Carry On, Mr. Bowditch: Chapters 1–6

“Of course. But you have to have silver to jingle.”
Nat thought of the shilling he’d found.

“Come on, you little towhead.”

He scrambled out of bed, pulled on his trousers and shirt, and scuttled downstairs.

Granny called, “See that big house, children? Down near the water? Your great-great-great-grandfather, Captain Turner, built that house. No other house in Salem like it. It has seven gables.”

She dumped the coals on kindling, and picking up the bellows, puffed air on the coals—gently at first—then harder.

It can be a sloop, a schooner, a square-rigger.

“I guess a privateer would be a pirate in peacetime. But this is war. We only capture English ships.”

“Captain Bowditch’s boy, eh? I remember when the Polly went aground. Same day the war started. April 19, 1775.”

“It’s a bargain, Mate. But keep it a secret! Don’t ever tell any man that Tom Perry sold a tenth of his expectations for a shilling! They’d stow me in the brig. What’s worse, they’d put me on the binnacle list!”

He ambled away, his big shoulders making holes in the crowd.

But when he and Hab entered the schoolhouse, and Master Watson bristled his eyebrows at them, Nat’s knees began to shake.

Granny said, “He might as well; never going to be sizable enough to handle a ship. Come a gale at sea, you’d have to ballast his feet. Takes a heap of money, though, to go to Harvard.”

Granny said, “He might as well; never going to be sizable enough to handle a ship. Come a gale at sea, you’d have to ballast his feet. Takes a heap of money, though, to go to Harvard.”

The spring Nat was eight, Granny said, “You know where Dr. Stearns’ apothecary shop is, Nat?”

“It’s medicine! For Mother! Please hurry!”
“No cause to worry, Nat. It’s just a tonic.”

That copper-bottom, fast-sailing, frigate-built ship, MARS...captured by the PILGRIM, Joseph Robinson, Commander, Will be sold Wednesday, 11, instant, at 10 o’clock.

Out on the wharf men were trundling boxes and bales of cargo to the Freedom.

Out on the wharf men were trundling boxes and bales of cargo to the Freedom.

He remembered what Hab had told him, and sometimes, when the boys jeered at him, he said, “I’m not cold. Only sissies need winter coats.”

To the Ship’s Tavern, and splice the main brace!

No time to get his winter coat out of the garret.

There were only the sounds he had known all these years in Salem—the creaking of the old wooden house, buffeted by Atlantic winds.

“I don’t cry. Boys don’t blubber.”

This indenture witnesseth that

NATHANIEL BOWDITCH
hath put himself, and, by these Presents, doth
 voluntarily and of his own free will and accord, and
 with the consent of
HABAKKUK BOWDITCH

put and bind himself apprentice to

ROPES AND HODGES
to learn the Art, Trade or Mystery of

SHIP CHANDLERY
for and during a term of NINE YEARS.

I think I’ll do better with bookkeeping than barrel staves, all right.

Little Lois bit her tongue and studied her New England Primer.

Mr. Hodges was a tall, sandy-haired young man, with a long face that looked stern until he smiled.

We’ll get you settled in your new home, and then you can begin to get acquainted at the chandlery.

Everything seemed to be listed there—from hardtack to copper nails—from sextants to coffeepots.

Everything seemed to be listed there—from hardtack to copper nails—from sextants to coffeepots.

He shook his head dolefully.

Nat looked around and saw keen blue eyes in a square ruddy face, under a shock of white hair.

He sailed under me more than once—before he had his own sloop.

We’ll start at the stern and work forward along the starboard bulkhead.

The stern is the back and the starboard is the right and a bulkhead is a wall.