The cooper of the Arethusa was an important personage, as, indeed, the cooper always is in a whaler. The duties of this functionary are of a peculiar character, and about as independent of all the rest as those of a surgeon in a man-of-war. He is neither officer nor man, strictly speaking, his lay or pay being nearly equal to that of a second mate. He lives aft with the officers, but makes himself at home in all parts of the ship, occupying a sort of neutral ground--a kind of connecting link between republicanism and oligarchy, neither too high nor too low to consort or joke with anybody and everybody. As a general rule, he stands no watch, but does his day's work and sleeps all night, and in many ways evinces consciousness of his own value, and of the indispensable character of his services. For a whaler may, and, in fact, often does, go to sea without a blacksmith or without a carpenter; but the cooper is an essential part of her equipage. An officer or a boatsteerer may, in case of emergency, be created at sea, by promotion; but the cooper is not so easily replaced.
The cooper in question was a stout, grave-looking man of forty or thereabouts, with a shaggy mass of grey hair, and a patriarchally long beard. His mechanical work was of excellent quality, what little he accomplished; for he always worked on the principle of the tortoise in the race--"slow and sure." He scraped indifferently well on the violin, but delighted especially in drawing a longer bow. In virtue of this latter accomplishment, he might have claimed near relationship with a certain gentleman known in classic lore as Thomas Pepper, without having his title questioned for a moment. He always told his yarns as gospel truth, and would back them with any oath, if required.
The two young boatsteerers, Bunker and Fisher, with the Portuguese steward, completed the "afterguard." In the forecastle there was, in addition to the personages already mentioned, the usual variety of character and disposition to be found among a dozen young men, recruited at random in this manner. Now that we were getting initiated to a sea life, we were beginning to have opinions, and to express them, no longer leaving the whole field to Jeff and the sea-lawyer. As for the Nantucket boys, Kelly and Hoeg (or Obed B., as I still persisted in calling him), they made rapid progress in knowledge and confidence. As I have before intimated, these young "natives to the manor born" seemed to look upon this life with the eye of fatalists. It was foreordained that they should be sailors, and nothing in their new way of life seemed to surprise or disturb them for a moment. Everything took place as a matter of course with them. They never seemed to think they could, by any possibility, have followed any other business for a livelihood; and each new event or circumstance of the voyage was merely another link in the chain of their inevitable destiny. They were born to go whaling and a station on the quarterdeck was the goal of their ambition.