Chapter VIII: Silas's Friend From Boston

A novel and animated scene was presented at the beach the night after the capture of the whale. On a grassy little plateau that sloped gently down between two low sand-dunes toward the sea, was erected a rude shed, beneath which, set in brick-work furnaces over bright wood fires, were two huge kettles for the "trying out" of the oil from the whale's blubber. Aboard whaling ships it is customary to leave the blubber to "ripen" for several days, in close rooms, before it is put into the kettles, as this, it has been ascertained, increases the yield of oil; but the shore whalemen rarely do this. They simply begin at once with the tenderest and most easily treated portions, and by the time they get through, unaccustomed olfactories in the vicinity generally attest that the "ripening" process has been perfected.

Half-a-dozen boys fed the furnaces--first with wood, and later with blubber "scraps," or "cracklings." When not doing that, they scuffled with each other, wrestled on the grass, shouted with gleeful excitement, and unceasingly munched corn and doughnuts cooked in the boiling oil. By the ruddy light of a bonfire before the shed, men cut in strips, with blubber-spades, the enormous masses and slabs of fat, stripped off the whale's carcass down in the surf, and dragged up here on a low, broad-wheeled wagon, drawn by two scraggy horses. Other men carried those strips inside the shed, where one who sat at a raised bench, with a two-handled knife, "minced" them for the kettles. Still others tended the kettles; skimming out, from time to time, the crisp, brown "cracklings," and adding other masses of fat in their stead; sometimes ladling the oil into barrels. When not otherwise busy, they chewed cracklings. Several women came with panfuls of sweet dough, twisted in curious shapes, which, when thrown into the seething oil, were quickly converted into the toothsome doughnuts in which the boys so much delighted.

At one side laid a great pile of black, fibrous, ragged-looking material, dug from the mouth of the whale, the "ballein," which, when carefully cleaned, dried, split, and otherwise prepared, is known as the whalebone of commerce and corsets.

The work went on with unabated vigor all that night, and all the next day, and gave promise of continuing even three or four days longer, for the "trying out" of the oil from a big whale, as this one was, is no light task.

On the evening of the second day a well-dressed stranger appeared at the scene of operations, inquiring for Mr. Thatcher; and upon finding the grim old veteran--who had as yet taken no rest since starting in pursuit of the whale--introduced himself as a friend of Silas's, from Boston, and expressed an earnest desire to meet the young man.

"Why, he is in Boston," said Uncle Thatcher.

"He was, but has left there, and I expected to meet him here," replied the stranger.

"Here?"

"Yes. I was out of town when he went away, rather suddenly, and so did not see him, unfortunately. But he left word for me that he was going to New York to look for a better job, and would pay a visit to his father's on the way."

"So you knew him well in Boston, did you?"

"Yes; oh, yes; knew him very well. He was quite a friend of mine."

"He was doing well, I suppose? Working and keeping steady?"

The father's voice faltered slightly; he hesitated a little, and picked up a bit of crackling, which he munched as a cover to his anxiety, while he looked wistfully at the stranger.

The man from Boston seemed just a little embarrassed, but only for an instant, when he answered very reassuringly: "Steady? Oh, yes. Steady as a deacon." Muttering to himself, "some deacons, at least."

"Working at ship-carpentering, I believe?"

"Oh, yes. Certainly. A fine ship-carpenter he is, too."

"When did you see him last?"

"H'm. Well, let me see. It must have been--yes, it was two weeks ago yesterday. I'm quite disappointed not to find him here."

"He may have stopped over somewhere on the road a day or two; and if you're in no hurry, and will wait for him, you are welcome to stop with me. I'll give you Silas's own room."

"Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Thatcher; but I have already made other arrangements. I have promised to go over and stop with a friend in the village, and after I have looked on a little while at your very interesting industry here, I think I'll go back there, and return to-morrow. Silas may have come by that time."

"Very well. Suit yourself, sir, Mr. ----; I didn't rightly catch your name--Mr. ----?"

"Ketchum, Mr. Thatcher, Ketchum."

"Mr. Ketchum. Glad to know you, Mr. Ketchum. Glad to know any friend of my son Silas's."

"Thank you, sir."

"Make yourself as comfortable as you can, and will you have a little something to take, to keep the cold out?"

Mr. Ketchum said he would not object to having "a little of something to take," and Uncle Thatcher brought it out of a fence corner, from among the weeds, in a stone jug, with a corn-cob stopper. But Silas's friend from Boston was surprised to find that the jug contained delicious "double-canned" St. Croix rum, old and of magnificent flavor, and very accurately and shrewdly thought to himself, "These beach-combers never paid the duty on liquor like that; smugglers here, I'd bet my life."

He went over and stood near the kettles.

"Was this considered a very large whale?" he asked the man who was stirring the oil.

"Well, pretty fair-sized."

"What do you call pretty fair-sized?"

"Well, a whale eighty feet long is a pretty fair size."

"Was this one eighty feet long?"

"No."

"How long was he, then?"

"About sixty-five feet."

"Do you ever really get them eighty feet long?"

"Oh, yes. I've killed whales ninety feet long."

"I've seen 'em a hundred feet long," volunteered the man who was mincing the blubber.

"I've know'd 'em to be a hundred and twenty feet long in the Indian Ocean," put in another, lifting a pile of minced blubber on a four-tined fork, and tossing it into a kettle.

"Whales is ketched a hundred and fifty feet long," said a solemn-looking man, who stood leaning on the handle of his blubber-spade just outside the shed.

A little silence fell upon the group, which Mr. Ketchum was the first to break, again addressing the man at the kettle, asking him:

"How much oil will you get out of this one?"

"About eighty bar'ls, I guess."

"He must have been pretty fat."

"Well, so-so."

"How much have you obtained from one whale?"

"I've seen a hundred bar'ls took."

"I've helped to 'try out' one hundred and fifty bar'ls from one whale," said the mincer.

"Right whales, full-grown, not uncommon gives one hundred and seventy-five bar'ls, and sperms has been known to give as high as two hundred and twenty," spoke up the man with the fork.

The solemn blubber cutter once more came to the front, leaning on his spade, and said oracularly: "I've know'd 'em yield two hundred and fifty bar'ls."

The relators of solid facts inside the shed perceived that they had no chance as long as that untrammelled person with the blubber-spade had the advantage of the last call every time, and so relapsed into taciturnity.

Uncle Thatcher did not somehow like the look of Silas's Boston friend, though he could not tell why, and felt relieved when Mr. Ketchum at length took his departure for the village. But when he went home at midnight to take a little much-needed rest, he was almost convinced that he saw the figure of the stranger near a clump of bushes a little distance from the doorway.

The next morning Mr. Ketchum came, again, with seemingly unabated interest in the process of trying out whale's blubber, and remained about the shed all day, waiting with inexhaustible patience for his friend Silas.