Shortly after Jerry had completed this useful but most unromantic task, he began to grow ill. His stomach rolled and pitched with the brig, and his head was light and dizzy. When he walked he reeled like a drunken man, and the deck seemed about to fly up into his face. Every moment, his sensations became more distressing. He laid himself down in a sheltered part of the deck, but found no relief. His pale, wo-be-gone countenance bore the impress of his misery. O, how he wished he was once more on shore! How he cursed in his heart the hour that he turned his wayward steps from Brookdale! As the motion of the vessel rolled him about like a log, he almost wished that it might pitch him overboard, and thus put an end to his misery. Should such an accident happen, it seemed to him he would not lift a finger to escape a watery grave. Such thoughts as these were passing through the brain of the sea-sick boy, when some one stole slyly up behind him, and dropped a large piece of greasy salt pork almost directly into his mouth. Any fatty substance is very disagreeable to a sea-sick person; and this mischievous prank, with the laughter and jibes of the sailors which followed it, put the climax upon the misery of Jerry. He got upon his feet, and, clinging to the rail, began to vomit, or “throw up Jonah,” as the sailors term it. The more he retched, and gagged, and groaned, the more his tormentors ridiculed him. The most conspicuous among them was a raw, freckle-faced lad, apparently a little older than himself, who was now on his second voyage, and was retaliating upon Jerry the treatment he had himself suffered but six or eight months before. He it was that dropped the pork into Jerry’s face. The sailors called him Bob, for they seldom use any but nick-names, and those of the shortest kind.
Jerry remained upon the deck nearly all the afternoon; and no one, from Bob to the Captain, took any notice of him, except to laugh at his condition. Sea-sick people generally get but little sympathy from old salts. Towards sunset, feeling no better, Jerry asked one of the sailors if he would please to show him to his bed-room,—for, in his simplicity, it had never occurred to him that a bed-room, and even a bed, were luxuries that did not belong to the sea. The old tar, with the utmost gravity, called out:—
“Come here, Bob,—this ’ere young gentleman wants you to show him the way up to his bed-room.”
Bob came, and conducted Jerry to the ratlin, or ladder, leading up the mast,—and told him to “go up two pair of stairs, and knock at the left-hand door.” If there was anything funny in this, Jerry was too sick to apprehend it. His good-nature had long since given out; but now he was getting positively angry, and retorted upon his tormentors with some spirit. But this only increased their sport and aggravated his misery. At length, however, they became weary of their bantering, and one of the sailors, whom they called Tom, led Jerry down into the forecastle, as that part of the vessel, where the sailors sleep, is called. This apartment was in the forward part of the brig, immediately under the deck. It was a small place, barely high enough to stand erect in, and with no light except what entered at the door-way. Great chests were strewed around the floor, so that it was difficult to walk without running into them. The sides of the forecastle were fitted up with three tiers of what looked like large shelves, with raised edges. These were the bunks in which the sailors slept. Each man had his own bunk, which was just large enough to lie down in. Two or three of these bunks were unclaimed, and Tom told Jerry he could take his choice of them. But Jerry had come on board without the slightest preparation for sea, and of course had neither mattress nor blankets, which each sailor is expected to provide for himself. What was he to do in this emergency? Luckily for him, Tom happened to have some spare bed-clothing in his chest; and as he rather pitied Jerry, he offered to let him use it until he should have an opportunity to furnish himself with an outfit. Jerry gladly accepted the offer, and taking off a portion of his clothing, crawled into this narrow, box-like resting-place.
Our young sailor did not enjoy a very sound sleep, on his first night at sea. The motion of the vessel, the creaking and straining of the rigging, the noise of the water dashing against the bows, the dolorous sighing of the wind through the blocks and ropes, the loud, sharp-spoken orders on deck, and the frequent passing of the seamen to and from the forecastle, together with his sea-sickness, allowed him but little repose. Nor did he quite fancy the atmosphere of the forecastle, which became close and stifled before morning, and was flavored with various odors, the most prominent of which seemed to be tar, bilge-water, and tobacco. However, he made out to catch a few short naps, from one of which, about daylight, he was aroused by a hearty shake, and ordered on deck. It at first seemed to him that he had not strength sufficient to arise, but he managed to get upon his feet, and staggered up on deck, where the mate at once set him to work, washing down the decks. Weak and sick as he was, he worked at the pump awhile, the cold water in the meantime running in streams about his feet, his shoes offering but little resistance to the flood. Then he was obliged to kneel down and scrub the deck with small stones, called by the sailors, “holy-stones,” and used at sea for cleaning the decks of vessels. This laborious employment continued for more than an hour, and whenever Jerry attempted to relax his efforts in the slightest degree, he would hear the stern voice of the mate:—
“Bear a hand there, sir,—no skulking here!”
On one occasion, this admonition was enforced by a smart stroke of a rope’s-end laid over his shoulders. Jerry began to regard the mate as a monster; and, indeed, he looked upon the officers and men, generally, as little better than the pirates of whom he had read in some of his juvenile books. But these men were not so bad as he imagined. It is stern, rough discipline that makes the hardy sailor; and Jerry’s initiation was no more severe than that of most boys who go to sea “before the mast.”
After the deck had been holy-stoned, Jerry made his first meal at sea,—he having been too sick hitherto to eat anything. His breakfast consisted of hard ship-bread, cold salt junk, or beef, and rye coffee, without milk. He ate but little, for the fare was not very tempting, and his stomach had not yet got accustomed to the ups and downs, the pitchings, and tossings, and reelings, of a life at sea. He was kept busily employed, most of the day, in doing various little chores about the vessel; for being the youngest, he was obliged to run at everybody’s call. He learned from one of the sailors, during the day, that the brig was bound for Valparaiso; but this did not give him a very definite idea of his destination,—for so sadly had he neglected his geography at school, that he could not tell in what quarter of the globe Valparaiso was situated, or whether it was a week’s, or month’s, or six months’ sail from Boston. He also discovered that the name of the brig was “The Susan.”
Towards the evening of the second day out, the weather grew milder and the sea more calm. The brig, which had dashed through the water as if on a race, from the moment they got under headway, now began to slacken her speed,—and one of the old sailors predicted an “Irishman’s hurricane,” as a calm is sometimes humorously called. The motion of the vessel was much less perceptible, and Jerry began to get over his sea-sickness. He now took some interest in the strange scenes spread out before him: the level ocean stretching away in every direction, until it apparently touched the sky; no hill bounding the horizon, and not a speck of land to be seen. But one other vessel was in sight, and that was so far off that only the white sails could be discerned, the hull being hidden from sight by the roundness of the earth. Dolphins and porpoises were sporting round the brig in a very amusing manner,—now darting entirely out of water, and now plunging to the bottom, or scudding along very swiftly near the surface. Occasionally, a small bird was seen flitting past the vessel, or skimming along upon the water, in its wake. At first, Jerry took them to be swallows, but he soon learned from Tom, that they were stormy petrels, or, as the sailors call them, Mother Carey’s Chickens. The sailors regard these birds with much superstitious fear, because they appear in greatest numbers just before a storm, and are besides very singular in their habits; but the petrels are really very inoffensive birds, and have no more to do with getting up a tempest than our ducks, geese, swallows, snow-birds, and other land birds, which are uncommonly noisy and busy just before a storm. Tom, however, like most sailors, believed the traditions concerning the petrel, and when he told Jerry they were messengers of the evil one, they lost none of their interest in the eyes of the young sailor. At night, while stowed away in his little bunk, sound asleep, they appeared to him in countless flocks, and he dreamed that they settled around him in such vast numbers, that he had to struggle desperately to avoid being suffocated by them.
Thus passed Jerry’s first two days at sea. You would hardly have patience to follow him through all the long voyage; nor is it necessary that you should, for the experience of one day was much like that of another. He found going to sea a very different thing from what he expected. To be sure, there were at first some pleasant novelties about it, but these wore away after a while. This was not the case, however, with the toils and hardships,—which only grew more distasteful the longer they were continued. The romantic, free-and-easy life of the sailor, which he had pictured in imagination, he found to be in reality a life of severe labor, drudgery, exposure, and deprivation. There were few idle moments for him, even in the most delightful weather. At daylight, each morning, rain or shine, he must scrub the decks; and clean out the pig-pen. Next, perhaps, he would be ordered to assist in shifting sails, and would be obliged to haul rough ropes until his hands were sore, and his back felt ready to break; then, for an hour or two, he would be kept hard at work scraping and oiling the masts and yards,—or be sent aloft with a bucket of tar and grease, called slush, and, hanging in mid-air, be compelled to dip his hand into the nasty mixture, and rub down some portion of the rigging or mast. He also had his own washing and mending to do; and when there was nothing else to employ his time, he must pick oakum, or make spun-yarn and sennit. Even at night, he could not claim exemption from toil,—but was liable at any hour to be turned out by the shrill cry of “All hands, ahoy!” to face rain or snow, or to feel his way aloft in a gale of wind, and in pitch-darkness!