"Old Hosea Coffin had her; that's when she was new, and was called a dandy ship at that time. Then I steered a boat in her next v'y'ge with 'Bimelech Swain—you knew him?"
"Yes, I remember; that's when I was in the 'Viper' on the Brazeel Banks."
I could not but look with admiration upon these old veterans, who talked about long voyages round Cape Horn and on the "Banks" as though they had been mere pleasure trips across a harbor and back, or any such trifling matter. Two or three years in these old fellows' lives seemed like the same period in the history of nations, occupying but a line or two of the chronicler. But the vessel was rapidly drawing in round "Brant Point," and all my comrades, many of whom had not yet fully recovered from sea-sickness, had mustered on deck to see the low, sandy island and busy little town of Nantucket, which now lay fairly before us. Several more whaleships were lying at the wharves, some of them dismantled, and stripped to a girtline, others partly rigged for sea, and two or three hove down for coppering. This was in the summer of 1841, when Nantucket may be said to have been in the zenith of its prosperity. More new ships were built than in any previous season, and the general impression appeared to be that the partisan cries of "two dollars a day and roast beef to the laboring man" were to be literally fulfilled, and that the price of oil was to reach a standard positively fabulous. And so it did—fabulously low, as every poor whaleman can testify, who arrived in 1842-3, and sold his sperm oil for fifty or sixty cents a gallon.
As the sloop warped in alongside the wharf, a spruce young man jumped on deck, and, saluting the skipper, asked him when he left New York, and, in the same breath, how many men he had brought. "Twenty-five," said the old man. And, having thus satisfied himself that the cargo delivered corresponded with the invoice, he invited us all to come up to "the store." Then, mounting into a one-horse cart—a sort of green box on two wheels—which stood in waiting, he called upon us to "jump up." We jumped up till the box was full of us, standing in solid phalanx, and the rest followed, as infantry of the rear guard; and thus, the admired of all beholders, we proceeded up the central or "Straight Wharf," and up Main Street to the store. The spruce young man informed us that his name was Richards, and that he was connected with the establishment as a sort of out-door clerk.
The store of Messrs. Brooks & Co. fronted directly on the square or grand plaza of Nantucket. They dealt in all kinds of ready-made clothing and dry goods, infitting as well as outfitting goods; and the store was a grand resort and rendezvous of seafaring men. At the time of our arrival, it was enlivened by the presence of numerous whalemen, of various grades in rank, from chief mates of ships, sedate, dignified-looking men, dressed in long togs in neat style, who sat smoking, comparing notes about matters and things, "round the other side of land," and re-killing, at a safe distance, many "forty barrel bulls," which they had years ago slaughtered, at imminent peril of life and limb, down to overgrown boys, who had made one voyage, aspirants for boatsteerers' berths, who wore fine blue round jackets and low-quartered morocco pumps, with a great superabundance of ribbon, as was the fashion at that period, carried flaming red handkerchiefs either awkwardly in their hands or hanging half out at their jacket pockets, masticated tobacco in prodigious quantities, and in various ways aped the tar, to the great amusement of their elders, who passed remarks to each other in confidential tones.
"Here comes young Folger, rolling down to St. Helena, eighteen cloths in the lower studdingsail, and no change out of a dollar."
"What ship was he in?" asked another.
"In that plum pudd'ner that got in last week—what's her name?"
"O, that old brig over at the New North Wharf? The 'Sphynx.'"
"He wants a bilge pump in each pocket to pump the salt out."