is all to be done in addition to watching at night, steering,
reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling,
hauling, and climbing in every direction, one will hardly ask,
"What can a sailor find to do at sea?"

If, after all this labor--after exposing their lives and limbs in
storms, wet and cold,

"Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch;
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry;--"

the merchants and captain think that they have not earned their
twelve dollars a month, (out of which they clothe themselves,) and
their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum--
ad infinitum. This is the usual resource upon a rainy day, for
then it will not do to work upon rigging; and when it is pouring
down in floods, instead of letting the sailors stand about in
sheltered places, and talk, and keep themselves comfortable,
they are separated to different parts of the ship and kept at
work picking oakum. I have seen oakum stuff placed about in
different parts of the ship, so that the sailors might not be
idle in the snatches between the frequent squalls upon crossing
the equator. Some officers have been so driven to find work for
the crew in a ship ready for sea, that they have set them to
pounding the anchors (often done) and scraping the chain cables.
The "Philadelphia Catechism" is,

"Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh--holystone the decks and scrape the cable."