Under the Polar Star; or, The Young Explorers — Background and Themes

CHAPTER I. THE GOLDEN MOOSE.

All day long that same monotonous sound, chip, chip--chip, chip, had echoed through Solomon Bertram’s work room.

He called himself a ship carpenter, and he was one, for no member of that craft ever did finer work than that he was now engaged on. Before him, upon the bench, fast assuming artistic proportions, was what had been a rough block of wood, what was now very nearly a carved animal’s head.

The old man’s eyes filled with tears and his thin hand trembled more than once as he viewed the few tools at his command, and ever and anon glanced past the half open door which led into the living rooms of the humble cottage he called home.

For at the present moment grim poverty and want hovered over that threshold, and his brave heart that had never faltered before, became sad and oppressed.

From the window he could see the quaint Maine town and the shipping in the harbor. Here in Watertown he had lived, man and boy, for nearly half a century, had brought up a happy family, had accumulated almost a fortune.

Within two years that family had been sadly bereaved, the fortune cut down to a pittance, and one trouble succeeding another rapidly, had made Solomon Bertram a prematurely old man.

The mallet and chisel moved less deftly now, for the hand that wielded them was fast growing weary, and the task was almost completed.

There was a sudden interruption that made the work cease entirely. Followed by the smart, quick tramp of hurrying footsteps on the walk outside, a boisterous form dashed through the house and the work-room door, and a bright, boyish face intruded itself upon the carpenter’s solitude.

“Is the ship’s head done, father?” its possessor asked eagerly, with a glance at the work bench.

“Almost, Will. Where have you been, and what does that mean?”

The boy’s eyes danced with delight and his face flushed excitedly as he laid several small silver coins on the bench.

“It means money, father,” he cried; “it means that I heard you tell mother this morning that there was not enough in the house to buy a pound of flour, and I made up my mind to earn some. Look, father, nearly four shillings!”

The old man’s eyes were suffused with tears as the boy rattled on volubly, and something choked in his voice as he sought to murmur, “My brave boy!”

“You know I’m old enough to begin work, father, and I know it too. There is not much chance for employment in the town, though, unless it’s among the shipping, and you won’t hear of my going to sea.”

“Not even when the old tars say I’m a natural sailor and nimble as a monkey among the rigging?”

“Not even then, Will. The sea cost me one brave son. I can’t spare the other.”

“Well, I remembered that, and went among the shops. No work anywhere. Finally I came to the new building they are putting up on the public square, and there I met my luck, as the boys say.”

“How, Will?” inquired the interested Mr. Bertram.

“They were just putting on the spire to the tower, and, ready to arrange the tackle and climb the ropes, was the steeple Jack.”

“What’s a steeple Jack?” inquired the mystified old man.

“He’s a professional climber who makes a business of going up to high places like steeples and towers. They had sent to Portland for him. He wanted one of the workmen to help him by going to the top of the tower, but they said it was too risky, and they were more used to platforms than ropes. Well, to make a long story short, I offered my services.”

“Oh, Will, always venturesome and running into danger!” spoke a reproachful voice.

Will turned and surveyed his mother, who had come unobserved to the door, with a quizzical smile.

“Now, don’t scold, mother,” he said. “I’m at home among the ropes, as the man soon found. I was on the tower before he was half way up, and when he had set the vane on the tower, two hours later, he told me he wished he had me for an apprentice. Anyway, I earned a little money, and there it is. To-morrow I’ll start in for more, and then you’ll receive pay for the ship’s head, father, and we’ll get along famously.”

Old Solomon Bertram shook his head sadly.

“I shall get no pay for that work, Will,” he said.

“No pay, when you’ve put a week’s time on it! Why, what do you mean, father?”

Mr. Bertram looked anxiously at his wife as if silently questioning her. She nodded intelligently and withdrew.

“Sit down near me, Will,” said Mr. Bertram, seriously. “I promised to have the figure head done to-day, so I will have to work while I talk. You’re a good boy, Will; a dutiful son and a help and comfort to your old parents, and I don’t feel like clouding your life with our troubles.”

“Don’t worry about that, father,” cried Will, eagerly. “If there are any clouds we’ll drive them away.”

Mr. Bertram smiled at Will’s boyish enthusiasm and said:

“Well, up to two years ago, when your brother Alan sailed away for the far north on a whaling voyage, we were happy and comfortable. I owned the house and lot here and another piece of property, besides having two thousand dollars in bank. This I put together and purchased a share in the Albatross. That was the ship poor Alan was captain of.”

“Yes, I remember,” assented Will murmuringly.

“If the whaling voyage proved a success I should have made enough to buy Alan a ship of his own. Alas, my son, the staunch old Albatross and its brave captain never came back to Watertown again!”

Mr. Bertram stopped his work to wipe away a tear that trickled down his furrowed cheek.

“But one year afterwards,” he finally resumed, “the mate of the doomed ship returned--Stephen Morris. He told a thrilling tale of adventure. The Albatross, he said, had gone far north beyond the icebergs, but had met its fate among the glaciers, and all on board had been crushed in an ice floe but himself.”

“Do you believe him, father?” asked Will, a look of dislike in his face at the mention of Morris’ name.

“He surely would have no object in spreading a wholesale falsehood. No, no, his story seemed true. He said that he saw ship and men ground under a mighty wall of ice, and that he miraculously escaped by being on the ice floe away from the ship when the catastrophe occurred. For months he froze and starved amid a horrible solitude, and one day was discovered and rescued by a whaler. He landed at Boston, but came here at once and told the story of his adventures.”

“And he has been here since, hasn’t he, father?”

“Yes, Will, and that is the strange part of it. Stephen Morris went away a poor man. He came back a comparatively rich one. He claimed that a relative had died leaving him heir to a large fortune. Be that as it may, from mate he rose to captain and ship owner. He has an interest in several coasters, and is sole proprietor of the ocean ship the Golden Moose. It’s for that ship I’m making this figure head,” and Mr. Bertram resumed work on the same, while Will sat for some moments deeply absorbed in thought.

He had never liked the coarse, rough man his father had named, and despite himself he seemed to trace some dark mystery in his solitary rescue and the possession of sudden wealth.

“Is that all, father?” he asked after a pause.

“No, for in addition to Stephen Morris’ other possessions, he seems to have also purchased a mortgage on this house and lot, representing some of the money I borrowed to buy the Albatross. He has been very hard with me about it, for I have had to scrape and save to pay the interest regularly, and this figure head just makes out the amount to pay him this six months’ interest.”

“And I’ll be ready to pay the next,” cried Will, staunchly. “Father, I’m glad you told me just how we stand. I’m going to be a man and help you, and I’m going to find out just where Stephen Morris got all his money, for I have a suspicion that he is hiding the entire truth. You know how people dislike him. Suppose my brother Alan and the crew never perished at all?”

“No, no, Will,” cried his father, suspensefully, “don’t awaken my hopes only to be plunged in despair again. No man would be so cruel as to deceive a parent like that. Stephen Morris is hard-hearted and rough in his ways, but he would not dare to return with a false story about the Albatross. You are to take this figure head to Captain Morris. It is to take the place of the moose head that was broken in the last storm.”

“All right, father,” said Will, cheerily, but he kept thinking of the strange story he had heard.

“Tell Captain Morris to have it gilded at Portland when he goes there. It can’t be done, you know, in Watertown. There, it’s done at last!”

The old man drew back and surveyed his handiwork with some little pride as he gave it a last finishing touch with a chisel.

Then he smoothed off the rough edges and lifted it into Will’s arms.

It was quite a bulky object, but Will professed to be able without difficulty to convey it to its destination.

He carried it carefully by the doorway so as not to injure the broad-spreading antlers and walked down the street in the direction of the harbor.

His young mind was busy forming plans of how he should best secure work and rescue his parents from the poverty that threatened them.

“I will put school days and play days aside,” he said, resolutely, “and begin life in earnest.”

Mark him well, reader, this boy with honest face and manly bearing and noble determination to win his way in the world, for ere this story ends he is destined to meet with many strange and varied adventures.

CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN STEPHEN MORRIS.

Will Bertram dodged aside as he was walking along the wharf, near where the Golden Moose lay at anchorage and a broad rope-loop was thrown around a dock post from a yawl coming ashore.

“Ah, it’s you, my lad,” cried the same hearty voice. “What’s that you’ve got?” and fat and jolly Jack Marcy, boatswain of the Golden Moose, clambered ashore and confronted the lad.

“A new figure-head,” explained the latter. “The last one was lost in the storm.”

“And a great storm it was, boy. Where are you going--down to the ship?”

“Yes; I want to find Captain Morris.”

“Well, you’ll find him in squally temper, I tell you that, but not at the ship.”

“At the shipping office down the wharf. Come along, lad, I’ll show the way and help you, if you don’t mind.”

“It ain’t heavy, Jack,” replied Will, as he trudged along in the boatswain’s wake. “When does the Moose sail?”

“To-night, up the coast.”

“Oh, how I wish I was going!”

“Don’t I wish it too, lad. We’ve got one youngster on board, but he is no earthly good, except to get into mischief.”

“Exactly; a shiftless, lazy piece of furniture. Here we are, my boy. I’ll go in first. Hear that; what did I tell you? The captain’s in one of his tantrums and no mistake.”

They had reached the door of the dilapidated structure where the shipping office was situated, and as the boatswain pushed it open an exciting scene was revealed to the vision of the two intruders.

Jack nimbly rounded a desk and got to the other side of the room unperceived by its occupants, while Will stood staring over the burden in his arms at Captain Morris and his clerk and general business manager, Donald Parker.

The latter lay at full length on the floor amid a wreck of the office furniture.

Glowering down at him, his face alive with brutal rage, was Captain Morris. He seemed beside himself with passion, and his beard fairly bristled as he clenched his fists.

“Say that again,” he shouted, “will you? I’m an imposter, am I? You know that I lied about the Albatross, do you? You can tell the public that, where my money came from, eh?”

“Don’t Captain, I didn’t mean anything, sure I didn’t,” pleaded the prostrate Parker, fearful of a second onslaught.

“You ungrateful scoundrel!” roared Morris, “I’ve a good mind to send you to jail, where you belong.”

“No, no!” cried the affrighted Parker.

“Yes I have. You might talk too freely. See here, Donald Parker, I saved you from prison and gave you a snug berth here, and how do you reward me--threatening to betray my secrets? I trust you no longer. You get ready to take a voyage with me, and a long one, too. You’re safer afloat, under my eye.”

“I don’t like the ocean,” whined Parker.

“You’ll like it or go to jail. As to what you pretend to know about the Albatross and my fortune, you lisp one single word outside and I’ll make you sorry for it. What do you want?”

Captain Morris directed this question to Will Bertram as he caught sight of him, but Will’s face was so obscured by the figurehead he did not at once recognize him.

“I’ve brought the moose head, sir.”

Captain Morris muttered an alarmed interjection under his breath and sprang to Will’s side.

“See here, you young Paul Pry, how long have you been sneaking around here listening to other people’s business?”

He seized Will’s shoulder in a cruel grasp as he spoke.

“I don’t sneak around anywhere,” retorted Will in a nettled tone, smarting under the man’s grip, and wrenching himself free.

Captain Morris scowled fearfully at the boy.

“Well, what do you want?” he demanded. “Oh, the figurehead! Take it to the ship, do you hear? What business have you to rush in here with it?”

“It’s my business to deliver it to you personally.”

“No sauce, you young Jackanapes. You’d better go slow or I’ll not only give your father no work, but I’ll put the clamps on him and close him out. Get out!”

He pushed Will rudely from the threshold and slammed the door in his face.

“He’s a perfect bear,” murmured Will, indignantly, as he started toward the ship. “I believed him to be a villain before and I know it now. He spoke of the Albatross as if there was some secret about it he hadn’t told. Oh, if I only knew! I will know, if watching and working can bring it out.”

The Golden Moose was a fine, seaworthy craft, and despite his unpleasant experience with its owner, Will felt a thrill of pleasure and interest as he crossed its broad deck.

He delivered the figure-head to the mate and was absorbed for some time in watching the sailors manipulate the rigging and sails.

There had always been a fascination about shipping for Will Bertram, and he glanced at a boy about his own age who was greasing some ropes with positive envy.

“I’d like to take Tom Dalton’s place for a trip or two,” he thought, but he changed his mind a moment later, as Captain Morris came walking briskly from the shipping office toward the ship.

At the sight of him the ship’s boy, Tom Dalton, whose head had been bent over his work, uttered a howl of terror, and, springing to the rigging, ensconced himself twenty feet from the decks, where he sat pale and sniveling.

A gloom seemed to come over every man on deck as Captain Morris stepped aboard. He had a reputation for excessive rudeness and brutality, and his gleaming eyes and flushed face told that he was half intoxicated and ugly.

“Aha, you’ve run away, have you?” he yelled at the terrified Tom, shaking his fist at him; “well, so much the worse for you. I told you if you went ashore without my permission I’d treat you to the cat of nine tails, and I mean to keep my word. Come down, there!”

But the cabin boy only broke into wilder sobs and tears.

“Get the whip!” ordered Morris of the mate.

The latter went into the forecastle and returned with the dreaded instrument of torture with which the cruel captain occasionally terrorized the delinquent members of the ship’s crew.

Will Bertram shuddered as he took it from the mate’s hand and slashed it around a mast with a whistling, cutting sound, a look of fiendish satisfaction on his brutal face.

“Now, Tom Dalton,” he yelled up into the rigging, “it’s ten lashes if you take your punishment like a man.”

“Oh, captain, let me off, please let me off this time,” cried Tom, frantically.

“Come down, I tell you.”

“It will kill me--I can’t stand it.”

Captain Morris coolly consulted his watch.

“For every minute you stay up there I’ll give you an extra cut.”

Amid violent moanings and with streaming eyes, the wretched cabin boy began to slowly descend to the deck.

He shrank back as the captain made a vicious grasp for him, and growled out:

“Take off your jacket and shirt.”

“Oh, captain; dear captain,” shrieked the unhappy Tom, “for mercy’s sake not that; oh, please, please, and I’ll never, never disobey the rules again!”

He groveled at the captain’s feet, he writhed in an agony of fright and dread torture.

A low murmur of disapprobation swept from the lips of the watching crew, but not one of them dared to openly manifest his disapproval of the captain’s course.

Will Bertram alone, boiling over with indignation, murmured audibly, with flushed face and flashing eyes:

Captain Morris spurned the suppliant boy with his feet, glowered defiantly at the sullen faced crew, and then turned fiercely on Will.

“I’ll show you how I punish insolent and disobedient boys, my pert young friend,” he sneered, malignantly. “Off with your jacket, I tell you!” he thundered at the half-crazed Tom.

“Don’t let him whip me. Save me, save me!” shrieked the tormented boy, appealing to the silent sailors.

And then espying Will, he sprang to his side and caught his hand frantically.

There was not a fibre in Will Bertram’s frame that did not tremble with indignation. He was overwhelmed with sympathy for the friendless Tom, and burning with resentment against the brutal Morris.

One sentence, quickly and impulsively, he whispered into Tom’s ear:

A suggestion from an outsider, a hope clutched at eagerly, the words seemed to arouse him to action.

With one bound he was over the rail and on the wharf. Before Captain Morris could comprehend what had occurred, Tom Dalton was flying down the wharf like one mad.

“You young jackanapes,” he yelled, advancing with uplifted whip toward Will, “I’ll teach you to raise a mutiny on my ship.”

“Captain Morris, don’t you dare to strike me.”

Erect, defiant, flinching not one whit, the spirited boy faced the enraged captain.

“You’ll help my crew to desert, will you? Take that.”

The whip cut the air, but not so quickly but that Will Bertram evaded its circling stroke.

He leaped aside, and seized the first article for defense that came to hand.

It proved to be a bucket half full of soft soap with which a sailor had been washing the decks, but he did not notice that amid his excited determination to resent Captain Morris’ exercise of authority.

Lifting it threateningly aloft on a level with the captain’s form, he cried out:

“Don’t you strike me, Captain Morris; I am not your slave, if that poor boy is.”

At the captain’s foaming, rage-filled tones Will Bertram did drop it.

The bucket fell between them. Its contents splattering far and wide, and trickling over the deck, made the captain retreat summarily.

In so doing the soft, slimy substance gave him a slippery foothold. He slid forward with a muttered imprecation and fell.