Bidding them all good night, and with a parting injunction to the boys to report at the owner’s office and sign articles in the morning, old Cap’n Pem left the house and went stumping down the street on his wooden leg and so overjoyed at the prospect of being once more on a cruise that he broke into a rollicking old chantey.
Now who d’ ye think’s the chief mate o’ her?
Blow, boys, blow!
A big mu-latter come from Antigua!
Blow, my bully boys, blow!
Long after he was out of sight, the boys could hear the chorus wafted to them on the soft night breeze.
The next few weeks were busy ones for the two boys. They signed on as members of the Hector’s crew, although there were difficulties to be overcome in doing that, for they were too young to secure navigators’ licenses. Finally it was arranged that they should be rated as “boys” and as such were entitled to “lays” of 1/100 of the ship’s catch or, in other words, one barrel of oil out of every hundred, for whalers never work for wages, and when all this was attended to, the boys felt like real whalemen. Then, at Captain Edward’s suggestion, they worked daily at the Hector, sometimes on the rigging, and still oftener looking after the gear of the whale boats and the supplies which were being rapidly gathered together in readiness for the day when the bark would be ready for sea. It was a never-ending wonder to the boys to find what an enormous quantity of stores were required. As Tom put it, there was enough to supply a city and they could not believe that such a vast amount was necessary. Indeed, when the boys came to total up the lists of stores which they checked off, they discovered there were over seven hundred different articles and that the total cost was nearly one hundred thousand dollars. It seemed a stupendous undertaking to stow all this away and the ship itself appeared a hopeless tangle of rigging, fittings and odds and ends. But gradually order came from chaos. The Hector was spick and span with a fresh coat of paint; her tall, tapering spars rose high above the docks; her massive yards were in place; her rigging taut and well tarred; and, at last one day, a fussy, little tug came hurrying across the harbor, and with a huge, new flag flying from her mizzen gaff and strings of bright bunting everywhere, the stout old ship was towed from her berth and moored in the stream. To the elated boys, standing upon the clean, smooth decks it seemed impossible that the stately vessel whose shining masts and spars towered above their heads could be the same weather-beaten, dingy, dilapidated hulk which for so long had lain upon the mud flat and had formed a playground for them and their comrades.
Soon lighters were alongside; the countless stores were rapidly put aboard; the immense sails were bent to the yards; and all was ready for the voyage, save the crew.
Old Cap’n Pem had had his hands full getting enough men together to man the ship and do the work when they reached the hunting grounds, and he vowed, that never in all his experience had he seen such a good-for-nothing, worthless lot of human derelicts as the sharks had offered him.
“Bet ye, ye’ll see some fun when we git out o’ soundin’s an’ start to break ’em in,” he declared. “Mebbe ye boys think as I’m a mighty easy-goin’ ol’ cuss but I reckon ye’ll think I’m a snortin’, tough ol’ bucko mate when we git to sea. Treat ’em rough’s the only way ter handle of ’em. Ain’t nary one of ’em thet knows a marlin spike from a scuttle-butt I’ll bet.”
“Why, aren’t they sailors?” asked Jim.
“Sailors!” cried the old whaleman. “Sailors! Well I’ll be scuttled! Course they ain’t sailors. Why, bless your hearts, no whaler cap’n’d ship sailors if they paid their passage. Jest scum they be—gutter sweepin’s an’ bums on’y worse ’an usual ’cause o’ the war.”