ocean slopped over the bulwarks into the apartment. At midnight our combined clothing, plates, mugs, knives, forks, bottles, water-kegs, combs, hair-brushes, hats, pants, coats, meat, bread, pie, cake, sweetmeats, molasses, salt-water, and an occasional seasick and despairing boy, united to form a wet, sodden mass on the floor two feet in depth. Above the storm howled and swept through the rigging, with little sail to interrupt it. Six sick and wretched boys in their berths lay “heads and pints,” as they pack herring; that is, the toe of one rested on the pillow of the other, for it was not possible to lie otherwise in those narrow receptacles for the living. But the horrors of that second night are not to be related.
No solicitous stewards with basins and tenders of broth and champagne attended us. We were not cabin-passengers on an ocean steamer. Barely had the next morning’s dawn appeared when our door was flung open. In it stood that dreadful second mate of the greenish eyes, hard, brick red complexion, horny fists and raspy voice—a hard, rough, rude, unfeeling man, who cried: “Come out of that! Oh, you’re young bears—your troubles ain’t commenced yet!” Then his long, bony arm gripped us one after the other and tore us from our bunks. How unlike getting up at home on a cold winter’s morning, as, snuggling in our warm feather beds, we heard our mothers call time after time at the foot of the stairs: “Come now, get up! Breakfast is ready!” And with the delay prone to over-indulged youth, we still lay abed until the aroma of buckwheat cakes and coffee stealing to our bedrooms developed an appetite and induced us to rise. Out, this dreadful morning, we tumbled, in the wet clothes wherein we had lain all night, weak, sick, staggering, giddy. A long iron hook was put in my hand and I was desired to go forward and assist in hauling along length after length of the cable preparatory to stowing it away. Sky and sea were all of dull, monotonous gray; the ship was still clambering one great wave after an another with tiresome and laborious monotony. All the canvas of the preceding day had disappeared, save a much-diminished foretopsail and storm staysail. The mates on duty were alert and swearing. The men, not all fully recovered from their last shore debauch, were grumbling and swearing also. The cook, a dark-hued tropical mongrel, with glittering eyes, was swearing at something amiss in his department. It was a miserable time. But a cure was quickly effected. In thirty-six hours all seasickness had departed. With the delicate petting process in vogue with wealthy cabin-passengers it would have required a week. But we had no time in which to be seasick.
Life for us on board this ship was commenced on a new basis. We were obliged to learn “manners.” Manners among modern youth have become almost obsolete. The etiquette and formality required from the younger to the elder, and common to the time of perukes and knee-breeches, has now little place save on shipboard, where such traditions and customs linger. We were surprised to find it our duty to say “Sir” to an officer, and also to find it imperative to recognize every order addressed us by the remark; “Aye, aye, sir!” The sullen, shambling fashion of receiving words addressed us in silence, so that the speaker was left in doubt as to whether he was heard or not, had no place off soundings. In short, we were obliged to practice what is not common now to many boys on shore—that is, an outward show of respect
