[Illustration: Jack telling his stories. ] JACK MASON, THE OLD SAILOR. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. FOR CHILDREN. BY THEODORE THINKER. 1850. THE OLD SAILOR. Jack Mason had been to sea a great many times when I first knew him, and he has been a great many times since. He has sailed in a shipalmost all over the world. Such a host of stories as he can tell!Why, I do believe if he could find little boys and girls to talk to, he would begin in the morning as soon as he had got through hisbreakfast, and do nothing but tell stories about what he has seen, until it was time to go to bed at night. I don't know but he wouldwant to stop once or twice to eat. Jack loves a good dinner as wellas anybody. Jack is the one that you see in the picture, with his pea-jacket on, and a book in his hand. He is in a ship, telling his stories now tothat boy sitting on a coil of rope. See, the boy is looking right atthe old man, hearing all he says. I wonder what Jack is talking aboutnow. He must be telling one of his best stories, I guess; for the boylifts his head up, as much as to say, "Dear me! who ever heard ofsuch a thing!" Jack is a good man. He is not like a great many sailors that I haveseen. He does not use bad words. He never drinks rum, or any thing ofthe kind. Sailors are apt to swear; but Jack Mason never swears. Heis a Christian: he loves to pray and read his Bible. The book which heholds in his hand, as he is talking to that boy, is a Bible. He oftenhas a Bible in his jacket pocket, when he is on board of his ship; andonce in a while he stops telling stories about what he has seen, andreads some of the stories in that good book. When I was a little boy, Jack fell from the high mast of the ship, andhurt himself so badly that he had to stay at home a long time afterthat. Poor fellow! he did not like to be shut up in the house. It washard work for him. But he could not go out, until his hip got well. When he was able to sit up in a chair, I used to go and see him, andhear him tell his stories. I did not go every day, because my motherthought I had better not go every day. But I went as often as shewould let me go, and staid as long as she would let me stay. Jack was always glad to see me, and glad to tell me stories. I wasalways glad to hear his stories. Some sailors, who have spent a greatdeal of time on board of a ship, and have seen a great many places, are not good men. They do not always tell the truth. So, when theytell stories about what they saw where they went, we do not knowwhether to believe them or not. But Jack Mason was a good man, and Iknew he would not tell me what was not true. Shall I tell you some of the stories that this good old sailor told mewhen he had to stay at home, because he had broken his hip? I think Ican remember some worth telling again. "O yes, Mr. Thinker, tell us all the stories the old sailor told you. " "No, I cannot do that. I cannot remember them all. " "Well, tell us all you do remember. " "I will see about it. I will tell you some of them, at any rate. Letme see, what story shall I tell first? Shall I tell you his storyabout what he saw once, when he sailed a great way north? I guess Iwill. " [Illustration] JACK MASON'S VISIT TO THE NORTH SEA. If you should go a great way north, you would find it very cold. Thefurther you go north, the colder it is. I went so far that way onetime, that I got almost frozen. The ship I sailed in came close toan iceberg once, and we all thought for a while that the ship wouldstrike the iceberg. If it had struck, it would have been broken allin pieces, and we should have been drowned or frozen, every one of us. God was kind and good to us, though. The wind was blowing very hard, and right toward the iceberg. But just as we had got almost up to it, the wind changed, and blew us away from it. But I forgot that you do not know what an iceberg is. It is a greathill of ice. In the North Sea, these ice-hills are often as high asyour church, and sometimes a great deal higher. These hills of iceare floating along the water there, and when it is foggy or dark, thesailors cannot always see them. So sometimes the ship strikes them, and is dashed to pieces. Sometimes it gets between two of theseice-hills, and gets crushed, as if it was a little boat. Then the menin the ship have to get out, and jump upon one of the ice-hills. Butthey are pretty likely to be frozen to death then. [Illustration: The Indians. ] THE INDIANS. In that cold country I saw some Indians. They were dressed in skins. I never saw such dirty-looking men and women before in all my life, and I have never seen any such since. They had never seen a shipbefore, I should think. I thought they did not know much more thanthe white bears. Why, they would sell almost all the clothes they hadon, if we would give them a few pieces of glass, or a nail or two. One of the women who came to the ship had a little girl about fouryears old, and she said she would give us that girl, if we would lether have a tin pan which she saw. These Indians tie their children on their backs, when they have towalk a great way. They licked the oil on the outside of our lamps, just as a dog or a cat would have done. Oh, what dirty people! Theyeat their meat raw. We killed a seal one day, and our captain gave itto one of the young women. She took it, and bit it into pieces withher teeth. Then she passed it round to the rest of the Indians, andthey all helped eat it. [Illustration] THE WHITE BEARS. There are a great many white bears in that country. Sometimes you cansee two or three of them sitting on one of these ice-hills. How theyever got there, I am sure I cannot tell. I guess they went out on theice only a little way from the shore, to get something which they sawwas good to eat; and while they were on the ice, it started off, andthey could not get to the shore again. One of the men who sailed in the same ship with me, told me a storyabout a white bear, which made me laugh for an hour after I heard it. He said he was in a small boat with another sailor once, about a mileaway from the ship. I forget what they went out in the boat for, but Isuppose the captain of the ship sent them out for something. They wererowing along in the boat, and they came close to an iceberg. They sawsomething alive on the iceberg, but they could not make out what itwas: they did not know but it was a man. But they came a little nearerto the great ice-hill, and they soon found out what sort of a thingthere was on it. _Splash_ something went into the water; and in aminute a great white bear jumped into the boat, as wet as a drownedrat. Well, the sailors thought they had got to die, sure enough. What couldthey do? The first thing that they thought of, was to try to kill thebear with their oars. But they soon gave that up. They saw that thebear was too large and strong to be killed in that way. The next thingthey thought of doing, was to jump into the water. But they knew theywould die if they did that. What should they do? "I wonder which of usthe old fellow will take first, " one of the men said to the other. Each of them had his oar ready, so that when the bear made a spring atthem, he would get his ears boxed pretty sharply. That was all theycould do. Well, the bear did not seem to be at all in a hurry. The first thinghe did, after he got into the boat, was to shake himself as hard as hecould, to get the water out of his coat. After that, he walked slowlyto one end of the boat, just as if he was quite at home there, and laydown upon a coat which one of the men had brought along, and went tosleep. The sailors saw then that all they had to do was to row the bear tothe shore. So they went to work. When they got to the ship, thecaptain and all the sailors laughed a good deal, you may be sure. Theshore was not far off. The sailors rowed until the boat touched theshore, and the bear got out, and walked slowly away. He did not somuch as thank the men for the ride he had been taking. But the menwere 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 thanthree years. When we came back, we had our large ship all full of oiland whalebone. We got the oil and the whalebone out of the whaleswhich we had caught. Whales, you know, are very large fish. Theysometimes get two or three hundred barrels of oil from one singlewhale. I never shall forget what a long chase I had with a whale once. ShallI tell you about it, little friend? There was a man in the ship whowas looking out for whales. In a whale-ship there is always one manwho gets up as high as he can, and keeps a bright look-out all roundfor 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 underwater all the time. They cannot live out of the water only a fewminutes, and I suppose they feel almost as bad out of the water as wedo in it. But the whale wants to come up to the top of the water. Hewants to come up to breathe. Well, all at once, the man who waslooking out the day I speak of, when I had such a run, sung out asloud as he could, "There she blows!" We all knew what that meant. Thatis what they always say when they see a whale. It means, "There is awhale come up to breathe. " This whale was a great way off. I shouldthink he was a mile from the ship. Well, the captain told some of us to get into a boat, and to go outafter the whale. We did so. The boats are always kept ready, and ittakes only a minute to let the boat down, and start off. We rowed asfast 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 manthrew two harpoons at the whale, and they both stuck fast in hisflesh. A harpoon is a long and sharp iron, made like a spear, so thatwhen it strikes the whale, it goes in deep, and you cannot pull itout. The harpoon is fastened to a long rope, and the rope is tied tothe 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 onlya very little while to run out with all the loose rope; and our boatwent through the water pretty fast, you may be sure. I was afraid thewhale would take it into his head to dive down towards the bottom. Ifhe had gone down, we should have gone with him, unless we could havecut the rope. But he did not go down. Away we went, as fast as if wehad been on a railroad. He was all the time taking us further from theship. "Well, " we thought, "what is going to become of us!" The whaledid not seem to care any thing about that. I suppose he thought thatwas our look-out, and not his. But the fellow got tired out by and by. He had bled so much, that hebegan to grow faint. At last he went so slow, that we rowed up to him, and stabbed him with a long knife. He died pretty soon after that, and we got more than two hundred barrels of oil out of him. Catching whales seems a cruel business to you. It is a cruel business. I never liked it. But somebody must do it. The butcher who killsoxen, and sheep, and calves, has to be cruel. But we must havebutchers. We must have people to kill whales, though you never willcatch me chasing after a whale again, as long as my name is JackMason. Whales do not always run like the one I have told you about. Sometimesthey fight. After they are struck with the harpoon, they lift theirtail, or _fluke_, as they call it, and strike the boat so hard as todash it in pieces. Then the poor sailors have to swim to the ship ifthey can. If they cannot, and if there is no other boat near them thatthey can get into, they must drown. I once saw a whale that had been struck with a harpoon come up closeto the ship, and give it such a blow with his fluke, that he tore thecopper off at a great rate, and broke a thick plank in half a dozenpieces. [Illustration] [Illustration: The Indian, with his bow and arrows. ] MORE INDIANS. When I went in the whale-ship, I saw another tribe of Indians, thatwere very different from those I told you of before. They knew morethan those Indians. They used bows and arrows; and you would have beenpleased to see how they would hit a mark a great way off, with theirarrows. One of them, who had a name so long that I will not try to speak it, used to come every day to our ship, when we were lying near the shore. He liked pieces of glass, and nails and tin, and things of that kind, quite as well as the other Indians I told you of. He had seen whitemen before, so he was not at all afraid of us. I suppose that almostall the white men he had seen before used rum and tobacco. He askedall our sailors for these two things, and kept asking every day. I amsorry to say that some of the men gave him some rum once in a while, and one day he drank so much that he got drunk. Poor man! He was notso much to blame, I think, as the bad sailors that gave him the rum. What do you think about it? This man would dive in the water further than anybody I ever sawbefore or since. Some of the sailors used to throw pieces of tin intovery deep water, and tell him he might have them if he would dive andbring them up. He was so fond of such things, that he would alwaysgladly dive to get them. I once saw him dive for an old worn-out knife. The water was very deepwhere it was thrown. It was so deep that none of us thought he wouldget it. He went down, and staid a long, long time. We thought he neverwould come up again. The sailor that threw the knife into the waterbegan to be sorry he had done it, because he thought the poor Indianwas drowned. But, by and by, he came up again, with the knife in hismouth. He had been hunting after the knife on the bottom of the sea. These Indians had boats which were made of the bark of trees. Theywere so light, that an Indian could carry one of them on his shoulder. The man who used to come to the ship so often, brought his littlegirl with him one day. She was not more than six or seven years old. She had never seen any white men before, and at first she was afraidof us all. But when she saw that the white folks would not hurt herany more than the Indians would, she liked us very well, and wanted tostay with us all the time. The captain showed her his watch, and shelooked at it a long time. She thought she had never seen so strange athing before. "Is it alive?" she asked her father. He could not tellwhether it was alive or not, any more than the little girl could. The captain liked the little girl very well. He wanted to take herhome with him. So he asked her father if his little girl might go agreat way off, where the white men lived. The Indians could not talklike us. They could talk, but they did not use the same words. Thecaptain made out to tell the Indian what he wanted, by using signs, just as he would have done if he had been talking with a deaf and dumbman. And what do you think the father of that little girl said, whenhe knew that the captain wanted to take the girl home with him? Ifanybody should ask your father if he would let you go away and nevercome back again, you can tell what your father would say. He wouldsay, "No, I cannot spare my dear little child. " [Illustration] But the Indian said, "Yes, give me some money, and you can take mylittle girl, and carry her away with you. I have got more girls in myhouse. " The little Indian girl wanted to go with us, so the captaingave her father some money, and when the ship sailed, he took heralong with him. But the poor Indian girl did not live till our shipgot home. She was taken very sick, and died. We all felt very badwhen she left us. We had taught her a great many things. She couldread a little. She knew all her letters, and could spell out such easywords as there are in your little primers and picture books. She didnot know any thing about God, and Christ, and heaven, before she cameto the ship. But some of us told her about them. She was glad to hearabout them. Oh, how her bright eyes did sparkle when she heard thatChrist came into the world, and died for such little girls as she! Howhappy it made her, to think that He loved her! By and by, she used topray every night, when she went to bed. I taught her to say that sweetlittle prayer which you know so well, and love so well: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep: If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Oh, I was very sorry when our little Anna died! We called her Anna. She had another name at home, but we liked Anna better than we didher old name. I was very sorry when she died, and we were all sorry. [Illustration: The Fishermen. ] THE LITTLE SAILOR BOY. The story I told you about the Indian girl makes me think of a littleboy that we once had in our ship. He was a very good boy. The captainliked him very much. He was not the captain's child. But the captainused to say that he loved little George as much as if he was his child. The reason the captain loved him, and the reason everybody loved him, was because he was so kind and so good natured, and because he alwaysdid just as he was told to do. I must tell you how George first came to live with us in the ship. Wewere once a great many hundred miles off, and the wind blew veryhard. It blew so hard that we could not sail where we wanted to go, and by and by the ship went upon a bank of sand. There we had to staya good while. We could not get away. Nobody was drowned. We ought tohave been very thankful for that. I hope we were thankful. While wewere lying on the sand bank, the waves dashed against the ship sohard, that we were afraid it would break in pieces. We did not knowwhat to do. Some of us thought we might as well jump into the water, and try to swim to the shore. But the captain said that we shouldcertainly get drowned if we tried to do that. You wonder why we did not get into our boat, and row to the shore. Weshould have done so if we had not lost our boat. But we had no boat. The waves had dashed against it, and tore it away from the place wherewe kept it, so that we could not get it again. But when we thought we must all be lost, we saw a boat coming towardthe ship. Some fishermen had seen us, and were so kind that they cameto us in their boat, so that we could get to the shore. Oh, how gladwe were when we saw them coming! But the waves were so high, that fora good while we thought it would sink before it got to us. The men hadvery hard work to row the boat. The wind blew very hard at one time, and the little boat was blown back again almost to the shore. But theytried again, and after a long time they got to the ship. Then some ofus got into the boat, and the men rowed us to the shore. After that, the boat went back to the ship again, and got the rest of the men. But I have not told the best of the story yet. When we all got intothe house, where it was warm, we told the fishermen that they werevery good to come and help us get away from the ship. We thanked themvery much. And then they told us that we must not thank them; and theypointed to a little boy about as old as you are, I guess. "There, "they said, "that little boy is the one to thank. We should not havegone, if it had not been for him. We were afraid the waves would dashover the boat, and that we should be drowned. We did not dare to go. But this good boy said, 'Do go! oh, do go! The poor men in the shipwill get drowned, if you do not go. I will go if my father will letme. I do not think father's boat will get lost. God will not let usdrown, if we go and try to save the men. '" Well, the boy said so much, that the fishermen told him they would go, and they did go. This little boy's name was George, and this is the one that I told youwe all liked so well. The captain was so pleased with him, that heasked his father to let the little boy come and sail in his ship. Hisfather said he wished his boy to be a sailor, and the boy wanted to bea sailor, too; and that if the captain would be kind to him, littleGeorge might go. So he went, and he was the very best boy I ever sawin my life. He used to talk to the sailors; and when they did wrong, when they said bad words, he would tell them it was naughty, and Godwould not love them if they did so. The sailors did not get angry withhim, because they all saw that little George was good and kind, andthat he wanted to do them good. I know of a good many sailors whostopped swearing, because little George told them, in his kind way, that he could not bear to hear them swear, and that God would not lovethem if they did so. [Illustration] [Illustration: Rocks in the Sea. ] THE WRECK. The captain of this ship--the same one that loved little George sowell--was drowned not long after that. My little friends, I cannothelp crying when I think that this good captain, who used to be sokind to the sailors, was lost at sea. I was not in the ship at thetime. I was in another ship. I got sick of catching whales, so I didnot want to go in a whale-ship any more. The ship in which this captain was sailing was very near the shore, and there were some high rocks that stood quite down to the edge ofthe water. It was foggy at the time. The captain did not know thatthe ship was so near the rocks, because he could not see through thefog. The wind blew very hard, and blew the ship upon the rocks. Ina minute the ship broke in pieces, and all but two or three of themen who were in it were lost. The captain was lost among the rest. So was little George. When the storm was over, and the wind stoppedblowing, that dear boy was found on the shore, dead. There was a smileon his face, just such a smile as he used to have when he was living. There was a little Bible in his pocket. It was all wet with salt water. But there was some writing on one of the leaves which anybody couldread. It said, "This book was given to little George by his dearmother. " [Illustration: The Pyramids and the Sphynx. ] THE PYRAMIDS. I once went to a place called Egypt. There I saw a great many strangethings. The pyramids are wonderful enough. Did you ever hear aboutthem? They are made of stone, and are very large. I should think itwould take a great many years to make one of them, if there were ahundred men at work all the time. They must have been built a verylong time. I hardly know how long, but it was a great while beforeChrist was born. I went to the top of the largest pyramid, and went all over it. It wasone of the strangest things I ever saw. Some people think that thepyramids were built to bury kings in, when they died. If they werenot built for that, I am sure I cannot tell what they were built for. There is another odd thing in that country, not far from the pyramids. It is called a _Sphinx_. I know you will say that the name must beas odd as the thing is itself. Well, it _is_ odd, sure enough. TheSphinx is a very large rock, made to look just like a lion with aman's head. It is as large as the house I live in. There is nothingbut the head out of the ground. It was all out of the ground once, when it was first made, but the sand has now covered up that partwhich looks like a lion. A great while ago, people used to call such things as these _gods_. They used to pray to the Sphinx, just as if it was a god--just as ifit could hear anybody pray, the same as God does. [Illustration] THE WHIRLPOOL. You have seen little whirlpools in the brook, I suppose. I once sawa very large one, a great deal larger than any you ever saw in thebrook. It was in the North Sea. This whirlpool does mischiefsometimes. When vessels happen to get on the edge of it, they beginto go round and round, all the time coming near the middle of thewhirlpool. When the captain of the vessel knows that he is in thewhirlpool, he can get his vessel out, if it has just begun to goround. But after it has been in a while, he cannot get out. The vesselkeeps going round and round. The people on board hear the roar of thewhirlpool. It is too late to get away. By and by, the water draws thevessel down. It is dashed to pieces, and all who were in it are lost! I have known little boys and girls get into a whirlpool, too; adifferent kind of a whirlpool, to be sure, but a great deal worse thanthis one in the North Sea. I mean the whirlpool of _sin_. When theyfirst began to be wicked--when they first began to go round in thewhirlpool--they went round very slowly. They could very easily havegot out then, if they had tried, and if they had prayed to God to helpthem. But they did not try. So they kept growing worse and worse. Theywent round swifter and swifter. By and by, they got so far into thewhirlpool that they could not get out. It was too late. They werelost--dashed to pieces on the rocks, in the whirlpool of sin! Little boy! little girl! take care that you do not venture even to theedge of this whirlpool. Give your heart to God, while you are young, and pray to him to keep you from sin, and to lead you to heaven.