Nevertheless, even yet there were ways and ways of keeping her afloat and punishing an insubordinate even when no official authority existed. Ike had loved the engine-room, or rather, the captain’s office, above all other parts of the vessel because it was so comfortable. Here between tedious moments of pounding iron for the smith or blowing the bellows or polishing various tools that had been sharpened, he could retire on occasion, when the boss was not about and the work not pressing (it was the very next room to his) and gaze from the captain’s door or window out on the blue waters of the Hudson where lay the yachts, and up the same stream where stood the majestic palisades. At noon or a little before he could bring his cold coffee, sealed in a tin can, to the captain’s engine and warm it. Again, the captain’s comfortable locker held his coat and hat, the captain’s wash bowl—a large wooden tub to one side of the engine into which comforting warm water could be drawn—served as an ideal means of washing up. Since the bos’n’s mate had become friendly with the captain, he too had all these privileges. But now, in view of his insubordination, all this was changed. Why should a rebellious bos’n’s mate be allowed to obtain favors of the captain? More in jest than in earnest one day it was announced that unless the bos’n’s mate would forego his angry opposition to a less early scrubbed deck——
“Well, mate,” the captain observed to the latter in the presence of the bos’n’s mate, with a lusty wink and a leer, “you know how it goes with these here insubordinates, don’t you? No more hot coffee at noon time, unless there’s more order here. No more cleanin’ up in the captain’s tub. No more settin’ in the captain’s window takin’ in the cool mornin’ breeze, as well as them yachts. What say? Eh? We know what to do with these here now insubordinates, don’t we, mate, eh?” This last with a very huge wink.
“You’re right, Captain. Very right,” the mate replied. “You’re on the right track now. No more favors—unless—— Order must be maintained, you know.”
“Oh, all right,” replied little Ike now, fully in earnest and thinking we were. “If I can’t, I can’t. Jist the same I don’t pick up no shavin’s after four,” and off he strolled.
Think of it, final and complete mutiny, and there was nothing more really to be done.
All we could do now was to watch him as he idled by himself at odd free moments down by the waterside in an odd corner of the point, a lonely figure, his trousers and coat too large, his hands and feet too big, his yellow teeth protruding. No one of the other workingmen ever seemed to be very enthusiastic over Ike, he was so small, so queer; no one, really, but the captain and the mate, and now they had deserted him.
It was tough.
Yet still another ill descended on us before we came to the final loss, let us say, of the good craft Idlewild. In another evil hour the captain and the mate themselves fell upon the question of priority, a matter which, so long as they had had Ike to trifle with, had never troubled them. Now as mate and the originator of this sea-going enterprise, I began to question the authority of the captain himself occasionally, and to insist on sharing as my undeniable privilege all the dignities and emoluments of the office—to wit: the best seat in the window where the wind blew, the morning paper when the boss was not about, the right to stand in the doorway, use the locker, etc. The captain objected, solely on the ground of priority, mind you, and still we fell a-quarreling. The mate in a stormy, unhappy hour was reduced by the captain to the position of mere scullion, and ordered, upon pain of personal assault, to vacate the captain’s cabin. The mate reduced the captain to the position of stoker and stood in the doorway in great glee while the latter, perforce, owing to the exigencies of his position, was compelled to stoke whether he wanted to or no. It could not be avoided. The engine had to be kept going. In addition, the mate had brought many morning papers, an occasional cigar for the captain, etc. There was much rancor and discord and finally the whole affair, ship, captain, mate and all, was declared by the mate to be a creation of his brain, a phantom, no less, and that by his mere act of ignoring it the whole ship—officers, men, masts, boats, sails—could be extinguished, scuttled, sent down without a ripple to that limbo of seafaring men, the redoubtable Davy Jones’s locker.
The captain was not inclined to believe this at first. On the contrary, like a good skipper, he attempted to sail the craft alone. Only, unlike the mate, he lacked the curious faculty of turning jest and fancy into seeming fact. There was a something missing which made the whole thing seem unreal. Like two rival generals, we now called upon a single army to follow us individually, but the crew, seeing that there was war in the cabin, stood off in doubt and, I fancy, indifference. It was not important enough in their hardworking lives to go to the length of risking the personal ill-will of either of us, and so for want of agreement, the ship finally disappeared.
Yes, she went down. The Idlewild was gone, and with her, all her fine seas, winds, distant cities, fogs, storms.