George Fox Tucker

The Boy Whaleman George Fox Tucker

When I was a boy, New Bedford was not, as it is now, a great manufacturing city, but the best known and largest whaling port in the world. The wharves were then busy places; there vessels were "fitted", as they used to say, and sent out on their long voyages; other vessels returned and discharged their cargoes. Great casks of oil were arranged in rows on the wharves; those that were sold were carted off on curious old trucks called gears, and those that were to await a better market were given a thick covering of seaweed. Everybody talked ships and oil. One would hear people say, "The Janet is reported in the Indian Ocean, clean," that is, had taken no oil; "The Adeline is heard from in the Pacific, having made a 'good cut'," that is, had taken a lot of oil; "There is news from the Marcella from the other side of land, having done well." "The other side of land" meant the other side of the world, as Australia and New Zealand, in the waters round which many whalers used to cruise.