“Good, my boy, but you must learn the use of them; and you cannot go to work to-day as I intend you to, but to-morrow you will have a canvas suit, and then you will begin to really learn to be a sailor.”
Grace being said, I flew downstairs and across to the Petrel, Willie following me in a more leisurely manner suited to his dignity as second mate; and Mr. Hammond gave over to him the work of superintending the discharging cargo; while Jack Adams, who was employed in serving a new set of tacks and sheets, was called from his work to give me my first lesson in practical seamanship.
“You see,” said Jack, “as how in all seamanship and rigging there is a reason; and though many a man is rated A.B. ’cause he can hand, reef, and steer, heave the lead, and sew a seam, he can get no further, ’cause why he don’t know the reason why the helm is put up or down, and only knows his work as Black Bill’s parrot knows how to talk without knowing the meanin’ o’ what he says,—though, maybe, I wrongs old Poll, for as soon as he sees the coppers a-boiling for dinner he sings, ‘Hot potatoes,’ which he never does afore breakfast or tea. But now I wants you to learn why things is; and we will go forward in the ship, and take a look at the bowsprit, for that’s the principal spar in the ship, and on it others depend.”
I went along with Jack Adams, and was soon deep in the mystery of inner and outer gammonings, bob-stays, bowsprit shrouds, and forestay collars. I thought when I had been once through them that I should remember; but Jack was a thorough seaman, and he said as far as an old tarpaulin’s teaching should go I should be one too.
After a time he was satisfied that I understood the names, uses, and places of the various fittings of the bowsprit, and said, “Now, you must larn how they are put in their place and secured. Our gammoning, you see, is covered over with lead, for to presarve it from damage; and you can’t see how it is passed, nor perceive the merits of a thorough-put turn. But there’s the Mohican, belonging to Mr. King, got her bows into the quay, and they are gammoning her bowsprit. Now you can come and see with me the most important piece of work in fitting out a ship, and which must be done judgematically by a good seaman. Bobstays, fore-stays—all your rigging may be well fitted, but if the gammoning is wrong you’ll spring your bowsprit to a sartainty; and why then, you sees, your foremast must follow, and your main-topmast follows that. Gammoning, to my mind, is a sort of thing like the heart of the rigging: when it’s finished, it’s hidden from you; but if it goes, all goes. So your heart you can’t see; but if your heart’s wounded, the man dies. I’m not larned, but you understand what I means.”
“Certainly, Jack. Where is the Mohican? Oh, there—is that she—that ship with a great cask hanging from her bowsprit, and some men heaving at a capstan under her bows?”
“Right. Now we’ll go and have a squint at them, and then you will see how the gammoning’s passed and secured; and if you remembers that, why you’ll have made a good bit of headway.”
We were soon under the bows of the Mohican; and when her mate, who was superintending the work, heard from Jack Adams that I was a son of Captain Baldwin, he told me to come up on the knight-heads, and explained everything to me; and when the men knocked off work, I considered that I thoroughly understood the mystery of gammoning a bowsprit.
My father seemed well pleased when I told him how my afternoon had been passed; and next day, in a canvas suit, I was again put under the charge of Jack, and passed the ball for him while he served the tacks and sheets. Afterwards for several days I worked with him in fitting different parts of the rigging; for my father said the only way to become a sailor was to begin at the beginning, and though I was a skipper’s son, I should put my arm in the tar-pot and slush-bucket as well as the other boys belonging to the Petrel.
At last the cargo which the Petrel had brought home was all discharged, and her hold clean swept; and I was put under the charge of Mr. Hammond, to learn how a hold should be stowed. In the evenings my father showed specimens of the various articles used in the African trade, and told me where each sort of cloth, bead, wire, or what not, was of value, and for what it should be exchanged.