A novel and animated scene was presented at the beach the night after
the capture of the whale. On a grassy little plateau that sloped
gently down between two low sand-dunes toward the sea, was erected a
rude shed, beneath which, set in brick-work furnaces over bright wood
fires, were two huge kettles for the "trying out" of the oil from the
whale's blubber. Aboard whaling ships it is customary to leave the
blubber to "ripen" for several days, in close rooms, before it is put
into the kettles, as this, it has been ascertained, increases the
yield of oil; but the shore whalemen rarely do this. They simply begin
at once with the tenderest and most easily treated portions, and by
the time they get through, unaccustomed olfactories in the vicinity
generally attest that the "ripening" process has been perfected.
Half-a-dozen boys fed the furnaces--first with wood, and later with
blubber "scraps," or "cracklings." When not doing that, they scuffled
with each other, wrestled on the grass, shouted with gleeful
excitement, and unceasingly munched corn and doughnuts cooked in the
boiling oil. By the ruddy light of a bonfire before the shed, men cut
in strips, with blubber-spades, the enormous masses and slabs of fat,
stripped off the whale's carcass down in the surf, and dragged up here
on a low, broad-wheeled wagon, drawn by two scraggy horses. Other men
carried those strips inside the shed, where one who sat at a raised
bench, with a two-handled knife, "minced" them for the kettles. Still
others tended the kettles; skimming out, from time to time, the crisp,
brown "cracklings," and adding other masses of fat in their stead;
sometimes ladling the oil into barrels. When not otherwise busy, they
chewed cracklings. Several women came with panfuls of sweet dough,
twisted in curious shapes, which, when thrown into the seething oil,
were quickly converted into the toothsome doughnuts in which the boys
so much delighted.
At one side laid a great pile of black, fibrous, ragged-looking
material, dug from the mouth of the whale, the "ballein," which, when
carefully cleaned, dried, split, and otherwise prepared, is known as
the whalebone of commerce and corsets.
The work went on with unabated vigor all that night, and all the next
day, and gave promise of continuing even three or four days longer,
for the "trying out" of the oil from a big whale, as this one was, is
no light task.
On the evening of the second day a well-dressed stranger appeared at
the scene of operations, inquiring for Mr. Thatcher; and upon finding
the grim old veteran--who had as yet taken no rest since starting in
pursuit of the whale--introduced himself as a friend of Silas's, from
Boston, and expressed an earnest desire to meet the young man.
"Why, he is in Boston," said Uncle Thatcher.
"He was, but has left there, and I expected to meet him here," replied
the stranger.
"Here?"
"Yes. I was out of town when he went away, rather suddenly, and so did
not see him, unfortunately. But he left word for me that he was going
to New York to look for a better job, and would pay a visit to his
father's on the way."
"So you knew him well in Boston, did you?"
"Yes; oh, yes; knew him very well. He was quite a friend of mine."
"He was doing well, I suppose? Working and keeping steady?"
The father's voice faltered slightly; he hesitated a little, and
picked up a bit of crackling, which he munched as a cover to his
anxiety, while he looked wistfully at the stranger.
The man from Boston seemed just a little embarrassed, but only for an
instant, when he answered very reassuringly: "Steady? Oh, yes. Steady
as a deacon." Muttering to himself, "some deacons, at least."
"Working at ship-carpentering, I believe?"
"Oh, yes. Certainly. A fine ship-carpenter he is, too."
"When did you see him last?"
"H'm. Well, let me see. It must have been--yes, it was two weeks ago
yesterday. I'm quite disappointed not to find him here."
"He may have stopped over somewhere on the road a day or two; and if
you're in no hurry, and will wait for him, you are welcome to stop
with me. I'll give you Silas's own room."
"Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Thatcher; but I have already made
other arrangements. I have promised to go over and stop with a friend
in the village, and after I have looked on a little while at your very
interesting industry here, I think I'll go back there, and return
to-morrow. Silas may have come by that time."
"Very well. Suit yourself, sir, Mr. ----; I didn't rightly catch your
name--Mr. ----?"
"Ketchum, Mr. Thatcher, Ketchum."
"Mr. Ketchum. Glad to know you, Mr. Ketchum. Glad to know any friend
of my son Silas's."
"Thank you, sir."
"Make yourself as comfortable as you can, and will you have a little
something to take, to keep the cold out?"
Mr. Ketchum said he would not object to having "a little of something
to take," and Uncle Thatcher brought it out of a fence corner, from
among the weeds, in a stone jug, with a corn-cob stopper. But Silas's
friend from Boston was surprised to find that the jug contained
delicious "double-canned" St. Croix rum, old and of magnificent
flavor, and very accurately and shrewdly thought to himself, "These
beach-combers never paid the duty on liquor like that; smugglers here,
I'd bet my life."
He went over and stood near the kettles.
"Was this considered a very large whale?" he asked the man who was
stirring the oil.
"Well, pretty fair-sized."
"What do you call pretty fair-sized?"
"Well, a whale eighty feet long is a pretty fair size."
"Was this one eighty feet long?"
"No."
"How long was he, then?"
"About sixty-five feet."
"Do you ever really get them eighty feet long?"
"Oh, yes. I've killed whales ninety feet long."
"I've seen 'em a hundred feet long," volunteered the man who was
mincing the blubber.
"I've know'd 'em to be a hundred and twenty feet long in the Indian
Ocean," put in another, lifting a pile of minced blubber on a
four-tined fork, and tossing it into a kettle.
"Whales is ketched a hundred and fifty feet long," said a
solemn-looking man, who stood leaning on the handle of his
blubber-spade just outside the shed.
A little silence fell upon the group, which Mr. Ketchum was the first
to break, again addressing the man at the kettle, asking him:
"How much oil will you get out of this one?"
"About eighty bar'ls, I guess."
"He must have been pretty fat."
"Well, so-so."
"How much have you obtained from one whale?"
"I've seen a hundred bar'ls took."
"I've helped to 'try out' one hundred and fifty bar'ls from one
whale," said the mincer.
"Right whales, full-grown, not uncommon gives one hundred and
seventy-five bar'ls, and sperms has been known to give as high as two
hundred and twenty," spoke up the man with the fork.
The solemn blubber cutter once more came to the front, leaning on his
spade, and said oracularly: "I've know'd 'em yield two hundred and
fifty bar'ls."
The relators of solid facts inside the shed perceived that they had no
chance as long as that untrammelled person with the blubber-spade had
the advantage of the last call every time, and so relapsed into
taciturnity.
Uncle Thatcher did not somehow like the look of Silas's Boston friend,
though he could not tell why, and felt relieved when Mr. Ketchum at
length took his departure for the village. But when he went home at
midnight to take a little much-needed rest, he was almost convinced
that he saw the figure of the stranger near a clump of bushes a little
distance from the doorway.
The next morning Mr. Ketchum came, again, with seemingly unabated
interest in the process of trying out whale's blubber, and remained
about the shed all day, waiting with inexhaustible patience for his
friend Silas.