... The Wrong Gulls
Cap’n Caleb Nickerson of Truro, master of a large ship which oftentimes took on young boys as apprentices and cabin boys, was sailing home to the Cape after a long journey. When the ship was almost to P’town, Cap’n Nick, bone-weary and worn from the long run, decided to turn the wheel over to young David, a youth who had shipped out with him to learn the fine art of seamanship.
“But, Cap’n Nickerson,” the boy demurred, “I don’t know much about navigation yet, and the compass is still strange to me.”
“Don’t worry, Lad,” said Caleb reassuringly. “See them gulls over there? Wal, just folly them right along, and they’ll take ye right home to port.”
With these words, Cap’n Nickerson went below to his quarters for a snooze. When he awoke a few hours later, he peered out of the porthole and was dumfounded to find himself still out in the open ocean, when the ship should have arrived in Provincetown long before. Rushing madly topside, the cap’n grabbed poor Dave by the nape of the neck, and in a few choice mariner’s words, demanded what in tarnation he thought he was doing.
“But, Cap’n,” exclaimed the perplexed boy, “you told me to folly them gulls over there, and I’ve been right on their trail!”
Cap’n Nick grabbed the telescope, took one squint-eyed look at the gulls, and then bellowed, “Why you durn fool! Them’s Chatham gulls, not Truro gulls!”