The Country of the Pointed Firs. Sarah Orne Jewett
the Bay with a light pair o’ heels; but I had been vexed to death with their red-tape rigging at the company’s office, and chilled with stayin’ on deck an’ tryin’ to hurry up things, and when we were well out o’ sight o’ land, headin’ for Hudson’s Straits, I had a bad turn o’ some sort o’ fever, and had to stay below. The days were getting short, and we made good runs, all well on board but me, and the crew done their work by dint of hard driving.”
I began to find this unexpected narrative a little dull. Captain Littlepage spoke with a kind of slow correctness that lacked the longshore high flavor to which I had grown used; but I listened respectfully while he explained the winds having become contrary, and talked on in a dreary sort of way about his voyage, the bad weather, and the disadvantages he was under in the lightness of his ship, which bounced about like a chip in a bucket, and would not answer the rudder or properly respond to the most careful setting of sails.
“So there we were blowin’ along anyways,” he complained; but looking at me at this moment, and seeing that my thoughts were unkindly wandering, he ceased to speak.
“It was a hard life at sea in those days, I am sure,” said I, with redoubled interest.
“It was a dog’s life,” said the poor old gentleman, quite reassured, “but it made men of those who followed it. I see a change for the worse even in our own town here; full of loafers now, small and poor as ‘tis, who once would have followed the sea, every lazy soul of ‘em. There is no occupation so fit for just that class o’ men who never get beyond the fo’cas’le. I view it, in addition, that a community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled newspaper. In the old days, a good part o’ the best men here knew a hundred ports and something of the way folks lived in them. They saw the world for themselves, and like’s not their wives and children saw it with them. They may not have had the best of knowledge to carry with ‘em sight-seein’, but they were some acquainted with foreign lands an’ their laws, an’ could see outside the battle for town clerk here in Dunnet; they got some sense o’ proportion. Yes, they lived more dignified, and their houses were better within an’ without. Shipping’s a terrible loss to this part o’ New England from a social point o’ view, ma’am.”
“I have thought of that myself,” I returned, with my interest quite awakened. “It accounts for the change in a great many things,—the sad disappearance of sea-captains,—doesn’t it?”
“A shipmaster was apt to get the habit of reading,” said my companion, brightening still more, and taking on a most touching air of unreserve. “A captain is not expected to be familiar with his crew, and for company’s sake in dull days and nights he turns to his book. Most of us old shipmasters came to know ‘most everything about something; one would take to readin’ on farming topics, and some were great on medicine,—but Lord help their poor crews!—or some were all for history, and now and then there’d be one like me that gave his time to the poets. I was well acquainted with a shipmaster that was all for bees an’ beekeepin’; and if you met him in port and went aboard, he’d sit and talk a terrible while about their havin’ so much information, and the money that could be made out of keepin’ ‘em. He was one of the smartest captains that ever sailed the seas, but they used to call the Newcastle, a great bark he commanded for many years, Tuttle’s beehive. There was old Cap’n Jameson: he had notions of Solomon’s Temple, and made a very handsome little model of the same, right from the Scripture measurements, same’s other sailors make little ships and design new tricks of rigging and all that. No, there’s nothing to take the place of shipping in a place like ours. These bicycles offend me dreadfully; they don’t afford no real opportunities of experience such as a man gained on a voyage. No: when folks left home in the old days they left it to some purpose, and when they got home they stayed there and had some pride in it. There’s no large-minded way of thinking now: the worst have got to be best and rule everything; we’re all turned upside down and going back year by year.”
“Oh no, Captain Littlepage, I hope not,” said I, trying to soothe his feelings.
There was a silence in the schoolhouse, but we could hear the noise of the water on a beach below. It sounded like the strange warning wave that gives notice of the turn of the tide. A late golden robin, with the most joyful and eager of voices, was singing close by in a thicket of wild roses.
VI. The Waiting Place
“HOW DID YOU manage with the rest of that rough voyage on the Minerva?” I asked.
“I shall be glad to explain to you,” said Captain Littlepage, forgetting his grievances for the moment. “If I had a map at hand I could explain better. We were driven to and fro ‘way up toward what we used to call Parry’s Discoveries, and lost our bearings. It was thick and foggy, and at last I lost my ship; she drove on a rock, and we managed to get ashore on what I took to be a barren island, the few of us that were left alive. When she first struck, the sea was somewhat calmer than it had been, and most of the crew, against orders, manned the long-boat and put off in a hurry, and were never heard of more. Our own boat upset, but the carpenter kept himself and me above water, and we drifted in. I had no strength to call upon after my recent fever, and laid down to die; but he found the tracks of a man and dog the second day, and got along the shore to one of those far missionary stations that the Moravians support. They were very poor themselves, and in distress; ‘twas a useless place. There were but few Esquimaux left in that region. There we remained for some time, and I became acquainted with strange events.”
The captain lifted his head and gave me a questioning glance. I could not help noticing that the dulled look in his eyes had gone, and there was instead a clear intentness that made them seem dark and piercing.
“There was a supply ship expected, and the pastor, an excellent Christian man, made no doubt that we should get passage in her. He was hoping that orders would come to break up the station; but everything was uncertain, and we got on the best we could for a while. We fished, and helped the people in other ways; there was no other way of paying our debts. I was taken to the pastor’s house until I got better; but they were crowded, and I felt myself in the way, and made excuse to join with an old seaman, a Scotchman, who had built him a warm cabin, and had room in it for another. He was looked upon with regard, and had stood by the pastor in some troubles with the people. He had been on one of those English exploring parties that found one end of the road to the north pole, but never could find the other. We lived like dogs in a kennel, or so you’d thought if you had seen the hut from the outside; but the main thing was to keep warm; there were piles of bird-skins to lie on, and he’d made him a good bunk, and there was another for me. ‘Twas dreadful dreary waitin’ there; we begun to think the supply steamer was lost, and my poor ship broke up and strewed herself all along the shore. We got to watching on the headlands; my men and me knew the people were short of supplies and had to pinch themselves. It ought to read in the Bible, ‘Man cannot live by fish alone,’ if they’d told the truth of things; ‘taint bread that wears the worst on you! First part of the time, old Gaffett, that I lived with, seemed speechless, and I didn’t know what to make of him, nor he of me, I dare say; but as we got acquainted, I found he’d been through more disasters than I had, and had troubles that wa’n’t going to let him live a great while. It used to ease his mind to talk to an understanding person, so we used to sit and talk together all day, if it rained or blew so that we couldn’t get out. I’d got a bad blow on the back of my head at the time we came ashore, and it pained me at times, and my strength was broken, anyway; I’ve never been so able since.”
Captain Littlepage fell into a reverie.
“Then I had the good of my reading,” he explained presently. “I had no books; the pastor spoke but little English, and all his books were foreign; but I used to say over all I could remember. The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a man. I was well acquainted with the works of Milton, but up there it did seem to me as if Shakespeare was the king; he has his sea terms very accurate, and some beautiful passages were calming to the mind. I could say them over until I shed tears; there was nothing beautiful to me in that place but the stars above and those passages of verse.
“Gaffett was always brooding