Little David Loomis, only eight years old, was permitted by his father,
Captain Loomis, to accompany him on a whaling expedition. While out at
sea the body of a dead whale was discovered at some distance from the
boat, floating in the water. Several of the crew manned one of the
smaller boats and rowed away over the glassy sea to secure the carcase.
David was allowed to go with them. Before the boat reached the floating
whale, however, a fearful squall suddenly arose; the wind screamed and
whistled round their little boat; the waves, lashed to sudden fury,
hissed and foamed, breaking over them like a deluge, whilst a terrible
peel of thunder broke right overhead. David was scared almost out of his
senses. He had never before seen such a storm. But he sat still, as one
of the crew had told him to do, looking out, oh! how eagerly, for some
signs of his father's vessel. Nothing was to be seen, however, but a
wild waste of heaving, tumbling billows, over which the boat seemed
actually to fly. Suddenly the clouds lifted, the wind ceased, and all
was as calm as before the storm. Nothing was to be seen of the dead
whale, and the crew was content to let it float where it would, while
they rowed in search of their vessel. Ere long they were safe and sound
on board with Captain Loomis. David could not help repeating from a poem
he had recited at school, the words: "Isn't God upon the ocean, just the
same as on the land?"
[Illustration: IN A STORM ON THE SEA.]