A TALE FROM THE FROZEN LANDS.
Although Noddy had recovered remarkably quick, thanks to his rugged
constitution, from the effects of his immersion, Captain Simms ordered
him on the sick-list and he was, much against his will, sent to bed.
"He'd better stay there all night," said the captain. "We don't want to
run any risks of pneumonia. I don't suppose your uncle will worry about
you?"
"He's got over that long ago," laughed Jack; "besides, there's a
professor stopping at the hotel who is on the lookout for funny plants
and herbs. That's Uncle Toby's long suit, you know."
"So I have heard," smiled the captain. "Well, you boys may as well make
yourselves at home."
"Thank you, we will," said Billy. Whereat there was a general laugh.
There was a phonograph and a good selection of records in the cottage,
so they managed to while away a pleasant afternoon. Jack cooked supper,
"just by way of paying for our board," he said. After the meal they sat
up for a time listening to Captain Simms' tales of seal poachers in the
Arctic and the trouble they give the patrol assigned to see that they do
not violate the international boundary, and other laws. Before he had
taken command of the _Thespis_, of the Ice-berg Patrol, Captain Simms
had been detailed to command of the _Bear_ revenue cutter, and had
chased and captured many a sealer who was plying his trade illicitly.
The boys listened attentively as he told them of the rough hardships of
such a life, and how, sometimes, a whole fleet of sealers, if frozen in
by an early formation of ice, must face hunger and sometimes death till
the spring came to release them from their imprisonment.
"It must take a lot of nerve and courage to be a sealer," said Jack.
"It certainly does," agreed the captain. "Yet I heard from one sealing
captain the story of a young fellow whom it turned from a weak coward
into a brave man. This lad, who was regarded as a weakling, saved
himself and two companions from a terrible death simply by an act of
almost sublime courage. Would you like to hear the story?"
"If you don't mind spinning the yarn," said Jack.
"Well, then," began the captain, "to start with, the name of my hero is
Shavings. Of course he had another name, but that's the one he was
always known by, and I've forgotten the right one. He was a long-legged,
lanky Vermont farmer, with dank strings of yellow hair hanging about his
mild face. This hair gave him his nickname aboard the sealing schooner,
_Janet Barry_, on which he signed as a boat man. How Shavings came to
St. Johns, from which port the _Janet Barry_ sailed, or why he picked
out such a job, nobody ever knew. He had, as sailors say, 'hayseed in
his hair' and knew nothing about a ship.
"But what he didn't know he soon learned under the rough method of
tuition they employed on the _Barry_. A mate with a rope's end sent him
aloft for the first time and kept sending him there till Shavings
learned how to clamber up the ratlines with the best of them. He learned
boat-work in much the same way, although he passed through a lot of
experiences while chasing seals, that scared him badly. He told the
captain long afterward that, although he was afraid of storms and gales,
still he sometimes welcomed them, because he knew the boats would not
have to go out.
"One day, far to the north, they ran into an exceptionally fine school
of seals. All the boats were sent away, and among them the one to which
Shavings belonged. In command of this boat was Olaf Olsen, the mate who
had taught Shavings the rudiments of his profession by means of hard
knocks. Dark clouds were scurrying across the sky, and the sea looked
angry, but that made no difference to the sealers. Lives or no lives,
women in the States had to have their sealskin coats.
"So the boats pursued the seals for a long distance, and in the
excitement nobody noticed what the weather was doing. Nobody, that is,
but Shavings, and he didn't dare to say that it was growing worse, for
fear of angering the mate. The hunters harpooned a goodly catch before
the gale was upon the little fleet almost without warning.
"Then the storm broke with a screech and a massing of angry water. The
boats had been under sail, and in a flash two of them were over-turned.
Shavings saw all this with terror in his eyes and a cold clutch at his
heart. He knew the men in those boats would never go sealing again.
"Then his eyes fell on the mate, Olaf Olsen. The man appeared to be
petrified with fright. He made no move to do anything. Then something in
Shavings seemed to wake up.
"Perhaps that yellow hair of his was a survival of some old Viking
strain, or perhaps all those months of rough sea life had made him over
without his knowing it. But he seized the mate and shook him by the
shoulder:
"'Give an order, man!' he shouted. 'Order the sail reefed.'
"But the sight of the death of his shipmates had so unnerved the mate
that he could no nothing. Shavings kicked him disgustedly, and went
about the job himself. Clouds of spray burst over him. Time and again he
was within an inch of being swept overboard, but at last he had the sail
reefed down. Then he took the tiller and headed back for the schooner
across the immense seas through the screeching gale.
"He handled that boat skillfully, meeting the big seas and riding their
summits, only to be buried the next instant in the watery valley between
the giant combers. But always he rose. He had the cheering sight of the
schooner before him and it grew closer. The boat sailed more on her beam
than on her keel, but at last Shavings, more dead than alive, ran her in
under the lee of the schooner's hull, and willing hands got the
survivors out of the boat.
"The skipper of that craft was a rough man. He drove Olaf Olsen forward
with blows and curses and the strong Swede whimpered like a whipped cur.
Then he came aft to where the cook was giving Shavings and the rest hot
coffee.
"'Shavings,' he said, 'after this you're mate in that coward Olsen's
place. You're a man.'
"'No, sirree,' rejoined Shavings, 'I'm a farmer. No mate's job for me.
When we gets back ter home I'm goin' ter take my share uv ther catch and
buy a farm.'
"But he was finally persuaded to take the job of mate when his canny New
England mind grasped the fact that the mate's share of the profits is
much bigger than a foremast hand's. He was as good as his word, however,
and, when the _Janet Barry_, with her flag at half mast but her hold
full of fine skins, docked at St. Johns after the season was over,
Shavings drew his money and vanished. I suppose he is farming it
somewhere in Vermont now, but I agree with his captain, who told me the
story, that there was a fine sailor lost in Shavings."