Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year Part 17

The Woolworth Building was a disappointment. I had thought to see it at its best, gaze at it from all angles; but I became far more interested in the piers that curbed our little island of Manhattan, the ferryboats that plied like toy s.h.i.+ps, leaving scarcely a wake that we could see. 25

I recalled that the giant _Leviathan_ was due in, that noon, with several thousand soldiers. I scanned the bay for it.

A moment later, when we had swung around in a wide circle and started back uptown, I saw it. The transport had been under us and we had not seen it. I knew there must 30 be thousands in Battery Park to greet the _Leviathan_ and her heroes.

After straining my eyes I decided that the tiny specks at certain spots in the park where there were no trees must of a surety be human beings. But they were specks.

At this juncture all of us received a shock. The plane headed against the stiff west wind again, b.u.mped into it 5 head first, and then keeled halfway over. Try tipping up on one runner of a rocking chair, try balancing yourself as you go whizzing through s.p.a.ce. I realized then that if one were placed in a rocking chair in the tonneau of a motor car and the car rounded a corner say at thirty or 10 forty-five miles an hour, one might derive the same sensation.

Our bodies were tugging at the life belts that held us firmly in our seats. Every muscle in my body was taut.

I held my breath. Would we turn over? Would something 15 snap and send us down? I looked to see where we would fall. We would have fallen a sheer 5000 feet, directly on the Woolworth tower, the entire building of which was little more than a toy. But we did not fall.

The wind was better to us now, being in the rear. Yet 20 we did not appear to be making more speed. We drifted along, apparently. A moment later we were over green fields again. Far ahead I saw a Long Island train, doubtless moving. My gaze wandered momentarily. I looked for the train. It was gone. I looked back. It was in 25 our rear, and still coming in our direction.

It seemed but a matter of a few breaths of piercingly cold air before we were circling Hazlehurst Field. A brief glide and we were coasting on the ground toward the exact spot we had left. I looked at the watch again. 30

We had traveled from New York to the field, a distance of twenty-two miles, at the rate of two miles and a half a minute. And my picture of Greater New York was that of a beautiful toy, a diamond sunburst glittering in a setting of purple and gold, a city full of windowpanes and skylights that throw back the rays of the sun--but a toy nevertheless, for verily I had beheld a city and had taken it in the 5 palm of my hand, gazed at it in wonder a moment, and had then put it back again.

--_Motor Life._ (Used by arrangement with _Motor Life_, New York city)

1. What was the extent of the airplane journey of the author? Had he ever been in an airplane before?

How did he happen to sit with the pilot? How many people were in this plane?

2. What was the most exciting moment in his adventure? In about what year did this ride occur?

3. p.r.o.nounce and define: persistency, ricocheting, percolated, speedometer, maelstrom, promiscuously, recognize, tonneau.

4. If you have been close to an airplane tell what about it impressed you. What are airplanes used for now?

PRAYER FOR THE PILOT

BY CECIL ROBERTS

Lord of Sea and Earth and Air, Listen to the Pilot's prayer-- Send him wind that's steady and strong, Grant that his engine sings the song Of flawless tone, by which he knows 5 It shall not fail him where he goes; Landing, gliding, in curve, half-roll-- Grant him, O Lord, a full control, That he may learn in heights of Heaven The rapture alt.i.tude has given, 10 That he shall know the joy they feel Who ride Thy realms on Birds of Steel.

(Reprinted by permission of Frederick A. Stokes Company from _Poems_ by Cecil Roberts.)

A BATTLE WITH A WHALE

BY FRANK T. BULLEN

Before the discovery of petroleum, whale oil was generally used for lighting. Whaling was then one of the big businesses of our country. Our whalers sought their game in all the waters of the world where the big animals were to be found. A whaling cruise usually lasted from two to five years. The following description of harpooning a whale is an actual experience of the author.

"There she white-waters! Ah, bl-o-o-o-o-w, blow, blow!" sang Louis; and then, in another tone, "Sperm whale, sir; lone fish, headin' 'beout east-by-nothe."

"All right. Way down from aloft," answered the skipper, who was already halfway up the main rigging; and 5 like squirrels we slipped out of our hoops and down the backstays, pa.s.sing the skipper like a flash as he toiled upwards, bellowing orders as he went. Short as our journey down had been, when we arrived on deck we found all ready for a start. But as the whale was at least seven 10 miles away and we had a fair wind for him, there was no hurry to lower, so we all stood at attention by our respective boats, waiting for the signal. I found, to my surprise, that although I was conscious of a much more rapid heartbeat than usual, I was not half so scared as I 15 expected to be--that the excitement was rather pleasant than otherwise.

"Lower away boats!" came pealing down from the skipper's lofty perch, succeeded instantly by the rattle of the patent blocks as the falls flew through them, while the 20 four beautiful craft took the water with an almost simultaneous splash. The s.h.i.+p keepers had trimmed the yards to the wind and hauled up the courses, so that simply putting the helm down deadened our way and allowed the boats to run clear without danger of fouling one another. 5 To shove off and hoist sail was the work of a few moments, and with a fine working breeze away we went.

Our boat, being the chief's, had the post of honor; but there was now only one whale, and I rather wondered why we had all left the s.h.i.+p. According to expectations, 10 down he went when we were within a couple of miles of him, but quietly and with great dignity, elevating his tail perpendicularly in the air and sinking slowly from our view.

The scene was very striking. Overhead, a bright-blue sky 15 just fringed with fleecy little clouds; beneath, a deep-blue sea with innumerable tiny wavelets dancing and glittering in the blaze of the sun; but all swayed in one direction by a great solemn swell that slowly rolled from east to west, like the measured breathing of some world-supporting 20 monster. Four little craft in a group, with twenty-four men in them, silently waiting for battle with one of the mightiest of G.o.d's creatures--one that was indeed a terrible foe to encounter were he but wise enough to make the best use of his opportunities. 25

My musings were very suddenly interrupted. Whether we had overrun our distance, or the whale, who was not "making a pa.s.sage" but feeding, had changed his course, I do not know; but anyhow he broke water close ahead, coming straight for our boat. His great black head, like 30 the broad bow of a dumb barge driving the waves before it, loomed high and menacing to me, for I was no longer forbidden to look ahead. But coolly as if coming alongside the s.h.i.+p, the mate bent to the big steer oar and swung the boat off at right angles to her course, bringing her back again with another broad sheer as the whale pa.s.sed foaming.

This maneuver brought us side by side with him before he 5 had time to realize that we were there. Up till that instant he had evidently not seen us, and his surprise was correspondingly great.

To see Louis raise his harpoon high above his head and with a hoa.r.s.e grunt of satisfaction plunge it into the black, 10 s.h.i.+ning ma.s.s beside him, up to the hitches, was indeed a sight to be remembered. Quick as thought he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a second harpoon, and as the whale rolled from us it flew from his hands, burying itself like the former one, but lower down the body. The great impetus we had when we 15 reached the whale, carried us a long way past him, out of all danger from his struggles. No hindrance was experienced from the line by which we were connected with the whale, for it was loosely coiled in a s.p.a.ce for the purpose in the boat's bow, to the extent of two hundred feet, and this was 20 cast overboard by the harpooner as soon as the fish was fast.

He made a fearful to-do over it, rolling completely over several times, backward and forward, at the same time smiting the sea with his mighty tail, making an almost 25 deafening noise and pother. But we were comfortable enough while we uns.h.i.+pped the mast and made ready for action, being sufficiently far away from him to escape the full effect of his gambols.

After the usual time spent in furious attempts to free 30 himself from our annoyance, he betook himself below, leaving us to await his return and hasten it as much as possible by keeping a severe strain upon the line. Our efforts in this direction, however, did not seem to have any effect upon him at all. Flake after flake ran out of the tubs until we were compelled to hand the end of our line to the second mate, to splice his own on to. Still it slipped away, and 5 at last it was handed to the third mate, whose two tubs met the same fate. It was now Mistah Jones's turn to "bend on," which he did with many chuckles, as of a man who was the last resource of the unfortunate. But his face grew longer and longer as the never-resting line continued 10 to disappear. Soon he signaled us that he was nearly out of line, and two or three minutes after, he bent on his "drogue" (a square piece of plank with a rope tail spliced into its center, and considered to hinder a whale's progress at least as much as four boats) and let go the end. 15 We had each bent on our drogues in the same way, when we pa.s.sed our ends to one another. So now our friend was getting along somewhere below, with 7200 feet of one-and-a-half-inch rope, and weight additional equal to the drag of sixteen thirty-foot boats. 20

Of course we knew that unless he were dead and sinking he could not possibly remain much longer beneath the surface. The exhibition of endurance we had just been favored with was a very unusual one, I was told, it being a rare thing for a cachalot to take out two boats' lines before 25 returning to the surface to spout.

Therefore we separated as widely as was thought necessary, in order to be near him on his arrival. It was, as might be imagined, some time before we saw the light of his countenance; but when we did, we had no difficulty 30 in getting alongside of him again. My friend Goliath, much to my delight, got there first and succeeded in picking up the bight of the line. But having done so, his chance of distinguis.h.i.+ng himself was gone. Hampered by the immense quant.i.ty of sunken line which was attached to the whale, he could do nothing and soon received orders to cut the bight of the line and pa.s.s the whale's end to us. 5

He had hardly obeyed, with a very bad grace, when the whale started off to windward with us, at a tremendous rate. The other boats, having no line, could do nothing to help; so away we went alone, with barely a hundred fathoms of line in case he should take it into his head to sound again. 10 The speed at which he went made it appear as if a gale of wind were blowing, and we flew along the sea surface, leaping from crest to crest of the waves with an incessant succession of cracks like pistol shots. The flying spray drenched us and prevented us from seeing him, but I fully 15 realized that it was nothing to what we should have to put up with if the wind freshened much. One hand was kept bailing out the water which came so freely over the bows, but all the rest hauled with all their might upon the line, hoping to get a little closer to the flying monster. 20 Inch by inch we gained on him. After what seemed a terribly long chase we found his speed slackening, and we redoubled our efforts.

Now we were close upon him; now, in obedience to the steersman, the boat sheered out a bit and we were abreast 25 of his laboring flukes; now the mate hurls his quivering lance with such hearty good will that every inch of its slender shaft disappears within the huge body.

"Lay off! Off with her, Louey!" screamed the mate; and she gave a wide sheer away from the whale, not a 30 second too soon. Up flew that awful tail, descending with a crash upon the water, not two feet from us.

"Out oars! Pull, two! starn, three!" shouted the mate; and as we obeyed, our foe turned to fight.

Then might one see how courage and skill were such mighty factors in the apparently unequal contest. The whale's great length made it no easy job for him to turn, 5 while our boat, with two oars a side and the great leverage at the stern supplied by the nineteen-foot steer oar, circled, backed, and darted ahead like a living thing animated by the mind of our commander. When the leviathan settled, we gave a wide berth to his probable place of ascent; 10 when he rushed at us, we dodged him; when he paused, if only momentarily, in we flew and got home a fearful thrust of the deadly lance.

All fear was forgotten now--I panted, thirsted, for his life. Once, indeed, in a sort of frenzy, when for an instant 15 we lay side by side with him, I drew my sheath knife and plunged it repeatedly into the blubber as if I were a.s.sisting in his destruction.

Suddenly the mate gave a howl: "Starn all--starn all!

oh, starn!" and the oars bent like canes as we obeyed. 20 There was an upheaval of the sea just ahead; then slowly, majestically, the vast body of our foe rose into the air.

Up, up it went, while my heart stood still, until the whole of that immense creature hung on high, apparently motionless, and then fell--a hundred tons of solid flesh--back 25 into the sea. On either side of that mountainous ma.s.s the waters rose in s.h.i.+ning towers of snowy foam which fell in their turn, whirling and eddying around us as we tossed and fell like a chip in a whirlpool. Blinded by the flying spray, bailing for very life to free the boat from the water with 30 which she was nearly full, it was some minutes before I was able to decide whether we were still uninjured or not.

Then I saw, at a little distance, the whale lying quietly. As I looked he spouted, and the vapor was red with his blood.

"Starn all!" again cried our chief, and we retreated to a considerable distance. The old warrior's practiced eye had detected the coming climax of our efforts, the dying agony, 5 or "flurry," of the great mammal. Turning upon his side he began to move in a circular direction, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he was rus.h.i.+ng round at tremendous speed, his great head raised quite out of water at times, clas.h.i.+ng his enormous jaws. Torrents of blood 10 poured from his spout hole, accompanied by hoa.r.s.e bellowings as of some gigantic bull, but really caused by the laboring breath trying to pa.s.s through the clogged air pa.s.sages. The utmost caution and rapidity of manipulation of the boat was necessary to avoid his maddened 15 rush, but this gigantic energy was short-lived. In a few minutes he subsided slowly in death, his mighty body reclined on one side, the fin uppermost waving limply as he rolled to the swell, while the small waves broke gently over the carca.s.s in a low, monotonous surf, intensifying the 20 profound silence that had succeeded the tumult of our conflict with the late monarch of the deep.

--_The Cruise of the Cachalot._

1. Boats were always lowered when whales were sighted within rowing distance. Why? How many were lowered in this instance? How many men were in each? Who was in command of each?

2. There was considerable rivalry between the boats of the same s.h.i.+p to be the first to harpoon and the first to give the final lance thrust. Was there rivalry shown here?