Jack Mason, the Old Sailor | Page 3

first," one of the men said to the other. Each of
them had his oar ready, so that when the bear made a spring at them, he
would get his ears boxed pretty sharply. That was all they could do.
Well, the bear did not seem to be at all in a hurry. The first thing he did,
after he got into the boat, was to shake himself as hard as he could, to
get the water out of his coat. After that, he walked slowly to one end of

the boat, just as if he was quite at home there, and lay down upon a coat
which one of the men had brought along, and went to sleep.
The sailors saw then that all they had to do was to row the bear to the
shore. So they went to work. When they got to the ship, the captain and
all the sailors laughed a good deal, you may be sure. The shore was not
far off. The sailors rowed until the boat touched the shore, and the bear
got out, and walked slowly away. He did not so much as thank the men
for the ride he had been taking. But the men were glad to get rid of him,
thanks or no thanks.
[Illustration]

CATCHING WHALES.
I went in a whale-ship once. I was gone from home that time more than
three years. When we came back, we had our large ship all full of oil
and whalebone. We got the oil and the whalebone out of the whales
which we had caught. Whales, you know, are very large fish. They
sometimes get two or three hundred barrels of oil from one single
whale.
I never shall forget what a long chase I had with a whale once. Shall I
tell you about it, little friend? There was a man in the ship who was
looking out for whales. In a whale-ship there is always one man who
gets up as high as he can, and keeps a bright look-out all round for
whales. Whales do not stay under water all the time. The trout, and the
shad, and the eel, and most other kinds of fish can stay under water all
the time. They cannot live out of the water only a few minutes, and I
suppose they feel almost as bad out of the water as we do in it. But the
whale wants to come up to the top of the water. He wants to come up to
breathe. Well, all at once, the man who was looking out the day I speak
of, when I had such a run, sung out as loud as he could, "There she
blows!" We all knew what that meant. That is what they always say
when they see a whale. It means, "There is a whale come up to
breathe." This whale was a great way off. I should think he was a mile

from the ship.
Well, the captain told some of us to get into a boat, and to go out after
the whale. We did so. The boats are always kept ready, and it takes
only a minute to let the boat down, and start off. We rowed as fast as
we could, until we came up near where the whale was lying. Oh, what a
large whale! As soon as the boat got near enough, one man threw two
harpoons at the whale, and they both stuck fast in his flesh. A harpoon
is a long and sharp iron, made like a spear, so that when it strikes the
whale, it goes in deep, and you cannot pull it out. The harpoon is
fastened to a long rope, and the rope is tied to the boat.
As soon as the whale felt these irons in his side, he began to run. I
never knew before that a whale could swim so fast. It took him only a
very little while to run out with all the loose rope; and our boat went
through the water pretty fast, you may be sure. I was afraid the whale
would take it into his head to dive down towards the bottom. If he had
gone down, we should have gone with him, unless we could have cut
the rope. But he did not go down. Away we went, as fast as if we had
been on a railroad. He was all the time taking us further from the ship.
"Well," we thought, "what is going to become of us!" The whale did
not seem to care any thing about that. I suppose he thought that was our
look-out, and not his.
But the fellow got tired out by and by. He had bled so much, that he