CHAPTER III
LIFE ON A SPONGER
The yacht sailed on and d.i.c.k, walking up to Captain Wilson, who stood at the wheel, said, as he lifted his cap:
"I beg to report for duty, sir." The captain grinned, as he replied:
"I hope you"ll always be as polite. You"ll sure be a curiosity on this coast. I"ll put you in with Pedro. He doesn"t know much English, but you can talk enough for both. There he is, that black-mustached fellow, with little rings in his ears. He will let you know what your duties are."
A string of four dingies trailed behind the sponger and as many poles, each thirty feet long, with a sponge-hook at one end, lay upon the deck. Pedro was examining one of these poles when Billy went to him and said:
"Pedro, I am to go in your boat. What do I have to do?"
"You scull where I tell you--slow--I look in gla.s.s--see sponge--take up pole--you stop still--then you scull where pole go--you work good or I keek you."
"Pedro, if you ever keek me, you"ll go overboard queek and don"t you forget it."
The sponger lay at anchor on the sponging ground for nearly a week before the water was clear enough for work. d.i.c.k spent most of his time sculling his dingy and soon learned to throw his weight on the big sculling oar to the best advantage without going overboard very often. One day while Pedro sat in the bow, they saw a 400-pound loggerhead turtle lying asleep on the water. Pedro motioned to d.i.c.k to scull up to the turtle and when the dingy was within three feet of the creature he jumped on its back and seized the edge of its sh.e.l.l just behind the head, with both hands. Pedro"s weight was so far aft on the turtle"s deck that the bow pointed upward and the reptile"s struggles only served to keep its head above water and thus carry the man comfortably on its back. Soon Pedro shifted his right hand to the tail-end of the turtle and thereafter navigated his living craft with ease. d.i.c.k sculled the dingy beside the turtle and, while trying to make fast the boat"s painter around the creature, fell overboard. Pedro didn"t know enough English to express his feelings fully, and so talked Spanish for a while. d.i.c.k thought he could get the rope around the turtle more easily if he stayed in the water, and he finally succeeded, though the reptile got one of the sleeves of his shirt while he was doing it. Then the boy and Pedro got into the boat and pulled the turtle beside it. In rolling the reptile aboard they shipped a lot of water and as the turtle dropped suddenly to the bottom of the dingy d.i.c.k fell backwards out of the boat. Pedro began to express himself in Spanish again, and, as the sponger was less than two hundred yards distant, d.i.c.k swam to it, leaving his companion to bail out the dingy and scull it to the big boat. The boat"s tackle was required to hoist the turtle aboard, where it was turned over to the Cook, who butchered it on deck. The heart of the reptile continued to beat for hours after it had been removed from the body, so strongly that its throbbing could not be restrained by the grip of the most powerful hand. Pedro said that the heart would beat till the sun went down, and it did.
For days d.i.c.k hunted all the turtles he saw lying on the water. At last he got near enough to one to grab him before he dove. But he got hold too far back, the reptile"s head was already turned downward and his flippers forced him rapidly forward. d.i.c.k hung on as well as he could, which wasn"t for long, for the strong rush of the water and its great pressure as the reptile made for the bottom quickly compelled the boy to let go. Yet he was under water so long that when he came to the surface Captain Wilson was in a dingy sculling like mad to reach him. The captain gave the boy a kindly warning, which affected him so much that in ten minutes he was off after another turtle, which he saw asleep. The creature began his dive just as d.i.c.k jumped for him, and the boy got hold of his tail-end as it was lifted above the water, in time to get a sharp slap in the face from the heavy hind flipper of the turtle. d.i.c.k sculled for an hour without seeing another turtle, when, as he was returning to the boat and within a hundred yards of it, one rose beside the dingy so near that the boy was on its back before it could go under the surface. He soon had his charger in fair control, but the science of riding a big loggerhead turtle isn"t picked up in a minute. One of the crew came out in a dingy to help, but d.i.c.k asked him to pick up his boat and oar and take them to the sponger and said that he would ride back on the turtle. Sometimes his steed was manageable, and once he got within a few yards of the big boat, when it broke loose and carried him fifty yards away. Then, as d.i.c.k tried to check the reptile, he pulled its head too far and tipped it over on its back on top of himself, with his own head so near the parrot-like jaws of the loggerhead that when they were snapped in his face they missed his nose by about an inch. The turtle was as anxious to turn over as the boy, and, by favoring his motions, d.i.c.k soon had the creature right side up, while he again rode triumphantly on his back. In another hour the halyards were fast to the turtle and Billy had made good his promise to ride it back to the boat.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "d.i.c.k HUNTED ALL THE TURTLES HE SAW"]
When the water became clear the dingies were sent out with two men in each, one of whom sculled while the other sat with his face in a water-gla.s.s watching the bottom for sponges. The water-gla.s.s is a bucket with a gla.s.s bottom which so smooths the surface of the water as to produce the effect of a perfect calm to one who is looking through it. The first day of sponging was like a dream to d.i.c.k. The water was smooth as a mirror and no water-gla.s.s was needed. He sculled slowly over water so clear that he seemed to be floating in the air. Beneath him was fairyland, filled with waving sea-feathers and anemones, paved with curious sh.e.l.ls, strangely beautiful forms of coral and sponges of various kinds, and alive with fish of many varieties. Sometimes there floated on the surface of the water Portuguese men-of-war, most beautiful of created things, like iridescent bubbles, with long silken filaments, delicately lined in pink, purple and entrancing blue. Lighter than thistledown, fitted to drift with the merest zephyr, they can nevertheless force their way against a breeze. Harmless as a soap-bubble in appearance, each of them is charged with virulent poison, and when d.i.c.k touched one with his hand he received a shock that made him wonder if a bunch of hornets had hidden in that innocent-looking bubble.
Sometimes schools of little fish gliding beneath the dingy began to dash wildly about, and a moment later a group of jackfish or Spanish mackerel could be seen darting around and picking up stragglers from the little school, which often huddled for protection close beside and beneath the dingy. d.i.c.k like all brave boys, was on the side of the under dog, and he laughed with glee when a quick-moving mackerel shark appeared among the pursuers of the little fish and picked up a few of them for his breakfast as he drove the rest away. As d.i.c.k sculled easily with one hand, he kept an eye upon Pedro, and obeyed the signals of his hand, to go to the right, the left, or stop, as sponges were seen. Then from time to time the long pole with the claw at the end was lowered to the bottom and a sponge torn loose.
Sometimes d.i.c.k changed places with Pedro, and manipulated the long pole with the claw, while Pedro handled the sculling oar. Then d.i.c.k began to learn the difference between coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and common cup sponges, and the finer fibred glove and choice sheep"s wool varieties. For when he was clumsy with the pole, Pedro only swore softly in Spanish, but when he brought up a worthless gra.s.s sponge, the big oar was lifted, and the boy might have been knocked overboard but for the iron claw which he held high, while a purpose gleamed in his eye which made Pedro peaceful. But d.i.c.k felt that Pedro was half right and he set to work studying sponges until he knew them almost as well as his teacher. His strength and skill with the sponge hook were less than the Spaniard"s, but his eye was quicker and Pedro"s chronic growls were often changed to grunts of approval. When the surface of the water was ruffled by a breeze it was needful to use the water-gla.s.s. Then Pedro sat with his head in the bucket, studying the bottom, and when he took up the heavy pole which lay on the thwarts of the dingy and dipped it vertically in the water, it was the duty of d.i.c.k to stop sculling at once. But once while d.i.c.k was sculling and looking for sponges he saw gliding beneath the dingy, a whip-ray, the most beautiful member of the ray family. Shaped like a b.u.t.terfly, its back is covered with small, light rings on a black background. Its long, slim tail is like the lash of a coach-whip and at its base is a row of little spears with many barbs, which are capable of inflicting exceedingly painful wounds. The roof of the mouth and the tongue of the fish are hard as ivory and sh.e.l.l-fish are ground between them as rock is pulverized by the jaws of a quartz-crusher. As Billy watched the graceful swaying of the body of the whip-ray under the impulse of its wings, a wandering shark came upon it. In its first rush the tiger of the sea almost caught the beautiful creature, which fluttered for a hundred yards upon the surface of the water, with the jaws of its pursuer opening and closing within a few inches of its body.
d.i.c.k was so busy watching the chase and so earnest in his sympathy with the frightened, fleeing whip-ray that he quite forgot his duties. He was reminded of them when Pedro, who had been frantically signaling him, took his head from the bucket and made a speech in Spanish to d.i.c.k that must have used up all the bad adjectives in that language. d.i.c.k"s conscience hampered him so much that he was quite unable to reply fittingly, and the battle of words was won by Pedro. The dingy drifted so far during the discussion that they were unable to find the sheep"s wool sponge that Pedro had seen, and which he now described as the finest one ever found.
Each day the spongers in the dingies worked farther from the sloop and each day more time was lost when the sloop made its round to pick up the spongers for dinner. There were too few sponges to please Captain Wilson, who sailed over the ground whenever the water was smooth, studying the bottom with practiced eye and throwing out little floats, with anchors attached, wherever a sponge was seen.
"I"m going to the "Lake,"" said the captain, one afternoon at the end of a day of little success. "It"s a feast or a famine there. You get rich or go broke."
"What is there at the "Lake"?" asked d.i.c.k.
"Sponge, all sponge, the bottom lined with sponge. If the weather is just right we"ll pile the deck with sponges in a week till you can"t see over them. If the weather isn"t exactly right we won"t get a sponge. On one cruise there, the men on this sloop averaged twenty-five dollars a day apiece. I"ve been there five times since without ever making enough to pay for our salt."
A week later the captain said to the boy:
"d.i.c.k, you are a mascot. You"ve brought us big luck. We never had such weather here but once and I don"t care now how soon it comes on to blow. I reckon it"ll begin to-night from the looks and we"ll hike for Key West to-morrow."
d.i.c.k was glad to go. The week had been a hard one, the work incessant and each night he felt as if his back were broken. He was used to the fresh, sweet air of his country home and the sloop he was in was arranged like most of the sponging craft, with quarters sufficient for half the crew it carried. The deck of the sponger was piled with the result of the work of the week. The sponge of commerce, the one you buy at the drug store, is the skeleton of the creature; the thing taken from the water is its corpse. Not until this body has rotted away is it pleasant to live with. Day by day the stench, like that of a charnel house, became more unbearable to d.i.c.k. The crew seemed never to notice it, which caused the boy much wonderment that noses had ever been given them. He was glad when a strong wind came and swept some of the smell away instead of leaving it to settle in chunks in every nook and cranny on the boat.
At Key West most of the crew went to their homes, but d.i.c.k was invited to live on the sloop till he found a boat for the coast he wanted to reach.
Cargoes sent to Key West for a market are almost always sold at auction and the auction houses in the early morning are busy marts.
Cargoes of sponge, fruit, vegetables, lumber and other goods are sold in lots to suit purchasers, who range from the dealer who buys by the cargo, or the small merchant who takes a few boxes of pines, oranges, grape-fruit, or tomatoes, to the housewife who wants a watermelon or a bunch of bananas. On the day following their arrival at Key West Captain Wilson handed d.i.c.k a roll of bills containing a hundred dollars, saying to him:
"That"s about your share in the cruise, d.i.c.k. The sponge hasn"t been sold yet, but you are in a hurry to get off and I reckon that"s about right."
d.i.c.k was dazed as he took the roll, but a moment later he handed it back to the captain, saying:
"I can"t take that, Captain Wilson. It is ten times as much as I have earned. You took me on as a boy and I want you to pay me just what you would have paid any other boy."
"Put that money in your pocket, d.i.c.k. You"ve done a man"s work and now you"ve got a man"s pay and that"s all there is to it. Lucky for you, though, that the weather was good at the Lake. If it hadn"t been you wouldn"t have got anything but your board. Now come ash.o.r.e and we"ll hunt up a boat for Marco or Chokoloskee."
They stopped at an auction room in Key West for a minute, when Captain Wilson sang out to a boy who was pa.s.sing:
"Hi, Johnny! Where"s the _Etta_?"
"Same old place, off the end of the dock."
"Thought yesterday was your sailing day."
"So it was, but Cap"n"s in the calaboose. Got drunk yest"d"y and had a fight. I got ter raise th" cash ter git him out."
"Why don"t the boss bounce him? He"s drunk most of the time."
"Boss says Cap"n Tom"s a better sailor when he"s drunk than any of th" others when they"re sober."
"Well, I"ll get Tom out of limbo for you and charge it to the boss.
Only you must take this friend of mine with you to Chokoloskee."
"Sure! What"s his name?"
"Name"s d.i.c.k. Can you make an alligator-hunter of him?"
"Reckon I kin, or kill him tryin"."
CHAPTER IV
CAUGHT IN A WATERSPOUT
The next morning the _Etta_, with d.i.c.k on board, started for Chokoloskee. The weather was bad, with a succession of squalls from the southwest, and the captain kept in the lee of the line of keys instead of taking the straight course across the Gulf. But he carried all sail till the rotten main-sheet parted at the boom, and when he came up in the wind to lower the sail the main throat halyard refused to unreeve. Before an order was given d.i.c.k was half way up the mast and soon came riding down to the deck on the gaff.
When reefs had been taken in the sails, the sheet replaced, and the boat was again under way, the captain said to d.i.c.k:
"Who taught you sailoring?"
"Captain Wilson taught me some, and--"
"That"s enough. You don"t need to mention anybody else. What Wilson doesn"t know about sailing, sponging and fishing isn"t worth knowing."