Chapter Three. On Board the Typhoon

The Story of a Bad Boy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I do not remember much about the voyage to Boston, for after the
first few hours at sea I was dreadfully unwell.

The name of our ship was the "A No. 1, fast-sailing packet
Typhoon." I learned afterwards that she sailed fast only in the
newspaper advertisements. My father owned one quarter of the Typhoon,
and that is why we happened to go in her. I tried to guess which
quarter of the ship he owned, and finally concluded it must be the
hind quarter-the cabin, in which we had the cosiest of state-rooms,
with one round window in the roof, and two shelves or boxes nailed up
against the wall to sleep in.

There was a good deal of confusion on deck while we were getting
under way. The captain shouted orders (to which nobody seemed to pay
any attention) through a battered tin trumpet, and grew so red in the
face that he reminded me of a scooped-out pumpkin with a lighted
candle inside. He swore right and left at the sailors without the
slightest regard for their feelings. They didn't mind it a bit,
however, but went on singing-

"Heave ho!

With the rum below,

And hurrah for the Spanish Main O!"

I will not be positive about "the Spanish Main," but it was
hurrah for something O. I considered them very jolly fellows, and so
indeed they were. One weather-beaten tar in particular struck my
fancy-a thick-set, jovial man, about fifty years of age, with
twinkling blue eyes and a fringe of gray hair circling his head like
a crown. As he took off his tarpaulin I observed that the top of his
head was quite smooth and flat, as if somebody had sat down on him
when he was very young.

There was something noticeably hearty in this man's bronzed
face, a heartiness that seemed to extend to his loosely knotted
neckerchief. But what completely won my good-will was a picture of
enviable loveliness painted on his left arm. It was the head of a
woman with the body of a fish. Her flowing hair was of livid green,
and she held a pink comb in one hand. I never saw anything so
beautiful. I determined to know that man. I think I would have given
my brass pistol to have had such a picture painted on my arm.

While I stood admiring this work of art, a fat wheezy steamtug,
with the word AJAX in staring black letters on the paddlebox, came
puffing up alongside the Typhoon. It was ridiculously small and
conceited, compared with our stately ship. I speculated as to what it
was going to do. In a few minutes we were lashed to the little
monster, which gave a snort and a shriek, and commenced backing us
out from the levee (wharf) with the greatest ease.

I once saw an ant running away with a piece of cheese eight or
ten times larger than itself. I could not help thinking of it, when I
found the chubby, smoky-nosed tug-boat towing the Typhoon out into
the Mississippi River.

In the middle of the stream we swung round, the current caught
us, and away we flew like a great winged bird. Only it didn't seem as
if we were moving. The shore, with the countless steamboats, the
tangled rigging of the ships, and the long lines of warehouses,
appeared to be gliding away from us.

It was grand sport to stand on the quarter-deck and watch all
this. Before long there was nothing to be seen on other side but
stretches of low swampy land, covered with stunted cypress trees,
from which drooped delicate streamers of Spanish moss-a fine place
for alligators and Congo snakes. Here and there we passed a yellow
sand-bar, and here and there a snag lifted its nose out of the water
like a shark.

"This is your last chance to see the city, To see the city,
Tom," said my father, as we swept round a bend of the river.

I turned and looked. New Orleans was just a colorless mass of
something in the distance, and the dome of the St. Charles Hotel,
upon which the sun shimmered for a moment, was no bigger than the top
of old Aunt Chloe's thimble.

What do I remember next? The gray sky and the fretful blue
waters of the Gulf. The steam-tug had long since let slip her hawsers
and gone panting away with a derisive scream, as much as to say,
"I've done my duty, now look out for yourself, old Typhoon!"

The ship seemed quite proud of being left to take care of
itself, and, with its huge white sails bulged out, strutted off like
a vain turkey. I had been standing by my father near the wheel-house
all this while, observing things with that nicety of perception which
belongs only to children; but now the dew began falling, and we went
below to have supper.

The fresh fruit and milk, and the slices of cold chicken, looked
very nice; yet somehow I had no appetite There was a general smell of
tar about everything. Then the ship gave sudden lurches that made it
a matter of uncertainty whether one was going to put his fork to his
mouth or into his eye. The tumblers and wineglasses, stuck in a rack
over the table, kept clinking and clinking; and the cabin lamp,
suspended by four gilt chains from the ceiling, swayed to and fro
crazily. Now the floor seemed to rise, and now it seemed to sink
under one's feet like a feather-bed.

There were not more than a dozen passengers on board, including
ourselves; and all of these, excepting a bald-headed old gentleman-a
retired sea-captain-disappeared into their staterooms at an early
hour of the evening.

After supper was cleared away, my father and the elderly
gentleman, whose name was Captain Truck, played at checkers; and I
amused myself for a while by watching the trouble they had in keeping
the men in the proper places. just at the most exciting point of the
game, the ship would careen, and down would go the white checkers
pell-mell among the black. Then my father laughed, but Captain Truck
would grow very angry, and vow that he would have won the game in a
move or two more, if the confounded old chicken-coop-that's what he
called the ship-hadn't lurched.

"I-I think I will go to bed now, please," I said, laying my band
on my father's knee, and feeling exceedingly queer.

It was high time, for the Typhoon was plunging about in the most
alarming fashion. I was speedily tucked away in the upper berth,
where I felt a trifle more easy at first. My clothes were placed on a
narrow shelf at my feet, and it was a great comfort to me to know
that my pistol was so handy, for I made no doubt we should fall in
with Pirates before many hours. This is the last thing I remember
with any distinctness. At midnight, as I was afterwards told, we were
struck by a gale which never left us until we came in sight of the
Massachusetts coast.

For days and days I had no sensible idea of what was going on
around me. That we were being hurled somewhere upside-down, and that
I didn't like it, was about all I knew. I have, indeed, a vague
impression that my father used to climb up to the berth and call me
his "Ancient Mariner," bidding me cheer up. But the Ancient Mariner
was far from cheering up, if I recollect rightly; and I don't believe
that venerable navigator would have cared much if it had been
announced to him, through a speaking-trumpet, that "a low, black,
suspicious craft, with raking masts, was rapidly bearing down upon
us!"

In fact, one morning, I thought that such was the case, for
bang! went the big cannon I had noticed in the bow of the ship when
we came on board, and which had suggested to me the idea of Pirates.
Bang! went the gun again in a few seconds. I made a feeble effort to
get at my trousers-pocket! But the Typhoon was only saluting Cape
Cod-the first land sighted by vessels approaching the coast from a
southerly direction.

The vessel had ceased to roll, and my sea-sickness passed away
as rapidly as it came. I was all right now, "only a little shaky in
my timbers and a little blue about the gills," as Captain Truck
remarked to my mother, who, like myself, had been confined to the
state-room during the passage.

At Cape Cod the wind parted company with us without saying as
much as "Excuse me"; so we were nearly two days in making the run
which in favorable weather is usually accomplished in seven hours.
That's what the pilot said.

I was able to go about the ship now, and I lost no time in
cultivating the acquaintance of the sailor with the green-haired lady
on his arm. I found him in the forecastle-a sort of cellar in the
front part of the vessel. He was an agreeable sailor, as I had
expected, and we became the best of friends in five minutes.

He had been all over the world two or three times, and knew no
end of stories. According to his own account, he must have been
shipwrecked at least twice a year ever since his birth. He had served
under Decatur when that gallant officer peppered the Algerines and
made them promise not to sell their prisoners of war into slavery; he
had worked a gun at the bombardment of Vera Cruz in the Mexican War,
and he had been on Alexander Selkirk's Island more than once. There
were very few things he hadn't done in a seafaring way.

"I suppose, sir," I remarked, "that your name isn't Typhoon?"

"Why, Lord love ye, lad, my name's Benjamin Watson, of
Nantucket. But I'm a true blue Typhooner," he added, which increased
my respect for him; I don't know why, and I didn't know then whether
Typhoon was the name of a vegetable or a profession.

Not wishing to be outdone in frankness, I disclosed to him that
my name was Tom Bailey, upon which he said be was very glad to hear
it.

When we got more intimate, I discovered that Sailor Ben, as he
wished me to call him, was a perfect walking picturebook. He had two
anchors, a star, and a frigate in full sail on his right arm; a pair
of lovely blue hands clasped on his breast, and I've no doubt that
other parts of his body were illustrated in the same agreeable
manner. I imagine he was fond of drawings, and took this means of
gratifying his artistic taste. It was certainly very ingenious and
convenient. A portfolio might be misplaced, or dropped overboard; but
Sailor Ben bad his pictures wherever he went, just as that eminent
person in the poem,

"With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes" -

was accompanied by music on all occasions.

The two bands on his breast, he informed me, were a tribute to
the memory of a dead messmate from whom he had parted years ago-and
surely a more touching tribute was never engraved on a tombstone.
This caused me to think of my parting with old Aunt Chloe, and I told
him I should take it as a great favor indeed if he would paint a pink
hand and a black hand on my chest. He said the colors were pricked
into the skin with needles, and that the operation was somewhat
painful. I assured him, in an off-hand manner, that I didn't mind
pain, and begged him to set to work at once.

The simple-hearted fellow, who was probably not a little vain of
his skill, took me into the forecastle, and was on the point of
complying with my request, when my father happened to own the
gangway-a circumstance that rather interfered with the decorative
art.

I didn't have another opportunity of conferring alone with
Sailor Ben, for the next morning, bright and early, we came in sight
of the cupola of the Boston State House.