Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned in
these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active pursuits
shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old
blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after
concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained it
on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost
incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do
some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their
various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an
eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pikeheads,
harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement,
as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded
by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from
him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically
broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy
beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it was.-
Most miserable!
A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight
but painful appearing yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the
voyage excited the curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of
their persisted questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to
pass that every one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate.
Belated,
and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on the road running
between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt the deadly
numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated
barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both feet. Out of
this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four acts of the
gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act of the
grief of his life's drama.
He was an old man, who, at the age of
nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's
technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and
with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful,
daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every
Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove. But one
night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning
disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed
them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself
did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family's heart. It was the
Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that fatal cork, forth flew the
fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for prudent, most wise, and
economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in the basement of his
dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so that always had the
young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but
with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed old
husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by passing through the
floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so,
to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were rocked to
slumber.
Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes
be timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full
ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and
her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after
years; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked
down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely
hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than
useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him
easier to harvest.
Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement
hammer every day grew more and more between; and each blow every day
grew fainter than the last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with
tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her
children; the bellows fell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house
was sold; the mother dived down into the long church-yard grass; her
children twice followed her thither; and the houseless, familyless old
man staggered off a vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his
grey head a scorn to flaxen curls!
Death seems the only desirable
sequel for a career like this; but Death is only a launching into the
region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the
possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored;
therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left
in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the
all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his
whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life
adventures; and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand
mermaids sing to them- "Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another
life without the guilt of intermediate death; here are wonders
supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a
life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is
more oblivious than death. dome hither! put up thy grave-stone, too,
within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!"
Hearkening
to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by fall of eve,
the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth went
a-whaling.
An uplifting little tale for a Saturday morning. A blacksmith artist loses his young wife and family, home, livelihood, drapes himself in black, and becomes a vagabond. He's one of those guys you see on the street corner, veiled in a cloud of sadness. You might not know his story, but he carries loss around with him, wears it like an old tee shirt from a Grateful Dead concert, dirty, tattered, and full of funk.
I think we all know people like Perth. Walk by them every day without paying any notice. They're easy to ignore. You don't want to look at them too closely because it's painful, makes you feel guilty for the relatively comfortable life that you lead. Or maybe it's fear, like their bad fortune is a virus you might contract. So, it's easier simply to walk by them, averting your eyes, looking at beautiful cloud formations or an interesting window display.
I think, in my country (and probably the world, as a whole), we've become so self-centered that we've forgotten the very things that make us human--our abilities to feel compassion and empathy, to reach out and help people or creatures in need. Instead, we worry that we don't have the latest iteration of the iPhone, haven't binge-watched the latest season of
Stranger Things.
That's the problem in the United States right now. The person sitting in the Oval Office has been spoiled his whole life. He hasn't had to struggle for anything. He was born rich, lived rich, and will die rich. And he wants to make sure that he doesn't have to share his toys with anybody else in the sandbox. Not only that, but he's surrounded by like-minded spoiled people. White. Privileged. Male. Rich. Frightened of people who don't look like them, aren't like them.
The United States is one of the wealthiest and freest countries in the world. Yet, homelessness and hunger is rampant. Young people graduate from colleges with thousands and thousands of student debt. Sick people have to make the choice not to seek treatment because it simply costs too much money. And millions of people work two or three low-paying jobs in order to provide for their families.
It's really time that we stop being afraid of the rich white guys who run this country. It's time that the rich white guys start being afraid of
us. We need to remind the people in power that they aren't the bosses. They're the employees. And they need to start taking care of EVERYONE--young, old, man, woman, teenager, child, black, white, brown, straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, legal citizen, legal and illegal immigrant. There is enough food and money and resources in this country for every person. It's just that 1% of our population controls 98 or 99% of this abundance.
It's time to get angry for all the Perths out there. Time for all the Perths to stand up and retake control. Remind the servants in Washington, D. C., that they are SERVANTS.
Okay, I'm climbing down from my soap box now, but I'm not closing my mouth. Not putting away my anger. If you tell me that American needs to be great again, I will tell you that the only way that's going to happen is when we start taking care of people again. Not just millionaires and billionaires. We need to remember what's written on that plaque by the Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
When we start living by these words, America will be great again.
Saint Marty is thankful this morning for freedom of speech.
