Ma Pettengill | Page 6

a runt of a yearling whale that
was calved late in the fall would weigh on the scales!--and no worry
about fences or free range or winter feeding or water holes; nothing to
do but ride round on your private steamboat with a good orchestra, and
a chance to be dissolute and count your money. And look what a snap
the pioneers will have with all the mavericks; probably not a single
whale in the ocean yet branded! And does Timmins want to throw in
with us? If he does mebbe they can fix up a deal with me because I
want a good business man at the head of the new outfit.
But Safety says right off quick that it's all a pack of nonsense. He says

it's the mad dream of a visionary or feeble-minded person. He don't
deny there would be money in whales if they could be handled, but you
couldn't handle anything that had the whole ocean to swim in that
covers three quarters of the earth's surface, as he has often read. And
how would you get a branding iron on a whale, and what good would it
do you? He'd beat it out for Europe. He said they was foolish to think
whales would stay in a herd, and he guessed I'd been talking just to
hear myself talk, or more likely I'd been kidding 'em to get a good
laugh.
Sandy says: "Well, I wasn't going to tell you at first, but I guess it'll be
safe with you, you being a good friend of the Arrowhead, only don't let
it go no farther; but the fact is the boss is negotiating for the whale
privilege in Great Salt Lake. Yes, sir, she's bribing the Utah legislature
this very minute to let the bill go through! And I guess that don't look
much like kidding. As soon as the governor has signed the bill she'll put
in a couple of good three-year-old bull whales and a nice little herd of
heifers and have the world's meat supply at her finger ends in less than
five years--just killing off the yearling steers."
Safety looks a bit startled at this, and Sandy goes on to say that though
whale meat is now but a fad of the idle rich it's bound to be the meat of
rich and poor alike in future. He'd bet a thousand dollars to a dime that
by the time the next war come along the first thing they'd do would be
to establish a whaleless day. He said whale meat was just that good.
Safety chewed his gum quite a time on this--he says if a man chews
gum he won't ruin himself in pocket for tobacco--and he read the whale
article over carefully and looked at the pictures again, but he still said it
didn't sound to him like a legitimate business enterprise. He said for
one thing there'd be trouble shipping the original herd up to Salt Lake.
Sandy said it was true; there would be the initial expense of loading on
to flat cars, and a couple of tunnels would have to be widened so the
bulls wouldn't be rasped going through, but that I have already taken
this up with the railroad company.
Safety says that may all be true, but, mark his words, the minute my
herd gets into inland waters it will develop some kind of disease like

anthrax or blackleg, and the whole bunch will die on me. Sandy says it
will be a simple matter to vaccinate, because the animals will be as
affectionate as kittens by that time through having been kindly handled,
which is all a whale needs. He says they really got a very social nature
and are loyal unto death. Once a whale is your friend, he says, it's for
life, rain or shine, just so long as you treat him square. Even do a whale
a favour just once and he'll remember your face, make no difference if
it's fifty years; though being the same, it is true, in his hatreds, because
a whale never forgives an injury. A sailor he happens to know once
give a whale he had made friends with a chew of tobacco just for a joke
and the animal got into an awful rage and tried to tear the ship down to
get at him, and then he followed the ship all over the world waiting for
this sailor to fall off or get wrecked or something, till finally the hunted
man got so nervous he quit the sea and is now running a news stand in
Seattle, if Safety don't believe it. It just goes to show that a whale as
long as you're square with him is superior in mind and