After that he sits still a little with his elbows on his knees; then he
speers at me sidewise awhile; then said he, "I s'pose _I_'ve got a
mother to home. I ran away from her."
This, mind you, is the first time he has ever spoke about his folks
since he came aboard.
"She was asleep down in the south chamber," says he. "I got out the
window. There was one white shirt she'd made for meetin' and such. I've
never worn it out here. I hadn't the heart. It has a collar and some
cuffs, you know. She had a headache making of it. She's been follering
me round all day, a sewing on that shirt. When I come in she would look
up bright-like and smiling. Father's dead. There ain't anybody but me.
All day long she's been follering of me round."
So then he gets up, and joins the lads, and tries to sing a little; but
he comes back very still and sits down. We could see the flickery light
upon the boys' faces, and on the rigging, and on the cap'n, who was
damning the bo'sen a little aft.
"Jake," says he, quite low, "look here. I've been thinking. Do you
reckon there's a chap here--just one, perhaps--who's said his prayers
since he came aboard?"
"_No!_" said I, quite short: for I'd have bet my head on it.
I can remember, as if it was this morning, just how the question
sounded, and the answer. I can't seem to put it into words how it came
all over me. The wind was turning brisk, and we'd just eased her with a
few reefs; Bob Smart, out furling the flying jib, got soaked; me and the
boy sitting silent, were spattered. I remember watching the curve of
the great swells, mahogany color, with the tip of white, and thinking
how like it was to a big creature hissing and foaming at the mouth, and
thinking all at once something about Him holding of the sea in a
balance, and not a word bespoke to beg his favor respectful since we
weighed our anchor, and the cap'n yonder calling on Him just that minute
to send the Madonna to the bottom, if the bo'sen hadn't disobeyed his
orders about the squaring of the after-yards.
"From his Affecshunate mother who prays, For you evry day, Amen,"
whispers Kentucky, presently, very soft. "The book's tore up. Mr.
Whitmarsh wadded his old gun with it. But I remember."
Then said he: "It's 'most bedtime to home. She's setting in a little
rocking-chair,--a green one. There's a fire, and the dog. She sets all
by herself."
Then he begins again: "She has to bring in her own wood now. There's a
gray ribbon on her cap. When she goes to meetin' she wears a gray
bunnet. She's drawed the curtains and the door is locked. But she thinks
I'll be coming home sorry some day,--I'm sure she thinks I'll be coming
home sorry."
Just then there comes the order, "Port watch ahoy! Tumble up there
lively!" so I turns out, and the lad turns in, and the night settles
down a little black, and my hands and head are full. Next day it blows a
clean, all but a bank of gray, very thin and still,--about the size of
that cloud you see through the side window, Tom,--which lay just abeam
of us.
The sea, I thought, looked like a great purple pincushion, with a mast
or two stuck in on the horizon for the pins. "Jake's poetry," the boys
said that was.
By noon that little gray bank had grown up thick, like a wall. By
sundown the cap'n let his liquor alone, and kept the deck. By night we
were in chop-seas, with a very ugly wind.
"Steer small, there!" cries Whitmarsh, growing hot about the face,--for
we made a terribly crooked wake, with a broad sheer, and the old hull
strained heavily,--"steer small there, I tell you! Mind your eye now,
McCallum, with your foresail! Furl the royals! Send down the royals!
Cheerily, men! Where's that lubber Kent? Up with you, lively now!"
Kentucky sprang for'ard at the order, then stopped short. Anybody as
knows a royal from an anchor wouldn't have blamed the lad. I'll take
oath to't it's no play for an old tar, stout and full in size, sending
down the royals in a gale like that; let alone a boy of fifteen year on
his first voyage.
But the mate takes to swearing (it would have turned a parson faint to
hear him), and Kent shoots away up,--the great mast swinging like a
pendulum to and fro, and the reef-points snapping, and the blocks
creaking, and the sails flapping to that extent as you wouldn't
consider possible unless you'd been before the mast yourself. It
reminded me of evil birds I've read of, that stun a man with their
wings; strike _you_ to the bottom, Tom, before you could say Jack
Robinson.
Kent stuck bravely as far as the cross-trees. There he slipped and
struggled and clung in the dark and noise awhile, then comes sliding
down the back-stay.
"I'm not afraid, sir," says he; "but I cannot do it."
For answer Whitmarsh takes to the rope's-end. So Kentucky is up again,
and slips and struggles and clings again, and then lays down again.
At this the men begin to grumble a little low.
"Will you kill the lad?" said I. I get a blow for my pains, that sends
me off my feet none too easy; and when I rub the stars out of my eyes
the boy is up again, and the mate behind him with the rope. Whitmarsh
stopped when he'd gone far enough. The lad climbed on. Once he looked
back. He never opened his lips; he just looked back. If I've seen him
once since, in my thinking, I've seen him twenty times,--up in the
shadow of the great gray wings, a looking back.
After that there was only a cry, and a splash, and the Madonna racing
along with the gale twelve knots. If it had been the whole crew
overboard, she could never have stopped for them that night.
"Well," said the cap'n, "you've done it now."
Whitmarsh turns his back.
By and by, when the wind fell, and the hurry was over, and I had the
time to think a steady thought, being in the morning watch, I seemed to
see the old lady in the gray bunnet setting by the fire. And the dog.
And the green rocking-chair. And the front door, with the boy walking in
on a sunny afternoon to take her by surprise.
Then I remember leaning over to look down, and wondering if the lad were
thinking of it too, and what had happened to him now, these two hours
back, and just about where he was, and how he liked his new quarters,
and many other strange and curious things.
And while I sat there thinking, the Sunday-morning stars cut through the
clouds, and the solemn Sunday-morning light began to break upon the sea.
We had a quiet run of it, after that, into port, where we lay about a
couple of months or so, trading off for a fair stock of palm-oil, ivory,
and hides. The days were hot and purple and still. We hadn't what you
might call a blow, if I recollect accurate, till we rounded the Cape
again, heading for home.
We were rounding that Cape again, heading for home, when that happened
which you may believe me or not, as you take the notion, Tom; though why
a man who can swallow Daniel and the lion's den, or take down t'other
chap who lived three days comfortable into the inside of a whale, should
make faces at what I've got to tell I can't see.
It was just about the spot that we lost the boy that we fell upon the
worst gale of the trip. It struck us quite sudden. Whitmarsh was a
little high. He wasn't apt to be drunk in a gale, if it gave him warning
sufficient.
Well, you see, there must be somebody to furl the main-royal again, and
he pitched onto McCallum. McCallum hadn't his beat for fighting out the
royal in a blow.
So he piled away lively, up to the to'-sail yard. There, all of a
sudden, he stopped. Next we knew he was down like heat-lightning.
His face had gone very white.
"What's to pay with _you_?" roared Whitmarsh.