The Gam; Being a Group of Whaling Stories (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: studded the ceiling with all the blazing stars in creation. " The old man kicked me up the cabin stairway and gave me half an hour to think. Meanwhile, he was thinking, I knew that. He was inventing some wonderful new kind of punishment, and he was going to try it on me as soon as he'd got it all invented. " At last he came on deck. ' Boy,' he shouted, ' can you say the Ten Commandments ?' " ' No, sir,' I answered. ' I used to when I was in Sunday school, but I can't now, sir.' "' Then you just tumble down the cabin stairs and bring the Bible on deck.' " I did as the old man said, and then he gave me the funniest order you ever heard on a ship. ' Go out on the end o' that spanker-boom, take that Bible along with you, and don't you dare to come back till you can say the Ten Commandments from beginning to end without a single mistake, or I'll make a little spread eaglet of you! That's what I'll do!' " What ? Don't know what the spanker-boom is ? Why, it's the big round spar that keeps the spanker down, and the spanker, you know, is the monstrous hind sail of the ship. What a place to learn the Ten Commandments by heart! Thatspanker-boom is the unsteadiest piece of stick aboard any vessel, and the further out you go the livelier it swings. " Well, I tucked the book under my left arm, and crawled along that swinging boom, way out over the hurricane house and far beyond the ship's stern. When I got to the end of it, I leaned my breast against the topping-lift, with one arm curled round it, and laced my legs together under the boom. " Then I began a hunt for the Ten Commandments. I hadn't the faintest notion where to look for them. First I thought I'd try Revelation. Next it seemed more likely they'd turn up somewhere in Ruth. Again, I had an impulse that led me ...