On Board the "Rocket"

by Robert C. Adams

It was blowing a pleasant westerly breeze this day; but at noon a school of porpoises came dashing along, passed the ship's bow without stopping to play around it, as they are so fond of doing, and made away towards the north-east. The captain said it was a sure sign that the wind was coming from that quarter; for sailors regard it as an established fact that porpoises either go "head to the wind," or else towards the quarter of a coming breeze.

The porpoises and the captain were right this time. The wind gradually hauled around by the N. to N.E., and by night the ship was braced sharp up on the port tack. The Mother Carey's chickens were flitting about in the ship's wake very actively, uttering their feeble chirps with more animation than usual. The captain, noticing them, and at the same time perceiving a low bank of clouds to windward, predicted a speedy advent of the gale. He proved a correct interpreter of the signs. We were called out in the night to shorten sail, and for twenty-four hours were hove to under the close-reefed main-topsail. Speaking of the Mother Carey's chickens, the captain asked me if I ever had smelt one, and said:

"I once caught one with a hook and line, and killed it, thinking I would stuff it; but I had not got far along with the work before the odor made me sick, and I hove it overboard. Though it was eight years ago, the smell is on my hands still. You know they say, that all the sailors that die at sea turn into Mother Carey's chickens, and the captains into albatrosses; and I expect this odor hangs on to me because I love sailors so well. But I must give you a chance to judge for yourself."

A day or two after, in a calm, he shot one at a little distance from the ship, and made one of the boys jump overboard and swim for it, in spite of his dread of sharks. When he had obtained it he roused me out of a sound nap to come out and smell of it, very much to my disgust. I found its odor was, to say the least, rather disagreeable.

The afternoon before making the land, the captain ordered the mate to get the anchors on to the rail and bend the chains. Mr. Morrison proceeded to carry out the order, but to his great annoyance Capt. Streeter came forward and kept putting in his oar, giving suggestions and directions. This was a thing so peculiarly in the mate's province, which, if one did not understand it, would prove him lacking in the lowest qualifications for a mate's situation, that the worthy official's temper was greatly aroused. He suppressed it for a time; but at each interference his face grew redder and redder, and when at last the captain told him that the ring of the anchor ought to be brought closer up to the cat-head, the storm burst forth, and turning around with a fiery face and defiant eye, he said, "Capt. Streeter, just go aft and mind your own business; I can take care of the anchors."

"I want you to know that I am captain of this ship, and I'll do what I please," answered the captain, pale with rage.

"I know you're cap'n; but I want you to know the owners put me aboard to be mate, and I've let you do my work long enough."

All the men stood amazed at the mate's daring in thus confronting our ferocious captain, and looked for nothing short of his being murdered; but to our great surprise the captain cooled down, and in a mild, persuasive way said: "But, Mr. Morrison, just look at the philosophy of the thing," (a favorite phrase with him), "you see if that anchor—"

"There's no philosophy about it," burst out the mate's sharp voice. "I don't want to have any talk with you. I'll only treat you with the contempt you deserve," and turning his back towards him, he drowned another mild reply by shouting: "Lower away the fish-tackle!" and giving continuous orders to the men. The captain, finding himself literally checkmated, walked aft, apparently calm, but with a tempest raging within. He sat down on the booby-hatch, and tried to devise some means of humiliating the mate. His schemes always reached their culminating point in his brick-wall theory, but when he thought of the expediency of applying it in this case, and letting the brick-wall come down on Mr. Morrison's head, he muttered: "He's such a fiery tempered man, I guess it won't do."

As soon as the mate had got the anchors placed, he told me to secure them and to clear up, and then went aft, thinking he might as well settle matters now, if they needed any more settlement.