THE OLD OAKEN CHEST 163 



Sandefiord and Tonsberg on the west side of the great 

 Oslo Fiord. Those boys made plenty of money at whaling 

 but old Grandma Olafsen made sure they didn't waste 

 it. She still remembered the sad days of the Nantucket 

 whalers rotting at their moorings and whalemen sitting 

 idle on the wharves. So she got them to invest their 

 money in farmland here in the Westfold. To these, she 

 said, they and their sons after them could return when 

 they grew too old to hunt the whale; and if fortune 

 ceased to favour them on the sea they could work on the 

 land instead. 



'Every few years Grandma stole time from her busy life 

 of farming and looking after my father and his brothers to 

 visit her side of the family in Dundee across the water. It 

 was on one of these occasions that her brother Edward 

 suggested that the proper place for all the old whaHng 

 relics and heirlooms was in her home in Norway. He had 

 retired from whaling and had no sons to carry on the 

 tradition. So she brought them back with her to the 

 farm in this oak chest and it lay in the attic, unopened as 

 far as I know, until one day after I had retired I took it 

 into my head to see what was inside. And that's how it 

 came about, Hans, that I found the diaries and all these 

 old documents and letters.' 



Hans was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. 

 *And I suppose some of these letters were written by you 

 and your father, Grandpa?' 



*Yes, Hans, and they could tell the rest of the story.' 



'Let me hear it then, please. Grandpa,' said Hans 

 rolling over on his tummy. 



Tt's late and near your bedtime, boy, but as my ship- 

 load of thoughts is still bowling along with a bone in her 

 teeth, as you might say, I might as well give her her head. 



'In 1904 my father, Roald Olafsen, went with Larsen as 

 a gunner on the expedition that opened the first land 

 whaling station in the Antarctic. The British granted 



