THE BOYS SPRING A SURPRISE
The following day the two boys wandered to the wharf with disconsolate
faces.
“Reckon yer folks didn’t take to the idee, hey?” ventured Cap’n Pem, as
he turned from watching a gang of men working on the old _Narwhal_.
“No, they wouldn’t listen to us,” replied Tom. “Not even if you and Mike
went. Dad said if the owners invited us—and we didn’t ask—and that if you
and Mike went too, he’d let us, but there’s a swell chance of that.”
“H-m-m!” muttered the old whaleman. “Waall, I dunno as I’d be so
everlastin’ly cut up about it. I don’t reckon ye’d have went annyhow
without me, an’ there ain’t one chance in a million o’ that. Mike was up
to see Dixon and the ol’ grampus jes laffed at him. Asked what he thought
the _Narwhal_ wuz—a floatin’ old sailors’ home?”
“The mean old thing!” cried Jim. “Say, I’ll bet he won’t get a man
that’s as good a sailor as you or Mike.”
“Is he the owner?” asked Tom.
“Wall, not perzactly,” replied the old man. “He’s the agent. The
_Narwhal’s_ owned by a comp’ny—an’ I reckon they ain’t none too conf’dent
o’ the cruise a-bein’ so everlastin’ly profit’ble. Mike says he saw Cap’n
Edwards an’ ol’ Nye, a-tryin’ fer to get ’em to put in a word fer us,
an’ Nye says as how they’s a lot o’ shares—or stock or whatever ye calls
it—what ain’t been took up yit. He’s thinkin’ o’ buyin’ on it hisself if
he kin git a good skipper like Edwards.”
Tom let out a yell like an Indian, threw his hat in the air and danced.
“Hurrah!” he fairly screamed. “We _can_ go! I’ve a scheme! Oh, Jim! Oh,
Cap’n Pem! It’s bully! Oh gosh, we’ll put one over on Dad again!”
“Whatever be ye talkin’ on?” demanded the old whaleman. “’Pears like
ye’ve gone plumb crazy.”
“Listen!” cried Tom, as he quieted down. And in earnest tones he
explained his scheme to old Pem and to Jim.
“Gee!” commented Jim, “that _will_ work. Tom, you’re a wonder.”
“Derned if ’twont,” agreed the old whaleman. “I’ll be swabbed if I don’
reckon we’ll all be a-goin’ erlong o’ the _Narwhal_ arter all.”
A few moments later the boys were speeding towards New Bedford on a
trolley car. Alighting near the water front they hurried to Mr. Nye’s
office.
There was a long conference with the genial shipowner. Then another
visit, with Mr. Nye accompanying them, to a broker’s and to a law office.
Several hours later two grinning, jubilant boys made their way back to
Fair Haven and entered Mr. Chester’s home.
“Well, Dad, they’ve invited us!” exclaimed Tom, as his father turned at
their entrance.
“What?” cried Mr. Chester incredulously. “You mean to say the _Narwhal’s_
owners have asked you to go on a cruise—without your mentioning it to
them?”
Tom grinned and Jim chuckled. “They sure did,” declared Tom. “And they’re
going to take Cap’n Pem and Cap’n Edwards and Mike—and Ned if they can
find him—and all the others that were on the _Hector_ that can be hired.”
“But how—how on earth did they know you wanted to go?” demanded Tom’s
father, “and why are they going to take that crew of cripples? There’s a
mystery here, boys; what is it?”
The two boys were thoroughly enjoying themselves. “And that’s not all,
Dad,” went on Tom. “The owners said that if Jim and I couldn’t go, the
_Narwhal’s_ cruise would be given up—they wouldn’t even fit her out.”
“What _is_ all this nonsense?” exclaimed Mr. Chester. “The owners must be
crazy—talking about giving up a cruise if you two kids don’t go along!
Who _are_ the owners of the old ship anyway?”
“Well, you see it’s a company,” explained Tom, scarcely able to control
himself, “and the members who own the most shares are managing owners and
have the say about everything.”
“Yes, yes, I understand all that,” interrupted Mr. Chester impatiently,
“but who _are_ the managing owners?”
Jim could contain himself no longer. “We are!” he shouted. “Tom and I!”
Mr. Chester was speechless. “What?” he gasped presently. “You two boys
are the ship’s owners?”
“I’ll say we are!” cried Tom. “We took the money we got for our lays of
the ambergris and bought up the controlling shares to-day. Mr. Nye said
it was a good investment. And so we invited ourselves, and we won’t let
the _Narwhal_ sail unless we go, and we’re going to hire all the old
_Hector’s_ crew.”
“Well I’ll be——” began Mr. Chester, and then, a smile broadening on his
face, he turned to the telephone.
“Hello!” he exclaimed presently. “That you, Lathrop? Well, the boys have
put one over on us two old fogies again! Yes, owners invited them all
right. Say the ship won’t sail without them too. Yes. Guess we’ll have to
let them go. Oh, Edwards. Yes, both Mike and Pem. Oh, yes, I forgot—Tom
and Jim bought up the controlling interest—managing owners themselves.
Ha, ha! Yes, they’ve won out!”
“Then we can go!” cried Tom, as his father hung up the receiver.
“I always stick to a bargain,” replied Mr. Chester, “and Jim’s father
says he does too. So you might as well hire your crew and get the old
_Narwhal_ fitted out.”
Cap’n Pem and Mike were as tickled as two children over the boys’ ruse
and its success. Both the old sailors having been engaged, they set to
work, Cap’n Pem looking after the details of reconditioning the schooner,
while Mike haunted New Bedford’s water front and lodging houses,
searching out the former crew of the _Hector_.
The next few weeks were very busy ones for the two boys, who had
invested their little fortune in the _Narwhal_, and now found themselves
the principal owners of a real whaling vessel. The details of the
business, as well as the financial arrangements, repairs, and outfitting
were turned over to Mr. Dixon and to Mr. Nye, for the latter had bought
considerable stock in the _Narwhal_ also. And work proceeded rapidly
aboard the ship.
There seemed to be an endless number of things to be done. The old ship’s
timbers were in good shape and little of her planking had to be replaced,
but she had to be caulked and pitched and painted and ice sheathing was
put on. Her spars were worthless and her rigging had to be entirely
stripped from her, and new rigging rove. Much of her decks were also
badly rotted and, as Tom said, when on one occasion he looked ruefully
at the almost empty hulk, minus masts and rigging, “By the time they get
through she’ll be a new ship.”
But old Cap’n Pem did not agree with him. “Hanged if she will!” he
exclaimed, “why, Lor’ love ye, ’tain’t a ship’s spars an’ riggin’ what
makes the ship. It’s the timbers an’ hull. Bless my soul! If ev’ry time
a ship got dismasted an’ had ter have a new set o’ spars, it made a new
ship of her, thar wouldn’t be nary an ol’ ship lef’. Shucks! Ye wouldn’t
say yer Dad built a new house jes ’cause he put a new chimbly or a new
verandy on it, would ye?”
Tom laughed. “No,” he admitted, “but if Dad took out all the inside of
the house, and then took off the boards and just left the old cellar, I’d
call it pretty near a new house, and that’s what we’re doing with the
_Narwhal_.”
“Not by a long shot!” burst out the old whaleman, to whom an old hull was
almost sacred. “Ye’d find a purty diff’runce in what ye’d have to pay if
ye wuz to build a new schooner ’stead o’ refittin’ this here hooker.”
Then, when at last the hull and decks were done and it came to rigging,
dissension arose as to how the _Narwhal_ should be rigged. Mr. Dixon, who
was of the new school, wanted a three-masted schooner and some of the
other owners, a two-master, while one old fellow insisted a bark was the
only rig. But the boys stoutly insisted that their ship, as they called
her, must be rigged as she was originally and they were sustained by
Mr. Nye, while old Cap’n Pem vowed he’d not take the place as ice pilot
unless she was a square topsail schooner.
“If you take my advice,” said Mr. Chester, when on one occasion he was
discussing the matter with the boys and Mr. Nye, “you’ll put a motor in
her. I suppose it will be little less than heresy to suggest it to the
whalemen, but a motor will be a godsend in the ice.”
“You’re right,” assented Mr. Nye. “Whale-ships have had auxiliary power
before now and the _Narwhal_ can stand a motor. Yes, I think there’s no
question that a motor will prove a most valuable asset. Why, even in
towage it’ll save its own cost.”
But when Cap’n Pem heard of this he almost exploded. “Consarn sech
rattletrap contraptions!” he exclaimed. “Ain’t sails an’ the win’ God
gave us good enough fer to take this here ship where we aim fer to go?
Motor! By cricky! do ye want fer to make a ottymobil out o’ the ol’
_Narwhal_.”
“Shure thin’ an’ ’twill be a shofure yez’ll be afther wantin’,” put
in Mike. “An’ b’ the same token, ’tis a foine motorneer Oi am meself.
B’gorra ’tis a shame to be a-turnin’ o’ the ould schooner into a power
boat, but handy ’twill be Oi do be thinkin’ manny the toime.”
But despite Pem’s protests and contempt and sarcastic remarks, the motor
was installed and Mike, who really had had experience in handling motors
in the navy, was rated as engineer.
In regard to the rigging, Cap’n Pem and the boys had their way. Captain
Edwards had agreed with the old whaleman that a topsail schooner was the
handiest vessel to navigate in the ice; also he had pointed out that,
having been originally rigged as such, it was cheaper and easier to
re-rig the _Narwhal_ in the same way.
So the tall and tapering spars were set up, the long and beautifully
proportioned cross yards for the foremast were slung, the standing
rigging was bowsed taut, served, and tarred; the huge blocks and the maze
of halyards, lifts, braces, sheets, lines and ropes were rigged, and,
resplendent in a coat of new paint, the rejuvenated _Narwhal’s_ motor was
started and she chugged slowly across the harbor to the New Bedford dock.
“Now what do you think of her?” asked Tom of old Mike as the staunch,
trim schooner was warped alongside the dock, and her lofty, golden-tinted
spars loomed high above the water-front buildings.
“Waall, b’gorra, ’tis not the same ship at all, at all,” declared the
Irishman. “Shure ’tis loike the sailor’s knoife she do be—the same ould
knoife, barrin’ new blades an’ a new handle.”
“Gid out!” cried old Pem. “By heck, if ye got a new timber leg I ’spec’
ye’d be a dod gasted new man, eh?”
“No!” responded the Irishman. “But shure an’ if Oi foun’ me a foine new
hidpiece an’ a new body an’ a new pair o’ han’s, the wooden lig o’ me
remainin’ would niver be afther makin’ ould Moike out o’ the broth of a
b’y Oi’d be.”
“Well, I don’t care what you say, it’s the same old _Narwhal_,” insisted
Tom, “just as much as the _Hector_ was the same old _Hector_.”
“Yis, yis, so she do be,” agreed Mike. “An’ ’tis a foine cruise we’ll be
takin’ in her—an’ foine luck we’ll be havin’ Oi’m thinkin’—phwat wid the
same ould crew o’ the _Hector_. An’ thanks be to Hivvin there’ll be no
bo’sun burrds for to be a-perchin’ on the yarrds an’ a-scarin’ the loife
out of us all.”
Even when the ship was reconditioned there was much to be done. The boys
had thought that the old _Hector_ had carried vast quantities of stores,
but when they saw the mountain of barrels, shooks, boxes, cases and casks
that were piled on the wharf, and the steady stream of trucks and drays
that kept adding their loads to the accumulation, they declared that the
_Narwhal_ would sink at the wharf if all the supplies were stowed aboard
her.
“Don’t ye fergit we’re a-goin’ for a long v’yage,” Cap’n Pem reminded
them. “Lord knows when the ol’ _Narwhal_’ll be a-pokin’ of her jib boom
pas’ New Bedford light ag’in. An’ there ain’t no delic’tessen ’roun’ the
corner in the Ar’tic, by gum!”
“But what do they want all that salt for?” asked Jim, who had been
watching barrel after barrel of coarse Turks’ Island salt being slung
aboard.
“Curin’ skins,” replied the old whaleman. “’Spect we’ll be a-gittin’ a
purty good cargo o’ seals. Ain’t been hunted much fer a spell an’ pelts
is purty high. Yessir, better’n ile now’days.”
“And what do we need lumber for?” queried Tom. “Any one would think we
were going to build a house up there.”
“So we be,” declared Pem. “Come winter an’ she freezes in, we’ll be
a-makin’ on her shipshape an’ comfy for six months o’ everlastin’ night.
House the ol’ hooker in—didn’t ’spec’ ye could spen’ the winter in that
there mite of a cabin an’ the fo’c’s’le, did ye?”
“Well, I see we’ve a lot to learn yet,” laughed Tom. “What about guns and
things for shooting the seals and bears?”
Cap’n Pem guffawed. “Lor’ love ye!” he exclaimed. “They don’t scarcely
never shoot seals—jes knock ’em over the head same as we did them
there sea el’phunts. But they’ll be guns aboard fer huntin’ musk ox an’
reindeer an’ b’ars, an’ a lot o’ ol’ muskets fer to trade to the Eskimos.”
“Well, we’re taking our own rifles,” said Jim, “but I don’t see any heavy
clothes or overcoats in the stores.”
“Ain’t none,” declared the old whaleman. “Plenty o’ warm woolens an’
mitts an’ sea boots an’ sou’westers though. Don’ never take no overcoats
along. Jes git fur clothes from the Eskimos. They’re a heap sight warmer
an’ cheaper.”
So, with the boys constantly plying the old sailor with questions, and
daily learning more and more about the outfitting and the coming cruise,
the work of loading and storing the pile of supplies went on, until at
last, to the boys’ amazement, the stevedores and sailors managed to find
a place for everything.
Finally the final package was aboard. The _Narwhal’s_ deck was littered,
the cabin was choked with boxes, half the galley was filled with coal,
and even the spare boats were filled with stores. Still the _Narwhal_
showed plenty of freeboard and rode buoyantly on the water.
Then came trucks carrying huge rolls of new white canvas, a crowd of men
swarmed up the rigging and over the yards, the great sails were bent on
and stretched. The _Narwhal_ was ready to start on her long cruise to the
frozen north.
It only remained to get the crew together, and when the two boys finally
stepped on to the schooner’s decks on the day of leaving, they felt
as if they were once more aboard the old _Hector_. There was Cap’n
Edwards, with his merry blue eyes, white hair and leatherlike face.
Cap’ Pem stumped back and forth with a frown on his face and his old
cap at a rakish angle on his grizzled head. Mike was bawling orders and
punctuating quaint commands with his Irish wit, and Mr. Kemp, longer and
lankier than ever, grinned at the boys with his mouth twisted by the
ghastly scar received when his ship was sunk by a German U-boat. From the
galley door, the ebony-faced cook bobbed his woolly head in greeting,
and, with a mallet in one hand and wooden wedges in the other, the
dried-up, chin-whiskered Irish carpenter was busy battening down hatches
with the help of big, raw-boned Ole Swanson, the cooper. Even one-eyed
Ned and deaf-and-dumb Pete were there, and so the only faces the boys
missed from the _Hector’s_ crew were those of the pop-eyed boy and the
big gorilla-like black sailor.
“Why, you got all the old men back!” cried Tom delightedly, as he
recognized one after the other. “Even Pete!”
Cap’n Pem grinned. “Yep,” he replied, “that there old fool Mike jes’
nat’rally did like ye told of him. But, arter all, they ain’t sech an
all-fired bad lot o’ han’s, an’ they knows me and the skipper an’ Mr.
Kemp, an’ ol’ shipmates is ol’ shipmates—spite o’ their bein’ mos’ly
derelic’s. An’ I reckon Pete’ll be a sort o’ mascot—Eskimos is so dumb
they allers thinks dummies is big med’cine an’ is supe’stitious ’bout
’em. ’Sides, we had sech everlastin’ luck las’ v’yage, mebbe we’ll be
lucky ’long o’ this, seein’s we’ve got the hull crowd ag’in.”
As Cap’n Pem was speaking, the hawsers had been cast off, Mike had
started the motor and the screw churned the water. The crowd gathered on
the dock, shouted farewells and good lucks and the boys sprang to the
taffrail, and waved and yelled good-by to their parents. The _Narwhal_,
gay with bunting, her big sails hanging loosely in the buntlines and
brails, slipped into the stream, swung slowly about, and under her own
power was headed towards the harbor mouth.
Once more to the boys’ ears came the rousing chantey as the men piled
aloft, scrambled out on yards, and manned the halyards and hoists.
The ship she’s a-sailing out over the bar,
Away Rio! Away Rio!
The ship she’s a-sailing out over the bar,
We’re bound for the Rio Grande!
Thus sang the men as the sails rose slowly, with many a rattle and purl
of blocks, and the _Narwhal’s_ white wings gleamed in the bright June
sunshine. The boys thrilled with pride and delight as they glanced aloft
at the tapering spars and taut rigging and at the sheen of sails. As they
felt the gentle motion of the deck, Tom and Jim realized that they were
once more starting forth on adventures—and this time in their own ship.