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I understand it was the first report that came through and had a good deal of the effect intended. So that when we were told that Nantucket Lightship had been sighted on Thursday morning from the bridge, a great sigh of relief went round to think New York and land would be reached before next morning.
We shan't lose him nor Elsie for a few years, anyhow." They paused at the knoll by the gate. "Fair day to-morrer," observed the Captain, looking up at the sky. "I hope it 'll be fair weather for us the rest of our days," said Mrs. Snow. "You've HAD it rough enough, that's sure. Well, I hope you'll have a smooth v'yage, now." The lady from Nantucket looked up into his face with a happy laugh.
It had been observed by the crew of the Rancocus, not only in her original run through those seas, but in her two subsequent passages from America, that the spermaceti whale abounded in all that part of the ocean which lay to windward of the group. Now Walker had once been second officer of a Nantucket craft, and was regularly brought up to the business of taking whales.
In one of the debates upon corporations Robinson took part, perhaps upon the Nantucket "camel" question, and made the best speech to which I have ever listened in defense of the system. The corporation system has yielded larger returns to Massachusetts than she has received from any other feature of her domestic policy, excepting only her system of public instruction.
I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug. Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.
Snow," said the Captain, "you'd better sleep in my room here long's you stay. I'll bunk in with Perez downstairs. I'll git my dunnage out of here right off. I think likely you'll want to clean up some." The lady from Nantucket glanced at the bureau top and seemed about to say something, but checked herself. What she did say was: "P'raps you'd better introduce me to Cap'n Burgess.
"You will doubtless want to find some things out for yourselves when you get there." "Are there any mountains, papa?" asked little Grace. "I'd like to see some." "So you shall, daughter," he said; "but we will have to go elsewhere than to Nantucket to find them." "No hills either?" she asked.
She should certainly see it the first thing, if she ever were in Nantucket again; for she considered the man, who, unaided, could make such a clock, the greatest mechanical genius that ever lived. She felt this still more when she was told that the clock could not be mended until there could be found a mechanic who was also an astronomer.
At Nantucket, however, some trouble was experienced because of the admission of pupils of color in 1843. Certain patrons criticized the action adversely and withdrew fourteen of their children from the South Grammar School. The system, however, prospered thereafter rather than declined. Many had no trouble in making the change.
"Don't feel too badly about it, little wife," he said, in a cheery tone; "it is just possible the right man may turn up before the yacht sails; and in that case I can go with the rest of you; otherwise I shall hope to join you before your stay at Nantucket is quite over."
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