Tales out of school

by Frank R. Stockton

This was Polargno’s adventure with the fox.

The next summer, Polargno had a very surprising adventure with a seal. He was in a cave alone on the bay. He had paddled out a short distance from the shore because he had nothing else to do just then. He paddled up and down until he got tired, and then he rested on his oars, and looked about him. The scene was very different from what it had been when he and the fox had caught each other. Now the bay was entirely free from ice, and the waves leaped and danced as if rejoicing to be free once more. There was not a cloud in the sky, where the sun shone brightly far above the horizon in the same place, apparently, that it had been for several days and nights. Flowers bloomed in the grassy fields, birds perched upon the rocks, and the noise of insects could be faintly heard.

SUMMER-TIME.

But a Greenlander is never free from the sight of snow; and, even now, in mid-summer, every high mountain peak had its white cap; and on the tallest mountains the snow extended far down the sides.

Polargno took pleasure in the summer warmth and life, but I do not suppose he thought much about the objects he saw around him. His mind was busy with the prospect of the good time he would have when two whaling ships that were cruising some miles below in the bay, should come up as high as their settlement. There was a report, too, that a large school of whales was making its way northward.

Thinking of these things while he idly looked about him, he suddenly felt that he was being lifted into the air. Before he could recover from his surprise at this rapid elevation he found that his canoe was being borne swiftly over the surface of the water. Instinctively he tightened his hold upon the paddle that he might not lose it, and this action caused one end of it to strike an animal under the boat, which immediately flapped itself free, and rolled off to a little distance, where it remained, as motionless as a log, evidently waiting to see what would happen next.

The thing that came near happening was the upsetting of Polargno’s canoe, for the blow it received from the flap of the creature’s tail sent it spinning around like a top. Polargno would not have been much alarmed if it had upset, for he could swim like a fish; but still he was very glad it remained right side up.

As soon as he could gather together his scattered wits he found that the animal which had given him this unceremonious ride was not a sea-lion, as he had at first supposed, but a large specimen of the common seal. Its bouncing up under his boat was an unpremeditated act on the part of the seal, who was quite as much alarmed as the boy, and quite as glad to get away.

But should he get away? This question came into Polargno’s mind. The Esquimaux boats at this season were kept prepared for whaling expeditions, and in the bow of this one there laid a harpoon with a nice long coil of rope. The boy glanced from this to the shining back of the seal that lay so temptingly just above the surface of the water. He knew all about seals. He had helped kill many a one. That was very different from fighting one entirely alone, but then the glory would be so much greater if he conquered.