PRENTICE MULFORD: Autobiographical Works (Life by Land and Sea, The Californian's Return & More). Prentice Mulford Mulford
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several shore visitors on board, and among them two of my intimate friends who had come to see me off. There they stood, in all the bravery of silk hats and fashionably-cut attire, conversing on terms of equality with the first mate. They could talk with him on the weather or any subject. I, by virtue of my inferior position, was not at liberty to speak to this potentate at all.
I jumped into the pig-pen. Thus destiny despite our inclinations, forces clown our throats these bitter pills. The fourth mate was not more than a year my senior. He stood over me during the entire process and scolded, cursed, and commanded. My shore friends looked on from afar and grinned. Already they saw the great social chasm which yawned between me and them, and governed their actions accordingly. Already did they involuntarily patronize me. It requires a wise man to detect the wickedness and deceit in his own nature. Probably I should have similarly acted had our positions been reversed. The mate was very particular. He made me sweep and scrape every corner with an elaborate and painful accuracy. He sent me into the pig’s house to further perfect the work. I was obliged to enter it in an almost recumbent position. The pig ran out disgusted. I scraped his floor in a similar mood. Thus commenced life on the ocean wave.
But I got even with the mate. Destiny made me my own involuntary avenger of the indignity put upon me. By indignity I don’t mean the cleaning of the pig-pen. That was an honorable, though menial occupation—at least in theory. Cincinnatus on his farm may have done the same thing. But I do mean the scurrility and abuse the young officer bestowed on me, while I did my best to execute his bidding.
I hauled the young man overboard about three minutes afterward, but he never knew I did it, and I never allowed myself to think of the occurrence while on shipboard, for fear the powers of the air might ventilate the matter. It came about in this way: A line was passed through a hawse-hole forward to the tug, which was puffing, fretting, fuming, and churning with her screw the mud-ooze and garbage floating in the slip into a closer fusion. My friend the mate stood on the fore-chains with the end of the heavy rope in both hands, trying to pass it to those on the tug. This line running through the hawse-hole aft was lying near where I stood. Some one called out: “Haul in on that line!” I supposed that the order referred to me and the hawser lying at my side. So I hauled with all my might. I felt at first some resistance—something like a tugging at the other end. I hauled all the harder. Then something seemed to give way. It hauled easier. I heard, coincident with these sensations, a splash, loud cries, much swearing and the yell of “Man overboard!” I raised my head over the bulwarks and there was my mate, floundering amid dock ooze, rotten oranges, and salt-water. It was he who held the other end of the line, and my hauling had caused the centre of gravity in his short body to shift beyond the base, and in accordance with a natural law he had gone overboard. He was the general cynosure of all eyes. They fished him out, wet and swearing. There was a vigorous demand for the miscreant who had been hauling on the line. I was as far as possible from the spot and kept myself very busy. Bluster went below and changed his clothes. I was avenged.
CHAPTER III.
GETTING MY SEA LEGS ON.
We were towed into the stream and anchored for the night. To look at New York City, with its many lights and its thousands amusing themselves in various ways, from the ship’s deck, without the possibility of joining them, was to feel for the first time the slavery of marine life. Emerging very early next morning from the “boys’ house,” I found everything in the bustle and confusion of getting under way. A long file of men were tramping aft with a very wet hawser. As I stood looking at them my ear was seized by our Dutch third mate, who accompanied the action with the remark, “Cooms, I puts you to work.” He conducted me in this manner to the rope and bade me lay hold of it. I did so. I could have done so with a better heart and will had it not been for the needless and degrading manner in which he enforced his command. Most men do their work just as well for being treated with a certain courtesy of command due from the superior to the inferior.
At noon the tug cast-off. The Highlands of Navesink sank to a cloud in the distance. The voyage had commenced. All hands were mustered aft. The Captain appeared and made them a short speech. He hoped we would all do our duty and that the voyage would be a pleasant one. It was not a pleasant one at all. However, that was all in the future. The first and second mates then chose the men for their respective watches, commencing with the able seamen, then picking out the ordinary seamen, and finally descending to the boys. Of course the best of all these grades were picked off first. I think I was among the last of the boys who were chosen.
The first night out was fine. The Wizard slightly bowed to the ocean, and the sails seemed great black patches, waving to and fro against the sky. The six boys, so soon to be miserable, gathered in a cluster on deck. Jed Coles proposed that we “spin yarns.” It was the nautically correct way of passing the time. So we “spun yarns,” or at least Jed did. He had a batch ready for the occasion. He sat on a tub, put an enormous chew of tobacco in his mouth, hitched up his trousers and felt every inch a sailor. I noticed the second mate, that incarnation of evil and brutality, hovering about us, dark as it was. I saw his fiendish grin and the glare of his greenish eye. A precious lot of young fools we must have seemed to him. A little after our yarn spinning was interrupted by shrieks and cries of distress proceeding from the forward part of the ship. We had then our first exhibition of the manner of enforcing American merchant-service discipline. The second mate was beating Cummings, a simple being, who, having sailed only in “fore-and-aft” coasting vessels, had made the mistake of shipping as an ordinary seaman on a square-rigged craft, and was almost as much at sea in his knowledge of the ropes as the “boys.” This officer had singled out Cummings for his awkwardness as the proper man to “haze.” He was showering upon him blows, thick and fast, with the end of one of the fore braces. It was the first time I had ever seen a man beaten by one in authority. The cringing attitude, the cries, sobs, and supplications of a full-grown man, and the oaths and terrible ferocity of his castigator, were inexpressibly shocking to me. The incident, which was often repeated during the voyage, broke up our amateur yarning and made us very thoughtful.
Jedediah Coles was not at all nautically loquacious the next night. Then the Gulf Stream gave us a touch of its tantrums. All during the afternoon the sky grew more and more threatening. By dark it was blowing hard. The lighter sails one by one were stowed. Then it blew harder. The mate swore the harder. The Captain came on deck and swore at everybody. One of the “boys” asked him if he thought it would be stormy. He considered himself privileged to ask the Captain that question. He was a native of the same village. His father and the Captain were friends, and his mother and the Captain’s wife visited each other. So he deemed it advisable to establish himself on a sociable footing with the Captain at the commencement of the voyage. Poor boy! Never again during the trip did he consult the Captain meteorologically. He learned speedily the great gulf which yawns between the cabin and the forecastle.
It grew dark, the waves became bigger and bigger, and the ship seemed taxed to her utmost trying to clamber them one after another as they presented themselves. The mates came out in their oilskins. The order was given to reef topsails. Gangs of men ran hither and thither, pulling here, hauling there, and running straight over us whenever we got in their way, and it seemed impossible to get out of their way. Everything became unsettled and uncomfortable. The ship would not keep still. New complications of ropes and hauling-gear were developed. The capstan in the waist was manned, and round and round went the sailors, while the deck they trod was inclined in all manner of uncomfortable angles. Tackle and great blocks were hooked to ringbolts, and a vast amount of what seemed to me fruitless hauling went on. Barrels of water swashed over the bulwarks, knocking us down and drenching us. Wet and shivering we clung to belaying-pins or anything within reach, of no earthly use to anybody, thinking of the cheerfully lit, well-warmed rooms and comfortable tea-tables even then set but so few miles away on the shores of Long Island. When the order came to reef, and I saw the men clambering up the fore and main rigging, I added myself to their number, though I felt I should never-come down again—at least in one piece. It was my debut aloft off soundings. Many a time had I clambered about the rigging of the old whalers as they lay at the village wharf, but they were not roaring, kicking, and plunging