"Well, tell us about it, anyhow," said Farmer Joe.
"It ain't any use to make a long yarn of that," continued Handsome. "The try-works, as they call them, are a sort of Dutch oven, built of bricks, and situated amidships. A couple of big iron pots stand on top of the oven, and the blubber, minced up, is put into them. You start a fire in the oven, and that boils out the oil, which is ladled out into casks, and then all hands turn to and pick out the pieces of fat and scraps so as to have nothing put pure oil. Well, to heave ahead with the yarn, we had our whale alongside overnight, and the next morning we started at cutting-in. About the time we'd got ready for trying-out, and started the fires, the breeze began to freshen up, and it looked rather dirty up to windward. The Captain said we must shake a leg with the trying-out.
"'Boys,' says he, 'we got to boil this oil with stu'ns'ls set, because before we get it done we'll be under a close-reefed maintops'l.'
"Well, bless you, he hadn't much more than got the words out of his mouth than the mast-head fellow lets out a yell:
"'There she blows! And there she breaches!'
"Now it wouldn't make any difference to a whaler if he thought the world was a-going to come to an end in ten minutes, he'd lower away if he saw a spout. So the Captain gave orders for two boats to get under way in chase of the new whales. One of the boats was the one I belonged to, and the next thing I knew I was sitting on my thwart. The sail was hoisted, and we went scudding down to leeward at a rattling gait. Say, it wasn't altogether agreeable to sit in that boat and notice the width and height of the sea that was getting up. But we soon forgot all about it in the excitement of going on.
"'It's a-going to be a tough job getting this whale alongside,' says one of the crew.
"'Wait till we get him first,' says Bacon.
"Well, it was our chance, and Bacon slung the iron into him with a vim. Up went flukes and down went whale. He soon came up and began to swim to windward at a fearful speed. The seas thundered against the bow of our boat, and great sheets of water came tumbling inboard.
"'Bale there, bale!' yelled Bacon, 'or the boat'll fill and sink!'