The Diary of Nathaniel Coffin: A Survival Story Told Periodically Through the Pages of a Young Quaker’S Diary

By Steven Lee Benson

The story begins in the year 1819 when Nathaniel Coffin turns sixteen years, shortly after the tragic deaths of his parents and nine-year-old sister Christiana. Life became even more difficult after he was adopted by an alcoholic aunt named May Nickerson. Coincidentally, it was also the height of the sperm whale industry. His childhood wish to work on a whaling ship became all-consuming.
Conflict soon arose after just six weeks at seathe result of a senseless harpoon strike that took the life of Nathans close friend and shipmate, Billy McGiven.
Ostracized by his captain and crew, the offender, Duncan Albury, was set ashore. Ruthless and mean-spirited by nature, Albury found another ship, became its pirate captain, and orchestrated his revenge, which culminated on a secluded beach in Port Royal, Jamaica, setting the stage for a bloody and poignant battle. The odds are thirty to two. Do Nathan and Blackjack survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524688660

Steven Lee Benson

Steve Benson was born in St Paul, Minnesota and went to college in Minneapolis. He earned teaching degrees from the University of Minnesota and Mankato State College. He won a letter at the University of Minnesota in gymnastics and started as goalie on the soccer team for one season. After a two-year stint employed at Marcy Open School in South East Minneapolis, he was terminated: a victim of minority imbalance. His carpentry skills and love of adventure then lured him to Miami Florida, and shortly thereafter, was hired by an entrepreneur to accompany a team to South America to restore and convert a cargo ship. The vessel went on to make history as Ecuador’s first flagship; the refurbished tour vessel then began visiting the Galapagos Islands. Now retired and married, the x carpenter/cabinet maker lives in Miami Florida with his wife Donnis, and their golden retriever, Whiskey. He is an avid cook, fisherman, and a single digit golfer. This is Benson’s second book and first pure fiction.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

THE FIRST HUNT

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Dear Diary,

With a journal given to me by Aunt May I will make the first of many entries detailing my voyage as a member of the whale ship Sea Witch captioned by Isaac Chase of Nantucket Island, assisted by Bosun Tom T. Avery and Quartermaster John Maddox. After all the waiting I am finally at sea. Yesterday I signed a document, was rated able bodied (AB) assigned a wage, and given supplies not found in my slop chest, which included a not so new hammock and brand new blanket. The items I failed to bring in light of their value will be deducted from my lay but the hammock was free.

Captain Chase seems to be a fair and decent man. He has the biggest hands I have ever in life seen. Tall and wide shouldered he carries a scar that passes through his right eyebrow and cheek. He has already agreed to watch over my valuables and teach me to navigate with the instruments I inherited from my late father who died in a fire that also stole the lives of my mum and sister, Christina.

Bosun Avery is a tolerant and gentle soul. Short and stocky and agile for his age, I am drawn to his piercing blue eyes and crooked smile. He is teaching me trade skills including the art of seamanship and whale craft leaving the finer points of navigation and astronomy to our captain.

Skuttlebutt, the captain’s eleven- year- old bulldog, discovered my friend Rahgi as he hid in the new whale boat that it was my duty to ferry to the ship from the boat builder’s boathouse before we left Nantucket. For stowing away Rahgi was sent to the foremast crow’s nest for a spell without food or water. Compelled out of guilt, I offered to share punishment by taking a lash meant for him applied by a cat o’nine tails. When he witnessed the blow Rahgi cried. My back is still tender so I have to sleep on my side.

Our crew hails from every corner of the world. Our first officer, Blackjack, is Nigerian. My new friend Billy Mac is Irish but was raised by his mother in Jamaica until she died when he was the age ten. The rest of the crew tends to keep to themselves except for the one named Duncan Albury, who in his presence I take no comfort.

Post Script: I have been assigned to the tub oar rowing position in the new whaler named Barnacle until I am deemed ready to become a harpooner. Nathaniel J. Coffin, October 7th, 1821.

I t was early enough in the voyage to be served fresh eggs and pork sausage for breakfast. Nathan was still swinging in his canvas womb when the Bosun piped the crew to vittles as the first rays of the October sun illuminated the horizon. The fifes shrill notes reached every corner of the ship like the cold hand of winter. A moment later and just before the green hand’s feet felt the chill of the blackened hardwood floor, the voice of Tommy Two Toes Tolby sang out from the crow’s nest.

Ther she spouts! he cried looking down the length of his arm and just above his pointed finger.

Where away? his captain shouted as he raised his sparkling brass telescope to search the horizon.

Two points east of south, he answered. Four or five sperm with a calf, he added as he began his descent by ratline toward his craft using every other rung.

The Sea Witch carried five whalers, three of which Captain Chase ordered into the frothy Atlantic surf. The new replacement vessel was left behind on this occasion, so Nathaniel was remanded to the seat just forward of the Bosun, to relieve a man who had sustained a severely bruised hand the day before. Meanwhile, the Sea Witch came about and her sails were reduced. A steady breeze producing four to six foot rollers had ushered them along separated by patches of rarely seen calm. To the man, the Sea Witches sounded excited to finally be hunting rather than sharpening tools, customizing their slop chests, sewing, reciting poems or in a few cases, writing letters to loved ones.

Within minutes of the sighting the captain shouted give way all which in laymen’s terms translated to let us depart. Simultaneously, the Leopard Rays accompanied by Manta Rays and Sting Rays, wet their oars with nothing to guide them but a discharge of air that becomes visible through the science of condensation. Stroke by stroke, and command by command, Nathan’s breathing became shallow; his chest was heaving as his mouth ran dry. Captain Chase had been the boatsteerer of the Manta Ray for a decade. Blackjack, a former plantation slave named and mentored by Chase, was the boatsteerer of the Leopard Ray. Apathetic to the initial stages of a hunt, Captain Chase sat contentedly smoking his pipe making incremental corrections with his tiller every few minutes; his boots were still untied, a few chunks of beef jerky poking up from his vest pocket for the ride home. Bosun Avery, a Nantucketer, hobby rancher, and apple growing connoisseur, preferred rock candy. One of the few blacks to reach the rank of first officer named Blackjack, was partial to ship’s biscuit dipped in molasses until it hardened. Of Nigerian descent, tall muscular and fearless, he favored a wool skull cap that at a distance resembled the shape of an Idaho potato. QM Maddox satisfied his oral cravings with a pipe and was not part of the hunt today due in part to a strained biceps tendon and a sour stomach, so he took on a role as ship’s minder to accommodate his ills.

A bumpy road brought the first animal of the shoal into range twenty minutes later. Measuring sixty-odd feet in length spouting plumes of exhaled air every five minutes, it was perfectly unaware that she and her year-old calf were even being pursued. By this time the Sting Ray was a minute abaft, or in modern terms behind the other two whaleboats which allowed the resilient, fat-bellied Bosun time to explain tactics as he played with the sweet trapped between his cheek and gum.

The beasts always hold their heading when they submerge, lad. It is our job to stay the course and wait the bastards out. We use the time to sharpen tools, clean our pipes, and brag about our young’ens. Some use the minutes for politicking, but not I. Got no patience to squabble about men I don’t know let alone trust! When the first animal spouts the man on the tiller moves directly to the bow.

Thirty anxious but informed minutes later the order was given to make ready. A few heartbeats thereafter the massive heads of three mature sperms split the surface in perfect unison not fifty feet away, leaving voluminous spires of clear mist to follow like signage. The high-pitched exhalations that accompany a breaching whale represent a sound unique to the animal world, and music to any whaler’s ears no matter what the species.

Cruising above and beside their mark sat Nathan, who could see firsthand what a blowhole looked like, which happened to be offset and far bigger than he had imagined during his games within the confines of Nantucket bay. Studying the length of its leathery body one could observe the underside of the flukes that differentiated one sperm whale from the other like the spots on a dog or the hide on a horse. The pair of white wings surrounded in black was symmetrical on this beast’s flukes. The others were similar, but subtly different in shape and breath which gave the impression of a common gene pool.

The majestic sperm whale seemed gentle and even graceful up close, and for the first time in his young life Nathan was about to question what he must do. There was no turning back now and no time to second guess what had become a vocation in an environment surrounded by razor sharp implements designed expressly for maiming and killing.

With the tiller clinched beneath one arm Bosun Avery stood as his five mates drove their tiny vessel robustly forward with their personalized oars. Each oarsman carried a sheath knife on his hip to accompany a fearless disposition. A cutting spade was also aboard to sever a whale’s tail tendons to slow it down before it was harpooned- or after, then crippling a boat when it floundered. Coffin was now a key member of a team that depended upon him, and the strength of his character, and it is important to note that each of them was a tail-swipe away from disaster, a hundred miles from shore, exposed to the elements in an open boat measuring two and a half times less the length of their prey.

Twenty strokes later the oarsmen of the Sting Ray positioned their craft beside the first target. Bosun Avery had already exchanged places with the boat header and was now poised and braced against the thigh thwart, harpoon balanced in the palm of a hand laced with scars from years chasing the illusive leviathans. He then reversed his cap, crossed his chest, and kissed the weapon for luck. While the rowing team hovered beside it, the unsuspecting cow casually broke the surface, exhaled and descended, disappeared then resurfaced again. Waiting patiently for the perfect moment to strike, T.A. thrust his dart into the animal’s side just behind its flipper, leaving only the shaft showing—the toggle-tip sharp as glacier ice and shiny as a newly minted coin.

Wounded but not mortally, the mid-sized cow returned a high-pitched cry, thrashed her tail several times and dove, causing the tether to discharge (a cable coiled in a tub located in the rear of the boat, passing between the oarsmen and through the chock located at the nose of the vessel) producing a whine that became an angry hiss—the resulting odor caused by burning hemp. One minute later, their prey emerged from a shallow dive and immediately took flight, allowing the infamous Nantucket Sleigh Ride to begin.

At this moment, the battle between man and beast is never more intimate tethered to a sixty-ton animal now fully aware it is being hunted. While the men stowed their oars, heartbeats accelerated, pupils dilated, and palms turned clammy, as the memories of previous hunts returned to consciousness or, in short—every human sense became heightened. Nathan enjoyed riding horses in an open field near his island home. As their craft skipped and bounced over an unruly sea he observed, This moment ‘twas like the fear I felt riding bareback on a runaway gelding the summer past. Thought I’d never be able to reign in that gelding, he confessed.

Someone then added, But t’was a horse, and this bloke is a whale ‘eh greenie?

Steady lads. Stow ye oars carefully and hold fast. We’re in for a long haul, the Bosun reported, like countless times before spanning thirty years.

A quick glance over the rookie’s left shoulder [green hand] revealed the sight of the Captain’s boat freewheeling portside while a third whaler was bearing down on their prey three hundred yards to starboard; Duncan Albury was braced against the thigh thwart, darts of light warming the tip of his favorite harpoon as he waited impatiently for the perfect moment to send it home.

T’was a thing of beauty to observe the sleek but fragile vessels dividing a perfectly synchronized workload.

Consumed by the moment the unthinkable happened. For no particular reason Captain Chase’s [harpooned] whale suddenly veered, while Bosun Avery’s prey, which was on a shorter tether held its bearing, placing the Manta Ray on a collision course with the Sting Ray. Anticipating the inevitable, one boatsteerer hollered hard to starboard boys! But, neither boatsteerer had any real control over their clap board vessels, as they bounced in the wake behind their respective tonnages.

Brace yourselves men! Captain Chase screamed. Barely able to influence his craft, the Sting Ray sideswiped the Manta Ray seconds later with enough force to remove ten linear feet of gunwale from the latter, that sent the splinter cartwheeling into the air like a majorette’s baton. Extended before them like a clothesline, the Sting Ray’s cable had become so tightly stretched one could have played it like a guitar string. And, it appeared their craft was about to be forced below the other’s tether, which could flip the boat over like a pancake browning on a cast iron griddle.

Relieved of his oar, Nathan caught site of the anomaly and shouted, Lye low men, lye low! Meanwhile, a thrashing whale tail sent a mound of white water cascading down upon them. Diffused by the various distractions of sight and sound, Nathaniel’s warning failed to reach Tom Avery, who had turned to brace himself from the impact of sixty feet of water. In the second it took the Bosun to turn his back, the Sting Ray’s tether cut the man down like a farmer’s scythe, causing him to strike his head and chest on the gunwale. The fall that broke two ribs with such force the sound replicated breaking wood, sent him directly to the unconsciousness world. Now he was folded over the rail like a fresh slab of beef, and at a glance the scrappy fifty-six-year-old was about to meet his maker.

By some miracle, the rest of the Manta Rays passed beneath the Sting Ray’s harpoon line just as two massive flukes pounded the sea in the cow’s last ditch effort to outrun its captor. The calf then resurfaced, and in the confusion, crossed the Manta’s bow in search of its wounded mother. While Bosun Avery lye half-in and half-out of the boat, the Manta caromed off the young whale’s back at fifteen knots— sending the craft airborne. But by some twist of fate, and after several weightless seconds, their craft returned to swim in perfect balance, including the Bosun’s body, that bounced like a sack of potatoes upon a wagon-bed traversing a bumpy road.

In an effort to guide the calf to safety its wounded mother circled back creating another white-water umbrella, just before she arched and dove. As mother and calf attempted to evade certain death, Nathan noticed two-hundred feet of cable disappearing below her wake, fifty feet at a time on the opposite tack. As the bow of their vessel spun to port 180 degrees it didn’t take long to realize that in seconds the Manta Ray would be dragged down with her. At this moment, the boy was the only crewmember facing forward in a boat of men facing aft. To save his Bosun, who was teetering like a wooden plank on a fulcrum, Coffin did the only thing he could do under the circumstances. By positioning his body like a cat, he leapt from seat to seat between the bodies of his shipmates, grasped the hand axe with one hand, and his Bosun’s body with the other, seconds before T.A. toppled overboard. When the bow of his vessel was forced downward a second wall of water was forced above, bowling Coffin over. But Nathan scrambled to his feet again in time to sever the cable using a twisting backhanded blow with his right hand, while rolling the Bosun’s body to safety with his left. A wide-eyed crew, who were all still at their stations, turned when they felt the cable snap and the axe reverberate when from its momentum bit into the thigh thwart. Freed from the force pulling it under water, the boat righted itself. Despite all the forces at play, the boy’s timing had been perfect.

While the fagged end of the freshly severed cable trailed away behind the wounded cow, the rookie ordered men twice his age to return to the mother-ship, still clutching Tom Avery’s [lifeless] body in his arms, but the remark only caused the old salts to grumble. Then, as if summoned from the dead, Bosun Avery spat out you bloody well heard the boy! and fell limp once again.

Mr. Avery, you’re alive! Nathaniel cried. I thought for sure you were a goner. Death’s door had opened, beckoned to one of them then slammed shut before it ushered their mate to the cold dark depths of Neptune’s world.

It required several grueling hours for the other two crafts to haul back their kills and return the boats to their respective davits. And like so many hunts before, there was much to discuss hunting leviathans on the open sea. Today the conversation took place in the surgery gathered around their wounded shipmate.

A quick-thinking lad what he was for a ‘greenie’. I suspect we dodged Davie Jones’ locker thanks to him, the bandaged Bosun began, right arm in a sling, gauze covering his head and chest like wraps on a mummy—Davie Jones locker being a mythical resting place at the bottom of the sea where the unfortunate reside.

He saved us all is what he did, mid oarsman Dax Dillon anteed with a face still racked with tension. I’d quit this line of work what if I could afford to.

Then what would you do you dumb scrub? You can’t cook! Tolby mocked.

What we was in the devil’s grasp until you cut us free, Coffin, his bow oarsman said, slapping their lucky charm on the shoulder for effect.

But we lost a good harpoon today, and a prize fish, Nathaniel recanted. His words, though sincere, caused his captain first to grunt and eventually force out a smile.

Trading a harpoon for a man’s life is a fair exchange in my book, son, Captain Chase answered. We may still cross paths with that beast again— who knows?

I’ll second that Captain, the Bosun added. And for the record, I’m worth ten bloody harpoons and five sperms!

The comment got anyone listening to laughing except for their wounded orator, who was wincing in pain clutching his ribcage. Nathaniel then turned toward Bosun Avery grasping one of his shoulders in each hand and said, You were lights out and still clapped on to the gunwale when we skipped off that yearling. How in God’s name is that even possible?

What it’s because the old fart can’t swim, ha ha ! Dax hollered through his pipe stem.

"Seriously Mr. Coffin—we are all in your debt," Captain Chase finally admitted as the entourage of happy faces crowded around the rookie to hear the story retold one more time.

This had been a big day for the Sea Witch, and it seemed the whole crew wanted to relive it. Well, maybe everyone but Tom Avery, who looked like half-dressed mummy with his week-old beard and ponytail. And while the business of rendering whale oil was again organized, Nathaniel Coffin mysteriously disappeared below to make good on a promise, having survived to tell the story.

The Sea Witch was just twelve weeks out on a two-year voyage running eight knots under smoldering gray skies pushed by a blustery ten-knot breeze. The heavily laden ship and eager crew of thirty-two had barely become acquainted, but had settled in pursuit of one of the largest mammals known to man. Not more than thirty feet long, a whale boat is typically pointed at both ends to facilitate its agility and accommodate six fearless men. Below her gunwales could be found an assortment of spear-like objects called lances and harpoons accompanied with hammer and hatchet-like instruments for chopping fowled cable and splintered wood, depending on the fate of the hunt, condition of the whaler, and the disposition of the species about to be slain. A whale boat also contained a small mainsail, cooking utensils, food and water, lanterns to see by in the dead of night when a harpooned beast must be towed back to a ship up to five-miles after it has been killed late in the day. In an environment most would avoid like the plague, men from all parts of God’s green earth assemble to take part in the harvest of an animal for its blubber, teeth, bone, baleen, and a few pounds of intestinal waste called ambergris, that when processed into perfume, is worth more than its weight in gold. The men drawn to this activity are not ordinary by any means for they are of a kind that tolerate a trade landlubbers deem unconscionable, living damp cohabitating in filthy quarters, eating from communal tubs and copper pitchers, breathing air that is so foul when blubber is being rendered that the stench would cause the common man to lose his breakfast. Without a red cent, most of them, living on borrowed money and borrowed time, whalers work standing upon a greasy, bloody, rolling and pitching deck with no guarantee that the next forty months will defray their debt or square their expenses. Long periods of total boredom keep them company with only their imaginations and hobbies to distract them from insanity. Many carve and craft ivory teeth or whale bone to pass the time. Others assemble and rehearse seafaring poems and songs to, by some perverse preoccupation, keep the mystique of the whaling world alive.

During this outing, six nationalities were represented. Nantucket Island, Martha’s Vineyard, and Boston Harbor produced a dozen men and boys of American heritage. One colored man had been born in Nigeria. Four blokes hailed from England, two redheads from Ireland, and seven from Portugal, both brown and white in color. The balance of the crew is of African American descent who lived in the fox’s’cle— the pointed space at the bow of the ship which borrows its only light through a hatch cover. Bunk beds substituting hay for mattresses face opposing hulls that are not much fancier than a common chicken coop. Each nationality spoke enough English to take orders or be understood despite their various accents and inflections.

Nathaniel spoke unusually perfect grammar. His Quaker parents were highly educated people who, through their doctrine were sympathetic to the plight of the Negro. In point in fact, at his young age, he happened to be the most educated man on the vessel, which intimidated even the officers on the Sea Witch despite their unwillingness to admit the fact to him or themselves. But Nathaniel, as his late mother called him, was not of a mind to raise his status at the expense of another no matter what his color, nationality or level of education. Unaccustomed to the tight quarters found on whaling ships, Nathan kept to himself mostly but when compelled to speak, enticed his audience to listen. The fourteen-year-old just had a way about him that invited friendly discourse or a helping hand in a ship-bound home that didn’t embrace friendly for no good reason. The whaling world was more about survival and less about warm and fuzzy. Making friends was inviting heartache in such a dangerous and demanding arena. Men were frequently maimed or killed chasing a myriad of whale species over and beyond a grand oval navigating an ever-changing environment. Others wagered their meager fortunes (and lives) by buying profit shares to get ahead. The majority were contented just to have a hot meal, cup of grog, and place to lay their heads after a brutally hard day chasing down, hauling back, and processing their prey. And that was just the half of it. After reducing a whale’s foot-thick outer layer into small squares called leaves, the rendering process would begin. The boiled and strained byproduct was then allowed to cool in copper containers before being placed into wooden barrels and stowed below decks— spermaceti in one barrel, blubber from its hide in another. The other species, including the right whale, bowhead, grey, blue, and humpback, to mention a few, occupied still another container.

This ad appeared in the Boston Newsletter on March 30,1748.

"Spermaceti Candles… ‘exceeding all others for beauty, sweetness of scent when extinguished. Duration being more than double tallow candles of equal size; dimensions of flame nearly four times more, emitting a soft, easy expanding light, brings the object close to the sight rather than causing the eye to trace after them…’

Dear Diary: (November 19, 1820)

Today I went on my first whale hunt but we ran afoul with the Sting Ray’s tether. I had to cut our cable to save the boat and before my Bosun fell overboard. He broke an arm and two ribs and suffered a concussion but he is a tough old bird who won’t be held back by his injuries for very long. The Manta Ray and Leopard Ray each made kills. My deck job requires that I keep the try-pots lit. I have never seen so much blood nor tolerated so nasty a smell as boiling blubber. My clothing is already in ruin. The ship’s canvas is black the spars and yards greasy. I have made many friends. One is named Billy M, an Irishman, who for all practical purposes lives on the ship because he is an orphan too. Our Captain looks after him. Am very happy Mr. Avery is alright and I was surprised to learn he can’t swim a lick!

CHAPTER 2

THE FUNERAL

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D uring the long trip back to the ship, with what he thought was a dying man in his arms, Nathaniel Coffin’s mind was allowed to drift and during this silent journey he was confronted by his worst memory. The memory had been forged at a cemetery. The long cold uphill march had been his first. As if it were yesterday, he paused to gaze down upon Nantucket Harbor, just as the leading edge of a blazing orange sphere gave face to the horizon. The only world he knew from birth had been on an island, estimated to encompass fifty square miles was named by the Managawah Indians. Natocket or The faraway place is located thirty miles east of the United States mainland. Nathan was in the company of thirty relatives and friends as they climbed step for step beneath a foreboding sky. Weeping, sniffling and muffled prayers dampened the numbing pain forced upon him during that drizzling and blustery hour, as the clouds reached around the rising sun, and smothered it like a young mother reeling in a lost child. An all-consuming fire had stolen his immediate family. The culprit a candle placed within the sweep of a sitting room curtain that hung beside an open window. Just six short weeks had passed since the blaze attacked his senses as savagely as a pack of wolves dismember an unsuspecting fawn that had become separated from its mother.

The black-hatted or scarfed procession comprised of the members of a local Quaker church wound steadily upward. The funeral would be his first experience with death’s images, and the loss of loved ones. The cold weather, grey sky, rusty metal and the sick wrenching feeling in the pit of his stomach were real even though the teen was trying desperately to make all the images and feelings go away. And then there was the menacing voice in his head that kept repeating, "Why did my compassionate lord and savoir allow this to happen?"

When Nathaniel laid eyes upon the gravesite, where two mounds of fresh damp earth lay covered with dirty brown tarpaulins, he turned back a second time to search the green-gray landscape for his home but only a contorted black skeleton and a patch of scorched earth remained. A calloused but gentle hand immediately anchored his attempt to stray, when the voice of May Nickerson coaxed him forward. Nathaniel was not old enough to have yet experienced grief, or command the logic necessary to explain the event—only fraught with more questions. "Why did this happen, where would I live now, and who would feed me?"

When the procession passed beneath a rusty, ornamental archway defining the hallowed ground, he sighted a tall man standing behind a freshly dug grave between two bone-white head stones that marked the site where his two grandparents lay. When everyone was spaced evenly around the rocky recess, Minister Timmons flipped open his Bible to a passage marked by a faded purple tassel. Exhaling softly, he examined the pallet of teary-eyed faces coming to rest upon Nathan’s. Another timely nudge persuaded her nephew to acknowledge the minister. Nathan looked slowly upward at her shape, and then up higher at his Reverend’s face. The leathery white skin and silver–gray, free flowing beard were familiar—an image he had grown to trust through an association with his late father.

Shall we begin? With a forced smile, Reverend Timmons adjusted a tired pair of wire-rimmed glasses just so, and cleared his throat while Nathan nodded his head in agreement as if he were the only one being spoken to. We assemble on this day to honor the faithfully departed. The Good Book reminds us that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. We are asked not to question his purpose. As disciples of an everlasting Lord we ask forgiveness for our sins, and swift passage to his kingdom where John, Marigold, and Christina’s souls shall reside in the hereafter. Let us pray… While everyone who could, recited the Lord’s Prayer, Nathan again asked himself why he had been spared a horrible death, as the flames of a recent night sky lit up his memory. In that same instant a vision of Christina appeared to him just as the late afternoon sun illuminated her golden shoulder-length curls. Nathan, what do want to be when you grow up? She asked braiding her doll’s hair as she sat contentedly cross-legged on the grass before their upscale two-story home.

Nathan’s facial expression warmed. A captain on a whaling ship, he answered crisply, and without hesitation. A rare invitation to a friend’s dinner table, and the ensuing overnight visit had sealed the fate of her older brother. Rahgi Shankar, the son of Amir Shankar, was Nathaniel Coffin’s best friend and schoolmate. Mr. Shankar owned a textile business on the poorer end of Main Street. Nathaniel’s father had been the Headmaster at the local church school. John and Amir had become friends through their boy lives, causing relationships to develop.

After the recital of more prayers and several heartfelt dedications, the words Nathaniel barely heard, three pinewood boxes were carefully lowered side by side into a common grave. When Christina’s tiny coffin met the cold dirt floor between her parents, Auntie May burst into tears while attempting to muffle her agony with a lacey white handkerchief conveniently stored up a coat sleeve. The sound of her outburst coincided with Nathan’s first tears since the fire. The ugly high-pitched scream she made was also new to him. He had seen people cry before but never heard them wail. Nathan and his sister were exceptionally close for grade school-aged kids, who are normally disposed to possessive squabbling but for some reason he had not been able shed one tear until now.

The next phase of the ritual required each person to scoop a handful of topsoil from an uncovered pile then take turns dropping their portion upon his father’s casket. A hollow, haunting sound resonated when the pebbles riddled the rough-sawn elongated box. After the human circle completed this task, they repeated the ritual for mum and daughter. When May Nickerson heard their pitter-patter dapple the smaller of the coffins, she broke down again which seemed somehow connected or influenced by the loss of her only daughter, that had occurred during a bitter winter epidemic that swept through the town of approximately 6,000 people two years earlier. Several hundred souls perished from yellow fever that year before the disease ran its course, but luckily the Coffin family was spared a visit from the Grim Reaper. Reliving the loss of her daughter was ravaging May’s sensibilities more than ever now, born out each time she tipped backward to wail.

When the formality of the event had been accomplished, minister Timmons attended to May Nickerson directly. Upon his approach, she released her grip from her nephew’s hand, which enabled the two adults to separate from the rest of the mourners while Nantucket’s last two living Managwah Indian men filled the gravesite. And while this was taking place several onlookers distributed heartfelt condolences to the orphan until his schoolmate arrived—black felt hat in hand.

Father said you can be staying with us again, tonight, if ye are of a mind to?

I don’t know Rahgi, I might be obliged to room with my Auntie, Nathan answered as he watched her conversation unfold.

Things were happening so fast. From his Sunday dinners Nathan was already aware that even though his Aunt’s home was quaint it still had an extra bedroom. Mr. Nickerson and his boarder, A.B.S. Johnny Tennyson, were already at sea. May’s husband, Edward, was a passenger on the Essex under Captain Pollard, and Tennyson the ship’s steward.

Aunt May then abruptly yelled, Nathaniel, come here child.

What is it, Auntie May? he asked, wiping an eye with the back of one hand, and his nose with the other palm. By her tone of voice it was difficult to discern whether May was angry, just sad, or possibly both. Brown eyes that appeared black today stood out against her cold white skin and inflamed nostrils.

Minister Timmons would like to speak with you, son, then I require thy company for the long lonely walk home, she explained curtly. There, beside the photos on the hearth above the fireplace sat a quart of Jamaican rum, where she would not be required to entertain strangers or obliged to act politely in the presence of rarely seen relatives.

Yes ma’am, Nathan answered in monotone.

How are you feeling, my son? Do you have any questions for me? the minister asked with compassionate eyes half-hidden by his bristly eyebrows.

What happens to me now, short pause, and why, pausing again, did I have to throw dirt into the hole?

From dust we are created, and from dust we shall return, my son. Do you now understand the significance of this ritual? the minister asked, arching over him.

Their bodies will change to dust I guess, sir.

Those who live by His rules shall enter His kingdom, the minister continued, as he tipped stiffly backward to gaze upward. As for your other concerns, you must now depend upon thy Aunt for shelter and guidance. But she shall also require thy assistance. Will you accept this new role? the preacher asked more directly.

I guess so, Nathaniel answered.

Do you also understand that in your father’s absence our school shall require thy assistance? Jonathan was a fine Headmaster and I know he would have wanted you to share your expertise for his sake, the minister explained.

Yes, I suppose so, the boy answered rocking side to side nervously.

Fine then, I will contact you soon to determine thy responsibilities, my son. Now please escort thy Auntie home, won’t you? God be with you, and with you Mrs. Nickerson, he added, tipping his faded, sweat-stained, straight brimmed hat toward her.

Thankee and good day sir, Nathaniel answered.

May’s tired nod and posture spoke volumes. Holding the same crumpled white handkerchief to her nose, Nathaniel’s foster mother turned toward what would become his home but before she could take the first step, Rahgi reappeared.

Mother wants to know if you are coming over for Sunday dinner?

Fond of her spicy meat pies already, Nathan was about to reply when his Aunt rolled her eyes making an annoying clicking sound with her tongue. Please tell your mother that Nathaniel will be living with us now, but thankee anyway, May explained shaking her head no simultaneously.

We have a bag of clothing for you from the church. When do you want to fetch it? Rahgi persisted, still at his mother’s side.

You may collect the giveaways after dinner, Nathan, May answered, cutting the boy off before he could respond. Not obliged to converse any further, Aunt May slipped back into another world; her sad eyes were fixed in a downward stare, each step a bit quicker as she negotiated the stony wet pathway that led to the street. Now, can we go?

Two negro laborers were hired to clear the remains of the Coffin residence two weeks later, aided by a flatbed wagon pulled by two powerful tan and white oxen with marble-gray horns and massive hooves. Most days Nathaniel passed by the site after school to ask questions and look around, as the men reduced the charred wooden skeleton into pieces small enough to load onto their wagon. And each day, as if recorded by the hands of a clock, Nathaniel asked what if anything was found — like a memento or a coin.

On the fifth and last day of their laboring, one of the workmen motioned that they all meet beneath the only tree on the property, the same tree that he and his sister used to climb. The day was exceptionally warm for this time of year, so the elder offered to share his drinking cup beneath the tree. But custom frowned upon white folks drinking from the same vessel as colored folks, even though the Nickerson and Coffin families disagreed with the practice citing religious grounds. Neither offended nor compelled to drink Nathan wandered over from the pile of ash, destroyed furniture, and chards of broken glass, anxious to receive anything of value.

Mista Coffin … we fond somthin heah you bes look at, Mr. Bedford asked, holding up a fried metal box in his massive soot-stained hand.

Taking possession of the object, Nathan hefted the weight of the container