There She Blows! Or, The Log of the ArethusaMacy, William Hussey
General
There She Blows! Or, The Log of the Arethusa
Macy, William Hussey
Sea stories; Whaling -- Fiction
The man whom I had assisted by throwing him a rope, and relieving him
of a part of his load, attached himself particularly to me, and we
drove a smart barter trade, highly satisfactory to both parties. He
soon gave me further evidence of his powers of jaw, as, laughing at my
bungling attempts to husk a cocoanut with an axe, he seized the whole
bunch of nuts, and jerked the husks all off with his teeth, in less
time than I should have taken to finish one, considering his services
amply rewarded with a morsel of "tabahky." I bought all his stock of
mats, and as many of the hats as I could adapt to my very accommodating
head, in other words, all which were not more than eleven sizes too big
for me. The next thing produced for my inspection was a cocoanut shell,
filled with a sort of syrup, into which he run his finger and sucked it
with infinite gusto, at the same time tempting me to do likewise.
"Id-id-ee tikee-moee-moee!" he yelled.
"What the devil is that?" said I.
"Tikee-moee-moee?" he repeated. "Tabahky!"
I found this a very nice article, light in color, clear and thick, not
unlike honey. I bought it eagerly, and gave my friend to understand
I would like to have more. In less than ten minutes he had brought
me more than a dozen, which I purchased at sight of the shells, and
carried below. I discovered the next day when too late, that only the
first one was worth eating, the rest appearing to be about equally
compounded of very black molasses and sea-water.
I made my out-door agent understand that I wanted to collect shells,
showing him one as a specimen. He rushed to the side, shouting to his
comrade in the canoe, "Teroot!" and returned with a few which were
not worth much. My "wants" having been thus advertised, I was beset
with cries of "Teroot!" for the next half-hour; for every barbarian
pedler who had a beech-worn shell or fragment of a shell to dispose of,
pushed it into my face with the same war-cry. I selected a few, which I
thought worthy to be added to my collection. But I was by no means rid
of the rest, after so doing; for I was pursued from post to pillar, and
the same specimens, transferred to different hands, loomed before my
eyes dozens of times, with the savage cry "Teroot! Tabahky!"
"I'm sayin', ould chap, what's the matter wid y'er leg?" said the voice
of Farrell near me.
I turned and saw an elderly, grave looking man climbing in over the
rail. As he landed on deck, he presented a singular phenomenon; having
one well-proportioned leg of the natural size, while the other one at
the calf would have filled a deck-bucket.
"Say, ould chap, what ails y'er leg?" repeated the Irishman.
"Ididee tikee-nut!" shouted the old man, holding up over his head a
bunch of nuts, knotted together by strips of the husk.
"Ah! the divil take your tikeenuts, it's your leg I'm looking at. Who
ever saw the likes?"
"Tabahky!" roared the venerable savage, keeping an eye to business.
"What made y'er leg swell that big?" pursued Farrell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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