The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-07-01
By Ben Anes
 Williams

that the water swirling back along his sides, that I saw the man on his back. Just forward of the hump he was and just back of the harpoon shaft, clinging to the line, right as- traddle of the whale and all asprawl across his back.
 said no word. but I prayed a prayer for the fool soul of Red Simpson, who had swallowed the yarns of Pitchpole Dawson and had mounted the whale In his furry to prove he was what he would never be-a whale man. But I had time for no more than a whisper of a prayer; for the second mates boat was coming up on the other side to pick up the men in the water and l swung my boat that way to help.
 But the whale thought different. He had started away in a big circle against the sun. the great head of him lifted out of the water, and the blood and froth whipping in behind and smothering from sight the man clinging to the harpoon there. Then, as l started to cut across his wake, he made a quick whirl and came back straight at me.
 I knew he could not see me, me be- ing straight ahead of him, and hit eyes being set, as you might say, on opposite sides of the house and
 
 blunt bows of him were like a bat tering ram 15-foot across; and his mouth was gaping wide with the long lower jaw, with it's double row of curved teeth, hanging all but straight down, ready to crunch home on anything that came handy. Seeing that mighty thing coming I trem- bled, but at the last moment safely swept by my craft out of his path and to one side as he plowed past.
 His wash all but swamped us; and 1t might as well have finished the wicked little eye, he saw us; and he gave flirt of his great bulk, and his flukes swung up beneath us and rapped the bottom of our boat so that boat and all went into the air. We were knocked clear of the water and over and over, every man fly ing forty ways.
 Even at the minute his flukes hit us l caught a glimpse of the red head of Red Simpson, half -smothered in the swirl of waters across the whales back. But I had no time for more than a glimpse. The whale did not bother with us after that. There was no need, I swan to my boat and found the whales blow had opened up the bottom of it like a wicker basket. The men got the oars across the boat and tied nLwn to
 te thwarts, and there we sat In un1 water to our ntChs, gripping the oars for dear life and waiting for help.
 I recollect that Hiram Tolley says to Abner Warden: Why didn't you pay. your washwoman, Ab?' The old notion among Whalemen is that stave boats mean laundry work owed for by some one in the boats. But jok- ing didn't hit my notion at the min- ute. and I snapped:
 stow that, Tolley. There's Simp- son fast to that whales back and maybe dead by now"
 The men whirled to see, and the boat settled and cut off all our wind for minute before we drifted to the surface again. Set still, now l bawled at them. And they did; but we all watched that whale, catching a glimpse now and then of that mar still hanging there. The whale was swimming half on his side, like | they're apt to do in the furry but Simpson seemed to manage to keeL | uppermost.
 He'll be drowned" I says to my self And you're to blame for it. The second mates boat had picked up Jem Mace and his men. They must have been a quarter of a mile from us, and no chance of their tax ing us aboard with the load they had But l looked around for the ship, and I saw good news. She'd caught a breeze and was coming right down wind to use. That meant less both CT when the whale was dead.
 For the whale was dying, though slow. It couldn't have been more than a matter of seconds since Pitch pole Dawson pitchpoled home the lance that did the trick; and 1t | couldn't have been many minutes to the end But thinking of that man riding the whale made it seem as | long as a whole cruise.
 You might have thought the whale | knew the champion bronco buster of | Wyoming was aboard him. It | looked like he set out to give a real performance. I've seen one of these wild west shows since then, and l know more about bronCos than when I first heard Red Simpson talk about them. But l wish to state this whale made bronco look right feeble. He had all their tricks and some few of his own; and when he tried theirs, he