Читать книгу Frank Brown, Sea Apprentice онлайн

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To his great delight, however, he speedily learned to go aloft, having strong nerves and not being giddy. At first he felt terribly alarmed when, having climbed as high as the main-yard, he looked down at the narrow space of deck beneath and the wide blue sea around. But before his fellow-apprentice, Harry, had begun to climb at all he had learned how to loose a sail, make up a gasket, and furl a staysail, and had even accomplished the much more difficult task of greasing down, a task that everybody on board tries to get out of if possible, because of its dirt and its danger. For the grease must be plastered on the after side of the upper masts with the bare hands, and consequently the job of holding with greasy hands is a very difficult one, while the manipulation of the grease-pot is a business that worries even the smartest man.

Finding him willing and able, the mate put more and more of such tasks upon him, until, besides being quite the equal of Johnson in ability, he was in a fair way of becoming as useful as the average seaman, except that he could not as yet perform a single piece of “sailorising,” as it is called, meaning the various manipulations of rope, such as splicing, knotting, serving, &c., neither could he steer. And all this, because he was “gleg at the uptak,” as the Scotch say, before the vessel had got down to the line. This, had he known it, proved the wisdom of Captain Burns in selecting a small ship for him, for in them a boy is bound to learn, there being so many things that a boy can do if he will, and so few men to spare. It also proves the untruth of what is so frequently alleged as to the expense of carrying boys at sea. I have been in a great many ships, but I have never yet been in one where the boys did not earn their pay and keep quite as fully as any man, generally much more so, and where premium apprentices were carried, I have often seen them in their third year doing more and better work than any foremast hand in the ship.