White Jacket | Page 2

then, to strip,
and wring it out in a rain, when no hanging back or delay was
permitted. No, no; up you go: fat or lean: Lambert or Edson: never
mind how much avoirdupois you might weigh. And thus, in my own
proper person, did many showers of rain reascend toward the skies, in
accordance with the natural laws.
But here be it known, that I had been terribly disappointed in carrying
out my original plan concerning this jacket. It had been my intention to
make it thoroughly impervious, by giving it a coating of paint, But
bitter fate ever overtakes us unfortunates. So much paint had been
stolen by the sailors, in daubing their overhaul trowsers and tarpaulins,
that by the time I--an honest man--had completed my quiltings, the

paint-pots were banned, and put under strict lock and key.
Said old Brush, the captain of the _paint-room_-- "Look ye,
White-Jacket," said he, "ye can't have any paint."
Such, then, was my jacket: a well-patched, padded, and porous one; and
in a dark night, gleaming white as the White Lady of Avenel!

CHAPTER II
.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
"All hands up anchor! Man the capstan!"
"High die! my lads, we're homeward bound!"
Homeward bound!--harmonious sound! Were you ever homeward
bound?--No?--Quick! take the wings of the morning, or the sails of a
ship, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. There, tarry a year or
two; and then let the gruffest of boatswains, his lungs all goose-skin,
shout forth those magical words, and you'll swear "the harp of Orpheus
were not more enchanting."
All was ready; boats hoisted in, stun' sail gear rove, messenger passed,
capstan-bars in their places, accommodation-ladder below; and in
glorious spirits, we sat down to dinner. In the ward-room, the
lieutenants were passing round their oldest port, and pledging their
friends; in the steerage, the middies were busy raising loans to liquidate
the demands of their laundress, or else--in the navy phrase--preparing
to pay their creditors _with a flying fore-topsail_. On the poop, the
captain was looking to windward; and in his grand, inaccessible cabin,
the high and mighty commodore sat silent and stately, as the statue of
Jupiter in Dodona.
We were all arrayed in our best, and our bravest; like strips of blue sky,
lay the pure blue collars of our frocks upon our shoulders; and our
pumps were so springy and playful, that we danced up and down as we
dined.
It was on the gun-deck that our dinners were spread; all along between
the guns; and there, as we cross-legged sat, you would have thought a
hundred farm-yards and meadows were nigh. Such a cackling of ducks,
chickens, and ganders; such a lowing of oxen, and bleating of lambkins,
penned up here and there along the deck, to provide sea repasts for the

officers. More rural than naval were the sounds; continually reminding
each mother's son of the old paternal homestead in the green old clime;
the old arching elms; the hill where we gambolled; and down by the
barley banks of the stream where we bathed.
"All hands up anchor!"
When that order was given, how we sprang to the bars, and heaved
round that capstan; every man a Goliath, every tendon a hawser!--
round and round--round, round it spun like a sphere, keeping time with
our feet to the time of the fifer, till the cable was straight up and down,
and the ship with her nose in the water.
"Heave and pall! unship your bars, and make sail!"
It was done: barmen, nipper-men, tierers, veerers, idlers and all,
scrambled up the ladder to the braces and halyards; while like monkeys
in Palm-trees, the sail-loosers ran out on those broad boughs, our yards;
and down fell the sails like white clouds from the ether--topsails,
top-gallants, and royals; and away we ran with the halyards, till every
sheet was distended.
"Once more to the bars!"
"Heave, my hearties, heave hard!"
With a jerk and a yerk, we broke ground; and up to our bows came
several thousand pounds of old iron, in the shape of our ponderous
anchor.
Where was White-Jacket then?
White-Jacket was where he belonged. It was White-Jacket that loosed
that main-royal, so far up aloft there, it looks like a white albatross'
wing. It was White-Jacket that was taken for an albatross himself, as he
flew out on the giddy yard-arm!

CHAPTER III
.
A GLANCE AT THE PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS, INTO WHICH A
MAN-OF-WAR'S CREW IS DIVIDED.
Having just designated the place where White-Jacket belonged, it must
needs be related how White-Jacket came to belong there.
Every one knows that in merchantmen the seamen are divided into
watches--starboard and larboard--taking their turn at the ship's duty by

night. This plan is followed in all men-of-war. But in all men-of