A BOY WHO WENT WHALING 209 



There was no railroad then, along the waterfront of New 

 Bedford. Big jiggers, loaded with oil casks, ploughed through 

 the black dust and mud between the town and the whaling 

 vessels that lay in every stage of decay and repair at the wharves. 

 Some of the vessels were dismasted hulks which had served 

 their time the world over; others were stout new barques and 

 ships, ready to sail on maiden voyages to the antipodes. In the 

 lofts old seamen with palms of leather and with stout needles 

 talked of selvages and gores. In the shops and streets, hammers 

 rang and metal clanked and drays rumbled, and men of every 

 race and colour shouted and called. 



They hove the Lancer down, and cleaned her, and patched 

 her and coppered her anew. They bent on sails, and rove hal- 

 yards and sheets and tacks. They brought on board staves 

 and hoops and cedar boards. They swayed new boats up to the 

 cranes, and stowed down new craft in the forehold. Then 

 Captain Aaron Cushman, in his good shore clothes, inspected 

 all that was going on, and the ship swung out into the stream 

 and lay until morning, when, with the captain and his wife 

 on board, the crew mustered, and all sail set, she put to sea. 



Len Sanford was a light-haired, stocky boy, headstrong and 

 combative, but square, honest, quick to take the part of an 

 under dog, eager and adventurous. Once he had chmbed the 

 bare trunk of a dead pine to an eagle's nest, which spread hori- 

 zontally to all sides above him. To scale the edge of the nest, 

 he had gone out from the tree, hand over hand, with only the 

 rough branches of the nest to hold him up, and with only the 

 empty air between him and the distant rocks. By nature, 

 such boys scorned the lubber's hole, but were quick to resent 

 injustice; they made magnificent sailors, but flared up at the 

 exactions of an ill-tempered officer. 



Len Sanford had signed the articles for four years; but in three 

 years, nine months, and twenty-nine days, the Lancer came 

 home without him. 



With her lookouts nodding at the masthead and her officers 

 pounding the lore of ships and the fear of God into the green 



