Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (e manga reader .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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âWhen Dad kerfiummoxes that way,â said Dan in a whisper, âheâs doinâ some high-line thinkinâ fer all hands. Iâll lay my wage anâ share weâll make berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, anâ the Fleet they know Dad knows. âSee âem commâ up one by one, lookinâ fer nothinâ in particular, oâ course, but scrowginâ on us all the time? Thereâs the Prince Leboo; sheâs a Chatham boat. Sheâs crepâ up sence last night. Anâ see that big one with a patch in her foresail anâ a new jib? Sheâs the Carrie Pitman from West Chatham. She wonât keep her canvas long onless her luckâs changed since last season. She donât do much âcepâ drift. There ainât an anchor made âll hold her⊠. When the smoke puffs up in little rings like that, Dadâs studyinâ the fish. Ef we speak to him now, heâll git mad. Lasâ time I did, he jest took anâ hove a boot at me.â
Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes that saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fishâpitting his knowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod in his own sea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive schooners on the horizon as a compliment to his powers. But now that it was paid, he wished to draw away and make his berth alone, till it was time to go up to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that roaring town upon the waters. So Disko Troop thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, food-supplies, and other domestic arrangements, from the point of view of a twenty-pound cod; was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself, and looked remarkably like one. Then he removed the pipe from his teeth.
âDad,â said Dan, âweâve done our chores. Canât we go overside a piece? Itâs good catchinâ weather.â
âNot in that cherry-coloured rig ner them haâaf baked brown shoes. Give him suthinâ fit to wear.â
âDadâs pleasedâthat settles it,â said Dan, delightedly, dragging Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. âDad keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, âcause Ma sez Iâm keerless.â He rummaged through a locker, and in less than three minutes Harvey was adorned with fishermanâs rubber boots that came half up his thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the elbows, a pair of nippers, and a souâwester.
âNaow ye look somethinâ like,â said Dan. âHurry!â
âKeep nigh anâ handy,â said Troop âanâ donât go visitinâ racund the Fleet. If any one asks you what Iâm calâlatinâ to do, speak the truthâfer ye donât know.â
A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay astern of the schooner. Dan hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, while Harvey tumbled clumsily after.
âThatâs no way oâ gettinâ into a boat,â said Dan. âEf there was any sea youâd go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet her.â
Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart and watched Harveyâs work. The boy had rowed, in a ladylike fashion, on the Adirondack ponds; but there is a difference between squeaking pins and well-balanced ruflocksâlight sculls and stubby, eight-foot sea-oars. They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted.
âShort! Row short!â said Dan. âEf you cramp your oar in any kind oâ sea youâre liable to turn her over. Ainât she a daisy? Mine, too.â
The little dory was specklessly clean. In her bows lay a tiny anchor, two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, brown dory-roding. A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under Harveyâs right hand, beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and a shorter wooden stick. A couple of lines, with very heavy leads and double cod-hooks, all neatly coiled on square reels, were stuck in their place by the gunwale.
âWhereâs the sail and mast?â said Harvey, for his hands were beginning to blister.
Dan chuckled. âYe donât sail fishinâ-dories much. Ye pull; but ye neednât pull so hard. Donât you wish you owned her?â
âWell, I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked âem,â Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family till then.
âThatâs so. I forgot your dadâs a millionaire. You donât act millionary any, naow. But a dory anâ craft anâ gearââDan spoke as though she were a whaleboat ââcosts a heap. Think your dad âuâd give you one ferâfer a pet like?â
âShouldnât wonder. It would be âmost the ouly thing I havenât stuck him for yet.â
âMust be an expensive kinder kid to home. Donât slitheroo thet way, Harve. Shortâs the trick, because no seaâs ever dead still, anâ the swells âllââ
Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and knocked him backwards.
âThat was what I was goinâ to say. I hed to learn too, but I wasnât more than eight years old when I got my schoolinâ.â
Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown.
âNo good gettinâ mad at things, Dad says. Itâs our own fault ef we canât handle âem, he says. Leâs try here. Manuel âll give us the water.â
The âPortugeeâ was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan up-ended an oar he waved his left arm three times.
âThirty fathom,â said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. âOver with the doughboys. Bait sameâs I do, Harvey, anâ donât snarl your reel.â
Danâs line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of baiting and heaving out the leads. The dory drifted along easily. It was not worth while to anchor till they were sure of good ground.
âHere we come!â Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on Harveyâs shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. âMuckie, Harvey, muckle! Under your hand! Onick!â
Evidently âmuckleâ could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed over the maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled it inboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short wooden stick he called a âgob-stick.â Then Harvey felt a tug, and pulled up zealously.
âWhy, these are strawberries!â he shouted. âLook!â
The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one side and white on the otherâperfect reproductions of the land fruit, except that there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and slimy.
âDonât tech âem. Slat âem off. Donâtââ
The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the hook, and was admiring them.
âOuch!â he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had grasped many nettles.
âNow ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothinâ âcepâ fish should be teched with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat âem off agin the guunel, anâ bait up, Harve. Lookinâ wonât help any. Itâs all in the wages.â
Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, and wondered what his mother would say if she could see him hanging over the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered agonies whenever he went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way, Harvey remembered distinctly that he used to laugh at her anxieties. Suddenly the line flashed through his hand, stinging even through the ânippers,â the woolen circlets supposed to protect it.
âHeâs a logy. Give him room accordinâ to his strength,â cried Dan. âIâll help ye.â
âNo, you wonât,â Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. âItâs my first fish. Iâis it a whale?â
âHalibut, mebbe.â Dan peered down into the water alongside, and flourished the big âmuckle,â ready for all chances. Something white and oval flickered and fluttered through the green. âIâll lay my wage anâ share heâs over a hundred. Are you so everlastinâ anxious to land him alone?â
Harveyâs knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been hanged against the gunwale; his face was purple-blue between excitement and exertion; he dripped with sweat, and was half-blinded from staring at the circling sunlit ripples about the swiftly moving line. The boys were tired long ere the halibut, who took charge of them and the dory for the next twenty minutes. But the big flat fish was gaffed and hauled in at last.
âBeginnerâs luck,â said Dan, wiping his forehead. âHeâs all of a hundred.â
Harvey looked at the huge gray-and-mottled creature with unspeakable pride. He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs ashore, but it had never occurred to him to ask how they came inland. Now he knew; and every inch of his body ached with fatigue.
âEf Dad was along,â said Dan, hauling up, âheâd read the signs plainâs print. The fish are runninâ smaller anâ smaller, anâ youâve took âbaout as logy a halibutâs weâre apt to find this trip. Yesterdayâs catchâdid ye notice it?âwas all big fish anâ no halibut. Dad heâd read them signs right off. Dad says everythinâ on the Banks is signs, anâ can be read wrong er right. Dadâs deeperân the Whale-hole.â
Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the âWeâre Hereâ, and a potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging.
âWhat did I say, naow? Thatâs the call fer the whole crowd. Dadâs onter something, er heâd never break fishinâ this time oâ day. Reel up, Harve, anâ weâll pull back.â
They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the dory over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them to Penn, who was careering around a fixed point for all the world like a gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down again with enormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his dory swung round and snubbed herself on her rope.
âWeâll hev to help him, else heâll root anâ seed here,â said Dan.
âWhatâs the matter?â said Harvey. This was a new world, where he could not lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions humbly. And the sea was horribly big and unexcited.
âAnchorâs fouled. Pennâs always losing âem. Lost two this trip aâreadyâon sandy bottom tooâanâ Dad says next one he loses, sureâs fishinâ, heâll give him the kelleg. That âuâd break Pennâs heart.â
âWhatâs a âkellegâ?â said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be some kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the storybooks.
âBig stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridinâ in the bows furâs you can see a dory, anâ all the fleet knows what it means. Theyâd guy him dreadful. Penn couldnât stand that no moreân a dog with a dipper to his tail. Heâs so everlastinâ sensitive. Hello, Penn! Stuck again? Donât try any more oâ your patents. Come up on her, and keep your rodinâ straight up anâ down.â
âIt doesnât move,â said the little man, panting. âIt doesnât move at all, and instead I tried everything.â
âWhatâs all this hurrahâs-nest forâard?â said Dan, pointing to a wild tangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by the hand of inexperience.
âOh, that,â said Penn proudly, âis a Spanish windlass. Mr. Salters showed me how to make it; but even that doesnât move her.â
Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or twice on the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once.
âHaul up, Penn,â he said laughing, âer sheâll git stuck again.â
They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor with big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely.
âOh, say, while I think of it, Harve,â said Dan when they were out of ear-shot, âPenn ainât quite all caulked. He ainât nowise dangerous, but his mindâs give out. See?â
âIs that so,
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