Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1891 — CAPTAIN CASTLE’S WHALE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CAPTAIN CASTLE’S WHALE.

I A California Gray Uses a Pretty PlbtBoat lor a Scratching Post. The pilot boat Lady Mme. Captain Steve Castle, was lying becalmed, about ten miles southwest of the main Farallones. Not a ship was in sight, and the captain improved the opportunity to shift the schooner’s canvas for her lighter summer suit. All handswere engaged on the work, and to secure more deck room the yawl-boat-used for boarding vessels was heaved oyer the side and made fast astern by six or eight fathoms of painter. The sea was full of whales, lolling about on the glassy surface, playing and blowing and emitting an unpleasant oily odor, as wha’es are wont to do* when the sun is shining, the air is still and the water smooth. One particularly big fellow of thefinback variety, commonly called California grays, manifested much interest in the Lady Mine, and came alongside' to investigate. The first notice of his approach was received from a tremendous flock of seabirds that skimmed along the surface, flying down tosnatch their food of parasites everv time the whale came to the surface. All the birds flew away when the big fish sounded a cable’s length from theLady Mine, and the crew thought hehad taken his departure. In this they were erroneous, for in about two minutes the schooner set up a violent rocking, a huge black bulk suddenly loomed up alongside, there was a sound as of escaping steam and half the deck was wet with a cloud of ill-smelling spray. It was an awful big whale for a finback. It was longer than the Lady Mine, which measures eighty-three feet. When he came up he touched the schooner, but did it very gently, notwith a jar or a bump, but with a slow upheaval that simply shoved the vessel off sideways, and careened her over a little until her round bottom slid off the monster’s back. The whale appeared highly delighted, and repeated, the performance. For two hours he was never 200 yards from the Lady Mine, and half the time, when he was above water, the crew could have touched him by simply extending their hands over the side. A dozen times

he rubbed against her side, but always with the same gentleness that characterized his first contact, and often his huge fin protruded above the rail us big as a boat sail. He was an old bull, and his back and head were literally covered with barnacles. It was to rid himself of these that he rubbed up against the boat, the crew soon learned. The crew did not mind the whale using the Lady Mine for a backscratcher as long as he continued goodnatured about it, but they did protest against the odor, and finally made an attempt to diive him away. The boatkeeper prodded him with a sharppointed spinnaker boom just as he rose near the schooner’s stern. Down he went like a flash, and in his flurry he breached directly across the little yawl’s painter, which was hanging slack a foot or so beneath the surface of the water. One of his flukes caught the line, and as the several tons of blubber and whalemeat went down the yawl boat went, too. The bow plunged under with a terrific dash, and the oars and loose bottomboards of the boat flew for yards around in all directions. The entire boat was lost to sight for over a minute, when it popped up like aco k, full of water, but right and tight and perfectly uninjured. The crew used garnished language, bailed the boat out, gathered up the gear that strewed the surrounding ocean and hauled the rescued craft aboard. The whale manifested no anger whatever, but returned in a few minutes as if nothing had happened. He rubbed off a couple or three more barnacles as gently as before, flirted his monstrous tail contemptuously, and took his departure.— San Francisco Examiner.

Afraid of the Results. “Now,” mamma, I ” Thus the child began, and was stopped short by her mother. "Lottie, how many times I’ve fold you not to begin with ‘Now.’ It is ‘Now, mamma,’ ‘Now, I can’t, - ‘Now, I will, ‘Now, something or other,’ continually. Don’t say it again! The very first time you do I will send you to stand fifteen minutes in the corner.” Little Lottie knew full well the terrors of that punishment. What an eternity it seemed to her to stand that length of time with her face to the wall, not allowed to turn around or speak, till told that the time was out; for always after about three minutes she felt sure ths fifteen minutes mustbe passed, and that she, forgotten, must stand there always! So cautious Lottie retreated with her doll out of mamma’s hearing, and it being already late in the day, escaped condemnation. When the little nightgown hadlbeen donned, and mamma said tenderly: “Now, darling, say your little prayer,” Lottie failed to notice how the catcher had been caught on the “now,” but answered : “I can’t—l mustn’t.” “Lottie! Why not?” “ ’Cause if I say my ‘ I lay me,’ I must stand in the corner.” —jffou.ekeepers’ Weekly. ,

THE WHALE WENT DOWN, AND SO DID THE YAWL