In trying to get off last night the ship got aground and must wait for
high tide. I wrote to your mother yesterday. It is bright and lovely
this morning, the mercury at 70--it is hot. I send you a jingle. Several
of the men write doggerel and put it up in the smoking room, so I am
doing it too. Mine is best so far. We will soon be off now, I trust you
are well. I try not to worry.
Bow westward faithful steamer
And show the east your heels
New conquests lie before you
In far Aleutian fields
Kick high, if high you must
But don't do so at meals,
Oh don't do so at meals.
Your swinging it is graceful
But I do detest your reels.
We're bound for Unalaska
And we do not care who squeals
But mend your pace a little
And show the east your heels
But in your waltzing with old Neptune
Don't forget the hours of meals
Don't forget the hours of meals
I'm sure you have no notion
How dreadful bad it feels!
Push onward into Bering
And hasten to the seals
One glance upon their harems
Then take unto your heels
More steam into your boilers
More vigor in your wheels
But in flirting with the billows
Oh regard the hours of meals
Do regard the hours of meals.
If in this we are exacting
Please remember how it feels.
We're bound for Arctic waters
And for the midnight sun
Then quicken your propeller
And your pace into a run
We'll touch at lone Siberia
To take a polar bear
Then hie away through Bering Straits
And more frigid regions dare
But in all thy wild cavorting
Oh don't forget our prayer
A noble task's before us
And we'll do it ere we go
We'll cut the Arctic circle
And take the thing in tow
And put it round the Philippines
And cool 'em off with snow.
Our boys will hail our coming,
But a chill will seize the foe.
And we'll end the war in triumph
Go you homeward fast or slow.
Kadiak, July 2, 1899.
Though this was a delightful trip, one might say, an ideal trip, he was
homesick, sea sick, and, as he says of himself, of all the party the
most ignorant, the most untravelled, the most silent. It was a new
experience to him, this going with a crowd. I know he often spoke of the
expedition's cheer, and how they would all give it when they came into
stations--
Who are we!
Who are we!
We're the Harriman, Harriman
H. A. E.! H. A. E.!
and "how the people would stare at us!" Father said. He liked it,
this jolly comradeship and crowd spirit, but it was new to him,
almost painfully new, and though no one had more human sympathy, more
tenderness and understanding with human weaknesses and shortcomings, no
one had less of the crowd spirit. As he said, he kept aloof--not from
aloofness but from embarrassment and shyness. Later he overcame most
of this and was able to face a crowd or an audience with composure and
sureness. With this picture in mind another is recalled, one of him here
at Riverby on summer days, scraping corn to make corn cakes. With an
armful of green corn that he had picked, I can see him seated and with
one of Mother's old aprons tucked under his beard. He would carefully
cut down the rows of kernels and then with the back of a knife would
scrape the milk of the corn into a big yellow bowl. He would hold
the white ears in his brown hands and deftly cut each row, a look of
composure and serenity in his eyes. He could eat his share of the cakes,
too, and I like to think of those summer days. That fall he wrote from
Slabsides: