“No!” responded the Irishman. “But shure an’ if Oi foun’ me a foine new hidpiece an’ a new body an’ a new pair o’ han’s, the wooden lig o’ me remainin’ would niver be afther makin’ ould Moike out o’ the broth of a b’y Oi’d be.”
“Well, I don’t care what you say, it’s the same old Narwhal,” insisted Tom, “just as much as the Hector was the same old Hector.”
“Yis, yis, so she do be,” agreed Mike. “An’ ’tis a foine cruise we’ll be takin’ in her—an’ foine luck we’ll be havin’ Oi’m thinkin’—phwat wid the same ould crew o’ the Hector. An’ thanks be to Hivvin there’ll be no bo’sun burrds for to be a-perchin’ on the yarrds an’ a-scarin’ the loife out of us all.”
Even when the ship was reconditioned there was much to be done. The boys had thought that the old Hector had carried vast quantities of stores, but when they saw the mountain of barrels, shooks, boxes, cases and casks that were piled on the wharf, and the steady stream of trucks and drays that kept adding their loads to the accumulation, they declared that the Narwhal would sink at the wharf if all the supplies were stowed aboard her.
“Don’t ye fergit we’re a-goin’ for a long v’yage,” Cap’n Pem reminded them. “Lord knows when the ol’ Narwhal’ll be a-pokin’ of her jib boom pas’ New Bedford light ag’in. An’ there ain’t no delic’tessen ’roun’ the corner in the Ar’tic, by gum!”
“But what do they want all that salt for?” asked Jim, who had been watching barrel after barrel of coarse Turks’ Island salt being slung aboard.
“Curin’ skins,” replied the old whaleman. “’Spect we’ll be a-gittin’ a purty good cargo o’ seals. Ain’t been hunted much fer a spell an’ pelts is purty high. Yessir, better’n ile now’days.”
“And what do we need lumber for?” queried Tom. “Any one would think we were going to build a house up there.”
“So we be,” declared Pem. “Come winter an’ she freezes in, we’ll be a-makin’ on her shipshape an’ comfy for six months o’ everlastin’ night. House the ol’ hooker in—didn’t ’spec’ ye could spen’ the winter in that there mite of a cabin an’ the fo’c’s’le, did ye?”