Conversation in Nantucket is apt to possess a nautical and, so to speak, salty flavor. Davy, since his arrival, had heard so much about ships which had foundered, or gone to pieces on rocks, or burned up, or sprung leaks and had to be pumped out, that his mind was full of images of disaster, and he quite longed to realize some of them. To see a shipwreck had become his great ambition. He was not particular as to whether the ship should burn or founder or go ashore, any of these would do, only he wanted all the sailors to be saved.
Once he had gone with his cousins to the South Shore on the little puffing railroad which connects Nantucket town with Siasconsett, and of which all the people of the island are so justly proud; and there on the beach, amid the surf-rollers which look so soft and white and are so cruelly strong, he had seen a great piece of a ship. Nearly the whole of the bow end it appeared to be. It was much higher than Davy's head, and seemed to him immense and formidable; yet this enormous thing the sea had taken into its grasp and tossed to and fro like a plaything and at last flung upon the sand as if it were a toy of which it had grown weary. It gave Davy an idea of the great power of the water, and it was after seeing this that he began to long to witness a shipwreck. And now there was one, and the very sound of the word was enough to make him rub open his sleepy eyes and jump out of bed in a hurry!
But when he had groped his way to the window and pulled up the rattling paper shade, behold! there was nothing to be seen! The morning was intensely dark. A wild wind was blowing great dashes of rain on the glass, and the house shook and trembled as the blasts struck it.
Davy heard his uncle on the stairs, and hurried to the door. "Mayn't I go to the shipwreck with you, Uncle Si?" he called out.
"Go to what? Go back to bed, my boy, that's the place for you. There'll be shipwreck enough in the morning to satisfy all of us, I reckon."
Davy dared not disobey. He stumbled back to bed, making up his mind to lie awake and listen to the wind till it was light, and then go to see the shipwreck "anyhow." But it is hard to keep such resolutions when you are only ten years old. The next thing he knew he was rousing in amazement to find the room full of brilliant sunlight. The rain was over, though the wind still thundered furiously, and through the noise it made, the sea could be heard thundering louder still.
Davy jumped out of bed, dressed as fast as he could, and hurried downstairs. The house seemed strangely empty; Aunt Patty was not in the kitchen, nor was cousin Myra in the pantry skimming milk, as was usual at this hour of the day. Davy searched for them in woodshed, garden, and barn. At last he spied them on the "walk" at the top of the house, and ran upstairs to join them.
Do any of you know what a "walk" is? I suppose not, unless you have happened to live in a whaling-town. Many houses in Nantucket have them. They are railed platforms, built on the peak of the roof between the chimneys, and are used as observatories from which to watch what is going on at sea. There the wives and sweethearts of the whalers used to go in the old days, and stand and sweep the ocean with spy-glasses, in hopes of seeing the ships coming in from their long cruises each with the signals set which told if the voyage had been lucky or no, and how many barrels of oil and blubber she was bringing home. Then they used to watch the "camels," great hulls used as floats to lighten the vessels, go out and help the heavy-laden ship over the bar. And when that was done and every rope and spar conned and studied by the experienced eyes on the roofs, it was time to hurry down, hang on the welcoming pot, trim the fire and don the best gown, so as to make a bright home-coming for the long-absent husband or son.
Aunt Patty had a spy-glass at her eyes when Davy gained the roof. She was looking at the wrecked ship, which was plainly in view, beyond the little sandy down which separated the house from the sea. There she lay, a poor broken thing, stuck fast on one of the long reaches of sandy shoal which stretch about the island and make the navigation of its narrow and uncertain channels so difficult and sometimes so dangerous. The heavy seas dashed over the half-sunken vessel every minute; between her and the shore two lifeboats were coming in under closely-reefed sails.
"Oh, do let me look through the glass!" urged Davy. When he was permitted to do so he uttered an exclamation of surprise, so wonderfully near did it make everything seem to be.