The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

[242] had got into brains. So the Doctor tried to help him with his poticary stuff, and the women with their herbs; but all did no good. At last somebody advised him to try a fishing cruise down East; and so he persuaded me to take him aboard my schooner. I knew he'd be right in the way, and poor company at the best, for all his Greek and Latin; for, as a general thing, I've noticed that your college chaps swop away their common sense for their larning, and make a mighty poor bargain of it. Well, he brought his books with him, and stuck to them so close that I was afraid we should have to slide him off the plank before we got half way to Labrador. So I just told him plainly that it wouldn't do, and that if he'd a mind to kill himself ashore I'd no objection, but he should n't do it aboard my schooner. “I'm e'en just a mind,” says I, “to pitch your books overboard. A fishing vessel's no place for 'em; they'll spoil all our luck. Don't go to making a Jonah of yourself down here in your bunk, but get upon deck, and let your books alone, and go to watching the sea, and the clouds, and the islands, and the fog-banks, and the fishes, and the birds; for Natur,” says I, “ don't lie nor give hearsays, but is always as true as the Gospels.”

But 't was no use talking. There he'd lay in his bunk with his books about him, and I had e'en a'most to drag him on deck to snuff the sea-air. Howsomever, one day,—it was the hottest of the whole season,—after we left the Magdalenes, and were running down the Gut of Canso, we hove in sight of the Gannet Rocks. Thinks I to myself,