66 The Story of the New England Whalers 



honor. And every citizen of Nantucket, and of 

 every other community where whalers were known, 

 accepted the pegs as evidence of distinguished 

 services afloat. The ambitious, agile youth on 

 a freighter often served for several years before 

 he was able to work his way aft to the berth of a 

 second mate, but in the whale ship he often had 

 opportunity during his first cruise to earn the 

 right to wear the harpooner's badge. 



Last of all, consider the secret society that the 

 girls of Nantucket formed, a veritable Masonic 

 order in its strength and beneficent influence, if 

 we may believe the whaler annals. Though a 

 man searched the ports of the wide world from 

 Spitzbergen around both capes to the Sea of 

 Okhotsk, he could find no girls to equal those of 

 Nantucket Island ; and every one of them, obeying 

 the precept of the ever present presiding genius 

 of their society ("The Widow's Daughter?") 

 was pledged not to marry any man until he had 

 "struck his whale." 



By its appeal to pride, ambition, greed to 

 the most powerful passions of the human mind 

 the pursuit of the whale drew every Nantucket 



