Sharp County record., 1903-04-10
The Over Educated
Whale
The Ancient Mariners Theory Of the
KathIeen's Loss.

mured the Ancient Mariner,
shaking his griz2led head with mel,
ancholy concern. ITS q pity, but l
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 sperm whale,
leaving the crew and the skipper's
wife and the shippers wife's parrot
adrift in open boats with no tobHcco
a thousand miles east of Barbados.
feel kind of personal responsibility
FOR that there calamity; though Lord
knows it want my fault, for done
all I 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.
lie don't respond none as a rule to the
tender emotions. He don't go in Tor
ahivalry like us-his motives is strict
~ practical.
The whale rammed that ship be-
cause that was what he had been
traihed to do. He wasn't 10 wild whale
he was my long lost pet Little Willie
81 bet if I'd been there and whistled
10 him he'd have swum up to me
5milin' and wagged his tail. Did you
ever see whale smile? Well, just go
70 the 700 and look ut 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 know he was Little Willie :?
How do you know cyclone struck n
town when you amt seen it? by the
results, don't you? well, 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 10 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 it
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 mches-old hands at the business,
too
with sea serpents it's worse yet.
Once heard a lookout report 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 ain't
nothin' in it. The mate says the Knth-
leens' whale weighed 100 tons. Little
Willie weighed 1903 tons 979 pounds II
ounces and thrce-eighths the last time
saw him, but you know yourself WV
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. J don't count that little
loss OF three tons or so as any evidence
against identification at all.
"Trainin' whales was jim Kearncy's
fad. There never was greater genius
than what Jim Kearney was, but he
was reckless and sort Of unbalanced.
lie got the notion that trained whales
was TO be the great naval feature Of
the comm century. 1t made him elo-
quent to talk about it.
1.-THE battle fleets of the future he
would say, is cruisin' by fukc power
through the tropic seas. They need no
coalin' stations, no dry docks, no re-
serves OF men and ammunition. Ma
ture is keepin' them up in inexhaust-
ible numbers for the nation that first
has wit enough TO use them and that
nation will have the mastery Of the
sea-
kearney was so possessed with this
notion that he determined to begin try
,ng experiments himself He had a bit
OF reef In the Bahamas that nobody
ever visited, and he persuaded me TO
go down there and help him.
u tried to get him to give the thing
"r. but you might as well try to flag
Vanderbilt automobile with red
necktie He was Just set, and there
wasn't anything for it but to let him
have his own way. -