Cruise of the Dolphin | Page 3

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Transcript prepared by Susan L. Farley.

The Cruise of the Dolphin
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

(1 An episode from The Story of a Bad Boy, the narrator being Tom
Bailey, the hero of the tale.)
Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixed
up with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he hears
the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is older, he wanders by
the sandy shore, watching the waves that come plunging up the beach
like white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them; his eye follows the
lessening sail as it fades into the blue horizon, and he burns for the time
when he shall stand on the quarter-deck of his own ship, and go sailing
proudly across that mysterious waste of waters.
Then the town itself is full of hints and flavors of the sea. The gables
and roofs of the houses facing eastward are covered with red rust, like
the flukes of old anchors; a salty smell pervades the air, and dense gray
fogs, the very breath of Ocean, periodically creep up into the quiet
streets and envelop everything. The terrific storms that lash the coast;
the kelp and spars, and sometimes the bodies of drowned men, tossed
on shore by the scornful waves; the shipyards, the wharves, and the
tawny fleet of fishing-smacks yearly fitted out at Rivermouth--these
things, and a hundred other, feed the imagination and fill the brain of
every healthy boy with dreams of adventure. He learns to swim almost
as soon as he can walk; he draws in with his mother's milk the art of
handling an oar: he is born a sailor, whatever he may turn out to be
afterwards.
To own the whole or a portion of a rowboat is his earliest ambition. No
wonder that I, born to this life, and coming back to it with freshest
sympathies, should have caught the prevailing infection. No wonder I
longed to buy a part of the trim little sailboat Dolphin, which chanced
just then to be in the market. This was in the latter part of May.
Three shares, at five or six dollars each, I forget which, had already
been taken by Phil Adams, Fred Langdon, and Binny Wallace. The
fourth and remaining share hung fire. Unless a purchaser could be
found for this, the bargain was to fall through.

I am afraid I required but slight urging to join in the investment. I had
four dollars and fifty cents on hand, and the treasurer of the Centipedes
(1 A secret society, composed of twelve boys of the Temple Grammar
School, Rivermouth.) advanced me the balance, receiving my silver
pencil-case as ample security. It was a proud moment when I stood on
the wharf with my partners, inspecting the Dolphin, moored at the foot
of a