96 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



on shore. At first they could not even hear, let alone understand, 

 what he was calling, but then the always unpredictable liye, who 

 was known to have set her cap upon Masatoshi, ran along the beach 

 to the flagpole, which she climbed as nimbly as a squirrel, and, 

 wrapping her legs around its very top, started waving to the men 

 in the boat. liye had strange ways with the men, and she, far be- 

 yond any of the other girls, understood in turn their ways, despite 

 the displeasure of the older women, who were frankly horrified at 

 her behavior and were always predicting her early demise in all 

 manner of dire ways. The men in the boat waved back to her in 

 such a way that she promptly understood their hurry and immedi- 

 ately called down to the other girls the single exciting word, "Km- 

 7/r^." But the silly girls simply stood there repeating the word one 

 to the other, until liye slid down the pole and went flying up the 

 beach to the village calling out wildly the news that Masatoshi 

 brought word whales had been sighted. Immediately people began 

 to pour out of all the houses and the children dropped their games 

 and went running to the beach. 



Now, it was fortunate that none of the men on shore had left the 

 village for the farms inland, because it would have taken a long 

 time to round them up to man the many boats that had not gone 

 fishing, and the little fleet that was already at sea would have been 

 left not only shorthanded but in a quite useless position, because 

 none of them had carried whaling equipment, this being not yet the 

 normal time for the northward spring migrations of the whales. It 

 was still far too early, but the weather had been so unusually warm 

 for the season, and the rains had been so excessive, that almost any- 

 thing could be expected. Thus it was that, long before the boat of 

 Masatoshi reached the beach, the men ashore, assisted by the younger 

 women, were already assembling all the harpoons, ropes, and floats 

 by the water's edge, while the children shoved the long, sharp- 

 ended, open boats into the water. Meantime another party was haul- 

 ing the great net out of the warehouse. 



It was made of root-rope cable an inch and a half thick most 

 cunningly knotted to form a giant mesh two feet square, and it was 

 a hundred feet long and nearly fifty wide when spread out. Nobody 

 remembered any longer when it had been made and even the oldest 

 m^u could not say when certain well-known splices had been put in 



