Cast Away in the Cold Part 13

"The eider-duck skin is very warm, having, besides its thick coat of feathers, a heavy underlayer of soft warm down, which, as I told you before, the ducks pick off to line their nests with. The skins are also very strong, as well as warm.

"Now, however, as at other times since we had been cast away, good fortune came to us; and we had scarcely begun seriously to feel the need of sewing materials before they were thrown in our way, as if providentially. It happened thus:--

"In cutting the blubber from the dead narwhal, we had quite exposed the strong sinews of the tail, without, however, for a moment imagining that we were preparing the way to a most important and useful discovery.

After a while this sinew had become partially dried in the sun, and one day, while busy with some one of our now quite numerous occupations, I was much surprised to see the Dean running towards me from the beach, and was still more surprised when I heard him crying out, 'I have it, I have it!'

"It seemed to me that the Dean was always having something, and I was more than ever curious to know what it was this time.

"He had been down to the beach, and, observing some of the dried sinew, had begun to tear it to pieces; and in this way he found out that he could make threads of it, and he immediately set off to tell me about it. We at once went together down to the beach, and, cutting off all that we could get of this strong sinew, we spread it upon the rocks, that it might dry more thoroughly.

"In a few days the sun had completely dried and hardened a great quant.i.ty of this stuff; and we found that, when we came to pick it to pieces, we could make, if we chose, very fine threads of it,--as fine and as strong as ordinary silk. This was a great discovery truly, as it was the only thing now wanting, except some cooking utensils, to complete our domestic furniture. As for the latter, it was some time before we invented anything; but thus far we had been occupied with what seemed to be more important concerns. Over on the opposite side of the island I found some stones of very soft texture; and, upon trying them with my knife, I discovered that they were precisely the same kind of stones that I had often found at home, and which we there called soapstone. Upon making further search there proved to be quite an extensive vein of it; and since I knew that in civilized countries griddles are made out of soapstone, I concluded at once that other kinds of cooking utensils might be made as well. Accordingly I carried to our hut several pieces of it, and there they lay for a good while, until I could find leisure to carve some pots and other things out of them.

"Thus you see we were getting along very well, steadily collecting those things which were necessary as well for our comfort as our safety. If the island on which we had been cast away was barren and inhospitable, it was none the less capable, like almost every other land, in whatever region of the earth, of furnishing subsistence to men.

"When we saw what we could do with the sinew of the narwhal, we immediately set about preparing some bedclothes for ourselves. This we did by squaring off the duck-skins with my knife, and then sewing them tightly together. Thus we obtained, not only a soft bed to lie upon, but a good warm quilt to cover us.

"This done, we went back to the cooking utensils, which you may be sure we were very much in need of. Out of a good large block of soapstone, by careful digging with the knife, we soon made quite a good-sized pot, which was found to answer perfectly. We could now change our diet a little,--at least, I should say, the manner of cooking it; for while we could before only fry our ducks and eggs on flat stones, when we got the pot we could boil them. This gave us great pleasure, as we were getting very tired of having but one style of food; still I cannot say that there was so very much occasion for being over-glad, as at best it was only ducks and eggs, and eggs and ducks, like the boy you have heard of in the story, who had first mush and milk, and then, for variety, milk and mush.

"So one day the Dean said to me, 'Hardy, can't we catch some of these little birds,--auks you call them?' 'How?' said I. 'I don't know,' said he; so we were just as well off as we had been before. But this set us to thinking again; and the birds being very tame, and flying low, it occurred to us that we might make a net, and fasten it to the end of our narwhal horn, which we had thus far only used while making our hut.

Luckily for us, the Dean--who, I need hardly say, was a very clever boy in every sense--had learned from one of the sailors the art of net-making; and out of some of the narwhal sinew he contrived, in two days, to construct quite a good-sized net. And now the difficulty was to stretch it; but by this time our inventive faculties had been pretty well sharpened, and we were not long in finding that we could make a perfect hoop by lashing together three seal ribs which we picked up on the beach; and, having fastened this hoop securely to the narwhal horn, we sallied forth to the north side of the island, where the auks were most abundant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Changing the Diet again.]

"Hiding ourselves away among the rocks, we waited until a flock of the birds flew over us. They flew very low,--not more than five feet above our heads. When they were least expecting it, I threw up the net, and three of them flew bang into it. They were so much stunned by the blow, that only one of them could flutter out before I had drawn in the net; and the Dean was quick enough to seize the remaining two before they could escape. This, being the first experiment, gave us great encouragement, as it was more successful than we had ventured to hope.

We went on with the work, without pausing, for several hours, looking upon it as great sport, as indeed it was; and since it was the first thing we had done on the island that seemed like sport, the day was always remembered by us with delight.

"So now you see we had begun to mingle a little pleasure with our life; and this was a very important matter, for you know the old saying, 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'"

CHAPTER XIII.

The Ancient Mariner takes the Little People on a Little Voyage; and the Little People become convinced that an Arctic Winter, an Aurora Borealis, and an Ancient Mariner, are very Wonderful Things.

A lively breeze was blowing over the little village of Rockdale, and in a lively way the tall trees were bending down their heads, and swinging to and fro as if they liked it; for the leaves were beating time, and were singing joyously, and appeared to be saying all the while how glad they would be to keep beating time and singing on forever, if the wind would only please to be so good as to help them on in the joyous business; and the tall gra.s.s and grain were shining in the sun, and rolling round in a very reckless manner, as if they meant to show off their great billows of green and gold, and make the staid and sober little waves that were ruffling up the surface of the bright blue waters of the bay quite ashamed.

"Ha, ha!" laughed our ancient friend, the Captain, when he saw what a day it was. "Ha, ha! what a day indeed!" and right away he began to call loudly for his boy, Main Brace,--

"Main Brace, Main Brace, come here! Come, bear a hand, and be lively there, you plum-duff, chuckle-headed young landlubber, and waddle along aft here on your sausage legs."

A feeble voice is heard to answer from the galley,--"Ay, ay, sir; comin', sir, comin'"; and the plum-duff head and the sausage legs follow feebly in after the voice, looking surprised.

"Main Brace,"--begins the Captain.

"Ay, ay, sir," responds Main Brace; and the plum-duff head lets fall its lower jaw, and looks amazed, the Captain is so much in earnest.

"Some bait, Main Brace! Do you hear, my lad? Be lively, boy, and get some bait; and then overhaul the _Alice_, and stand by to be ready when I come down. We'll go a-fishing to-day,--do you hear, my boy? And we'll have a jolly time,--do you hear that? So be lively now, and be off with your plum-duff head and your sausage legs. I tell you, away, away! for we'll go a-sailin'. Away, away! for we'll go a-sailin', a-sailin', a-sailin'. Away, away! for we'll go a-sailin',--a-sailin' on the sea."

Without another word the sausage legs made off with the plum-duff head, which had no sooner got outside the door than it began to let out in dislocated fragments, from a mouth that gradually expanded until it reached from ear to ear, "Away, away! we'll go a-fishin', a-fishin', a-fishin'; away, away! we'll go a-sailin', a-sailin', a-sailin'; away, away! we'll all be jolly, jolly, jolly,--we'll all be jolly"; and so on until the sausage legs had carried the plum-duff head and the refrain together so far down among the trees, towards the water, that all the other "jollys" and the sailin's and the "fishin's," and the rest of it, were blown clean away by the wind.

And off went the Captain, too, hurrying up to the top of the hill behind the cottage, as if the cosey little thing was all afire, and the dear old soul was running up for help; and when he reached the top of the hill, he began swinging round his old tarpaulin hat, making the long blue ribbons fairly whistle and speak, as if they would say, "Old man, old man, stop a bit, and take breath!--can't you now? and say, what's this all about, for goodness' sake!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Ancient Mariner becomes excited, and Main Brace makes an effort.]

But the old man knew well enough himself what it was all about; for he was signalling his little friends; and every circle of his big arm, and every shake of his long gray beard, and every swing of his old tarpaulin hat, seemed to sing out, "Hurrah, hurrah, for a jolly day! hurrah, hurrah, my children gay! hurrah, hurrah, let's up and away, upon the bright blue waters!"

By and by the children caught sight of the old tarpaulin hat and the blue ribbons and the Captain himself, all in this state of violent excitement; and down they bore at once upon the ancient mariner, as if he were a regular bluff-bowed old East Indiaman, full of golden ingots, and they were clipper-built, copper-fastened, rakish fore-and-afters of the piratical pattern.

"Heyday!" (the old man never thought he had begun until he had thrown off a heyday or so), "heyday, my hearties!" said the ancient mariner, as the children came up to him,--"heyday, my dears! keep on that same course before the wind, and you'll fetch up in the right port"; and so, without further ado, he hurried "my hearties" down to the beach, and aboard the yacht; and then very soon Main Brace (whose mouth had never left off expanding at the prospect of "a fishin'" and "a sailin'" and "a jolly day" generally) had the anchor away; and then the Captain spread the white sails to the lively breeze; and there never was, since the world began, a merrier little party, in a merrier little craft, afloat upon blue water on a merrier day. Indeed, the day was so merry, and the craft was so merry, and the waves were so merry as they came leaping round the yacht, and the wind was so merry as it bulged out the sail and went whistling through the rigging, and the little party in the yacht were so merry, and everything and everybody was so merry, that it would be strange indeed if the fish were not merry too; and the finny creatures played round the pretty hooks, too merry by half to touch them; and then they came merrily up, and poked their heads out close to the top of the water, and stared at the merry-makers in the yacht, and they seemed to be whispering to one another, "O, what a jolly lot of coves they are, to be sure! O, don't they wish they may catch us?--don't they though?" and then they dropped down again to look at the pretty hooks; but only the sober-sided ones that had no idea of being merry went near enough to bite, and these were surely bitten in return; for, if the hook once got into their red gills, they found themselves jerked up before they could say Lobster, and heard merry voices shouting round them, to their great astonishment.

And of these sober-sided fishes who were so unfortunate as to have no idea of being merry, the Captain and his little friends caught as many as they wanted; and then the Captain said to his little friends, "Put away your fishing-tackle now, and come down below into the little cabin, and I'll surprise you." And, sure enough, he did surprise them,--quite as much, perhaps, as if some fairy queen had come, and called them to a fairy banquet; as much indeed, perhaps, as if they had themselves suddenly been turned to fairies, and were doing something that was never even dreamed of by mortal child before; for, while they had been fishing, Main Brace had, by direction of the Captain, been building up a fire in the little stove, and in the very centre of the cabin he had set out a little table, and upon the little table there was spread the whitest little cloth, and on the cloth were set all round the daintiest little plates and knives and forks, and the neatest little napkins, and the cunningest little cups, that were ever seen.

"And now," spoke up the Captain, laughing all the while to see his little friends so much surprised, "fall to, fall to! for we're going to have a jolly feast, or my name isn't Ancient Mariner, nor John Hardy either." And the Captain poured out some fresh foaming milk into the cunning little cups, from a big stone jug; and he brought some fresh white rolls and some golden b.u.t.ter from a little locker; and soon afterward he drew from the little stove some dainty little fish, and dropped one, all crisp and hissing hot, upon each dainty little plate; and now for half an hour there was busy work enough for the dainty little knives and forks. The Captain's little stove proved to be everything that one could wish for in that line; and the Captain's style of cooking showed plainly enough, as William said, that "the Captain had not travelled round the world, and been an ancient mariner, for nothing."

When the meal was over, and everything was cleared away, and the little cabin was once more in ship-shape order, William proposed the Captain's health,--tossing back his head, and drinking a great quant.i.ty of imaginary wine from an imaginary gla.s.s. "Here's to the health of Captain Hardy, ancient mariner, and other things too numerous to mention,--the jolliest Jack Tar that ever reefed a sail, or walked on the windward side of a quarter-deck! May Davy Jones be a long while waiting for him; and when he does go into Davy's locker, may he go an Admiral!" And then the children all together "Hip, hip, hurrahed" the Captain, until the old man had nearly split himself with laughing at their childish merriment.

"And now for the story," said the Captain, when the laugh was ended.

"What do you say to that?"

"The story,--yes, yes, the story," shouted all the children, merrier than ever.

"Down here, or up on deck?"

"Down here, just where we are; it's such a splendid place!"

"Then down here it shall be," went on the Captain, right well pleased.

"Down here it shall be, my dears, if I can only pick up the yarn again where I broke it off. Let me see"; and the old man put a finger to his nose, as he always did when he was thoughtful.

"Aha!" cried he, at length, "I've got my bearings now, as neat as a light-house in a fog. You know, my dears, when we left off last time, we had gone so far along with the story that you could see the Dean and I had got ourselves in soundings, as it were. We had seen the light-ship off the harbor, and were steering for it, so to speak. We had, by working very hard, and by persevering very much, and by using our wits as best we could, gathered about us everything that was needed to insure our present safety, and some things to make us comfortable. We had a hut to shelter us, and clothes to keep us warm, and fire to cook our food.

"But the winter was now coming on very fast, and we knew well enough what that was likely to be. The gra.s.s and moss and flowers were dead or dying; the ice was forming on the little pools, and here and there upon the sea; little spurts of snow were coming now and then; the winds were getting to be more fierce and angry, and every day was growing colder and more dark. We knew that the long winter was close upon us, and that the shadow of the night would soon be resting on us all the time. The birds had hatched their young, and quitted their nests, and were flying off to the sunny south, where we so longed to go, and so longed to send a message by them to the loved ones far away. It made us sad--O, how very, very sad!--to see the birds so happy on the wing, and sailing off and leaving us upon the island all alone. Alone,--all, all alone! Alone upon a desert island in the Frozen Sea! Alone in cold and darkness! All, all alone!

"We made ourselves warm coats and stockings out of the skins of the birds that we had caught; and we made caps, too, out of them,--plucking off the feathers, and leaving only the soft, warm, mouse-colored down upon the skin. And out of the seal's skin we made mittens and nice soft boots, or rather, as I might call them, moccasins.

"The birds began to go away about the middle of August, as nearly as we could tell, but it was more than a month after that before they had all left the island. Meanwhile we had caught a great number of them,--two hundred and sixty-six in all; and we had collected, besides, ninety dozen of their eggs. These birds and eggs were all carefully stowed away in our storehouses of ice and rocks near the glacier.

"In the matter of food, we had, therefore, done very well; but we felt the need of some more blubber for our fire, and some warmer clothing than the birds' skins. To supply this latter want, we tried very hard to catch some foxes; but it was a long time before we were successful; for not until all the ducks had gone away would the foxes trouble themselves to go inside our traps. These traps were made of stones, and in building them I had derived the only benefit which had ever resulted to me from my indolent life on the farm. I was always fond of shirking away from my duties, and going into the woods to set rabbit-traps; and, remembering how I made them of wood, I easily contrived a stone one of the same pattern, and it was found afterwards to answer perfectly; for when there were no longer eggs and ducks for them to eat, the foxes went into our traps, which we baited with flesh from the dead narwhal. The pelts of these foxes were thick and warm; and, by the time the weather got very cold, we had obtained a good number, and of them we made suits of clothes at our leisure. There were two kinds of foxes; one was a sort of blue gray, and the other was quite white.

"As the weather grew colder, the little streams which had thus far supplied us with water all froze up; and we had now nothing to depend upon but the freshly fallen snow, which we had, of course, to melt. Thus you see how important it was that I should have found the soapstone in season, and made a pot of it, else we should not only have been obliged to go without boiled food, but likewise without water. As for fuel, we were for the present relieved from all anxiety by a dead walrus and a small white whale which drifted in upon the beach during a westerly gale. The waves being very strong, they were landed so high up on the beach that there was little fear of their being washed away again.

"It was no easy matter to cut these animals up with our one jack-knife, since, before we could get it done, they had frozen quite hard. The temperature had gone down until it was already below freezing all the time; and very soon a great deal of snow fell, and was drifted into heaps by the wind. The sea, soon after this, became frozen over quite solid all about the island, although we could still see plenty of clear, open water in the distance. There was one satisfaction, at least, in this freezing up of the sea: we could walk out upon it, and go all around the island without having to clamber over the rough rocks.

"You have now seen pretty much what our life was on the island, and how we were prepared for the winter. Well, the winter came by and by in good earnest, I can tell you. The sunlight all went away, and then, soon afterward, the autumn twilight went away; and then came the darkness that I told you is constant, in the winter, up towards the North Pole, for the winter there is but one long night, you know."