A Year with a Whaler

by Walter Noble Burns

Big Foot Louis danced up and down in the bow, raising his knees high in a sort of joyful cake-walk. Gabriel, equally excited, waved his hat.

"By golly," he shouted, "dat mate don't strike him. Dat feesh is all ours. It takes old Gabriel fer kill de whale, by golly."

When we got back to the brig we looked like snow-powdered Santa Clauses. The spray kicked up in our wild ride behind the Arctic Ocean race horse had wet us from head to foot and, freezing on our fur clothes, had frosted us all over with fine white ice. Mr. Winchester was a good sportsman and paid his bet promptly. Out of his winnings Gabriel gave each man of his boat's crew a plug of tobacco.

After the whale had been brought alongside the ship and the blubber had been peeled off its body, it fell to the lot of Big Foot Louis to cut in the "old head." It was his first opportunity to show his experience in such work and he was as elated as a boy. He threw off his coat with a theatrical flourish, hitched up his trousers, seized an axe, and with an air of bravado climbed down on the stripped carcass. A little sea had begun to run and the whale was bending sinuously throughout its length and rolling slightly from side to side.

Louis chopped two little ledges in the whale's flesh with the deftness of an old hand, and planting his feet in these, began raining blows with his axe on the neck. He was getting on famously, and the crew, hanging over the bulwarks, was watching with admiring eyes. Suddenly the whale gave an unexpectedly violent roll—our Arctic Ocean race horse was proving a bronco even in death—and Louis's big foot slipped off into the water. He lost his balance, pitched forward, and sprawled face downward on the whale, his axe sailing away and plunking into the sea. He clutched frantically at the whale, but every grip slipped loose and, inch by inch, with eyeballs popping out of his head, he slid off into the sea and with a yell went under.

Everybody laughed. The captain held his sides and the officers on the cutting stage almost fell off in the violence of their mirth. Louis came up spluttering and splashing. He was an expert swimmer, as expert as the Kanakas among whom he had lived for years, and he needed all his skill to keep afloat in his heavy boots and skin clothes. As soon as the mate could control his merriment, he stuck the long handle of his spade down and Louis grasped it and was pulled back on the whale's body. He sat there, dripping and shivering and with chattering teeth, rolling his white eyes up at the laughing crew along the rail with a tragic "Et tu, Brute" expression. He couldn't see the joke.

"Lemme aboard," he whimpered.

"Stay where you are," roared the captain, "and cut in that head."

Louis lived in mortal fear of the skipper, and the way he straightened up in his slippery seat and said "Aye, aye, sir!" made the crew burst out laughing again. Another axe was passed down to him. He floundered to his feet, and though he found it harder than ever in his wet boots to keep his footing, and slipped more than once and almost fell off again, he finally succeeded in cutting off the head. He had regained his air of bravado by the time he had scrambled back on deck.