Billy Whiskers at Home

by Frances Trego Montgomery

“You will say there is nothing thrilling about this peaceful scene,” said Stubby. “But wait! I am coming to that. I just had to tell you about this most exquisite sight.

“Well, when we came back from our ride in the little rowboat, a man on the dock was calling out, ‘Right this way for the glass-bottomed steamer that takes you to the Seal Rocks! You see the seals at home and the way they live. All the way there you can gaze through the glass bottom and see the wonderful Sea Garden. At a point where it is most beautiful a man in a diver’s suit will enter the water and bring to you any flower or shell you may wish. Starting in ten minutes, returning in one hour for the small price of one dollar. Don’t miss seeing this wonder garden of the deep!’

“It all sounded good to me, so I went on board and prepared to gaze at the same beauties I had seen in the rowboat, but when we started I was very much disappointed to see instead of the exquisitely colored fish, flowers and swaying plants just a few unattractive shells, and no flowers or feathers at all. And when the diver went overboard there was nothing attractive for him to get to bring back. I heard one of the passengers say that he had taken this trip years ago and that then there were sea feathers and plants and coral but that all the years people had been carrying them away until now scarcely anything was left. What we did see were put there from time to time, so the diver could have something to bring the people, charging twenty-five cents for each piece he brought. So I stopped gazing through the glass bottom and went to the side of the boat where I could watch the antics of a mother seal and two or three others. The boat seemed to make them very angry, and the mother seal appeared to be trying to stop it or frighten it away, for she kept up a constant crying and approached nearer and nearer the boat as if she wished to bite it.

“I heard the captain tell a lady the seal made such a fuss because she was trying to frighten the boat so it would not go to her home on Seal Rock; that possibly she had a baby there that she had left behind while she went out to look for food.

“When we round that point you see ahead, you will hear the most awful racket set up for all the seals will begin to bark. The males will dive and leap out of the water and come toward us, swimming round and round the ship and under us all the time we are at the Rocks, for this is where they live and breed. Do you see that big, dark object on the top of that large rock projecting out into the sea? Well, watch it closely and you will see it is a seal. He is their leader and he always stays out there where he can catch the first glimpse of any intruder and give the alarm. He is by far the oldest and largest seal in these waters. There are now many young seals on the island, which makes him more fierce than usual for the male seals look after their families well and try to protect them from all danger.

“‘There, he has spied us and given alarm! When we turn that point of land he is on we will be facing a curved rocky beach and on those rocks you will see hundreds and hundreds of seals of all ages and colors, for the baby seals are cream colored, while the older seals have dark brown coats.’

“True to all the captain said, the moment we rounded the point, one would have thought bedlam had been turned loose, for every seal was barking—the old seals loudly and fiercely, the baby seals with mere squeaks.

“I left the captain and went to the side of the ship to watch the seals slip off the high rocks into the water and come toward us with that peculiar gliding motion seals alone have. In a few minutes there were hundreds of them around our boat. I was standing by a little eight-year-old boy, my fore paws on the rail of the boat, when, horror of horrors! I felt him give me a push and into that seething mass of angry seals I went head first. I thought my time had come, and that I would be eaten alive, the seals looked so fierce. They swam under me, tossing me three or four feet up in the air. They swam over me, sending me almost to the very bottom of the ocean. Then again they would swim around me, twirling me around so fast it made my head swim. Every minute I expected to have them bite me. When I came to the surface after one of those times when they had pushed me down to the bottom, I heard the boat’s whistle tooting like mad and I realized that the captain was doing it to frighten the seals away. It served the purpose, too, for it did that very thing, every one of the seals quickly making for the shore. As soon as they had left me, I swam toward the boat and the captain lowered a bushel basket tied to a rope for me to crawl in, which I did and then a sailor pulled me quickly to the deck. Since that day I have never wanted to see a seal and when I chance to walk through a park and hear them barking, it makes the cold shivers run up and down my spine to think what I endured while those seals were surrounding me.”