The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-10-21
The Over Educated
Whale
The Ancient Mariners Theory Of the
Kathleen's Loss.

Injured the Ancient Mariner,
shaking his grizzled head with mel
ancholy concern. Its pity, but
always said trouble would come of
it. When you go to fooling with ma
ture you can't expect anything else.
What is it? Why, this here case of
the whaling bark Kathleen that was
rammed and sunk by "a sperm whale,
leaving the crew and the shippers
wife and the shippers wife's parrot
adrift in open boats with no tobacco
q thousand miles east of Barbados.
feel kind of personal responsibility
for that there calamity; though Lord
knows it want my fault, for l done
all could to prevent it.
'Why do you suppose that there
whale went for that there ship? The
mate says it was revenge, because he
seen his wife killed
Rats! There amt but very little
sentiment about bull sperm whale.
He don't respond none as rule to the
tender emotions. He don't go in Tor
chivalry like us-his motives is strict
ly practical.
The whale rammed that ship be-
cause that was what he had been
trained to do. He wasn't no wild whale
he was my long lost pet Little Willie.
Il bet if I'd been there and whistied
to him he'd have swum up to me
smilin' and wagged his tail. Did you
ever see a whale smile? Well, Just go
to the zoo and look at the hippopota-
mus through the biggest pair of op'ry
glasses you can find, and you can get
some idea of the effect.
How do l know he was Little Willie?
How do you know a cyclone struck
town when you amt seen itP BY the
results, don't you? well, l don't need
no more to identify my pet.
OF course there's little discrepan-
cies. The mate says the whale that
struck the Kathleen was ITO feet long.
Little Willie was 40 feet one inch
and three-quarters. But that amt no
fatal difference.
You don't realize unless you've seen
a sperm whale in action how hard IL
is to take his measure within an inch
or two under them circumstances. I've
known men to miss it by as much as
six inches-old hands at the business,
too.
with sea serpents it's worse vet
Once heard lookout report a sea SER
pent $50 feet long, and when we got
him aboard we packed him into mess
pork barrel, with room enough left
for a mermaid.
THE discrepancy about the weight
looks worse at first sight than the one
about the length. but there really amt
nothin' in 1t. The mate says the Kath-
leens' whale weighed 100 tons. Little |
Willie weighed 103 tons 979 pounds II |
ounces and three-eighths the last time |
saw him. but you know yourself hNw
even people will lose flesh on poor
board.
AS long as Willie stayed with us we
always saw that he got plenty to eat,
but after he left us he had to hustle
FOR himself. / don't count that little |
loss Of three tons or so as any evidence
against Identification at all.
"rrainin' whales was Jim Kearney's
lad. There never was greater genius
han what Jim Kearney was. but he
vas reckless and sort of unbalanced.
lie got the notion that trained whales
vas to be the great naval feature of
he comm century. 1t made him elo-
Iuent to talk about it.
1.-THE battle fleets of the future he
would say, is cruisin' by fluke power
through the tropic seas. They need no
oalin' stations, no dry docks, no re-
erves of men and ammunition. Ma
ure is keepin' them up in inexhaust-
BILE numbers for the nation that first
las wit enough to use them, and that
ation will have the mastery of the
ea.'
N<earney was so possessed with this
E.pn that he determined to begin try-
experiments himself. He had a bit
reef in the Bahamas that nobody
visited, and he persuaded me to 1
Gown there and help him.
[ tried to get him to give the thing
but you might as well try to flag
n vanderbilt automobile with a red
scktie. lie was just set, and there
asn't anything for it but to let him