My watch came on deck at 8 A.M., and the captain told me to take a pull of the main tack. He stood superintending the work as usual, and as we hauled on the rope he shouted out what were supposed to be encouraging orders: "Haul, you wicked rascals." "Lay out your beef on it;—bend your backs to it; you wouldn't haul a mackerel off a gridiron!" Finally, upon his calling out: "Haul away!" I understood him to say "belay," and giving that order to the men the rope was made fast.
"How dare you belay a rope when I'm looking out for it?" shouted the captain in a rage.
"I thought you ordered me to," said I.
This was an unfortunate speech, as Capt. Streeter had a decided animosity to anyone's using the word thought.
"What business have you got to think, I'd like to know," he replied. "You didn't ship for that. I'll make you know your place. I'm the only man that's allowed to think aboard of this ship. You'll try to take charge, if I let you keep on with your airs a little longer. You swing about the decks now as though the ship belonged to you."
These phrases and several others were rattled off, one after the other, and interlarded plentifully with oaths. Meanwhile I and the whole watch stood gazing in wonder at the captain, scarcely knowing what to make of this great ado about nothing. He walked aft a few steps and turned to watch my movements as I set the men at work. The mate was standing by the main hatch, and he told me to let one of my watch sew some canvas on the foot of the mainsail, and directed me to let him sit in the bight of a main buntline while he worked at it. I started the man at his job exactly as the mate wished, but as the man caught hold of the buntline to swing himself up to the desired position, the captain burst out upon me again:
"What kind of back-handed work is that? Why don't you lower the man down in a bo's'n's chair? I believe if you got two ideas in your head it would bu'st. I'd like to know what is the matter with you?"
"The matter is," said I, "that I've always been treated decently till I came here, and I'm not used to be cursed about and snarled at as if I was a loblolly boy. Because I'm good natured you're trying to impose on me, but I can't stand everything."
"If you say another word I'll knock your head off," said Capt. Streeter, shaking his huge fist in my face. "Don't undertake to dictate to me what kind of talk I use. I'd swear if the owner and God Almighty were here." Then he said: "No! I won't fight you, if you were a man of my size I would, but I'll treat you like a boy that's beneath my notice that way. But after this I'll keep you in your place. Go set your men to work, and mind you behave yourself."