Page 96
Managed to squeeze one more page in at the expense of my back!! I was hoping to finish this chapter for this month’s update (there are 2 more pages left) but alas! Til next time!
I’ve also written a historical context blog post about scrimshaw to accompany this page. You can read it : here! :
↓ Transcript
Panel 1 [Closer shot of Adelaide looking towards Lawrence, speaking conspiratorially, but with a sense of humor]
ADELAIDE:
You were wise to bring an amusement. I imagine many men are less accustomed to weathering monotony than women. I tell you, a day in the home feels like it holds forty hours sometimes.
Panel 2 [Same shot, but she’s angling her head to the side, grinning with her eyes closed in a self-satisfied way as she mimes pulling a thread.]
ADELAIDE:
But, I can mend a wound just as I mend a dress.
LAWRENCE:
Impressive.
Panel 3[Adelaide turns slightly to face amidships and Lawrence follows her gaze. In the foreground, Joseph and Josué are eating on the main hatch. Joseph kicks away a large pig trying to stick its snout on his plate. Josué is laughing slightly.]
ADELAIDE:
It’s curious…whalers eventually become quite domestic out here during the doldrums, if the gifts they bring home are any testament to that.
JOSEPH: Tchht! Get! Damned pigs...When're we makin' this one into a pie?
Panel 4 [A panel on a black ground showing a variety of items as Adelaide's voice comes off screen. There's an intricately carved bust reading 'beloved forget me not', clothespins and needles, a needle case with a whaling scene etched on the side, a pie crimper shaped like a hippocampus, and a yarn swift]
ADELAIDE:
They whittle away the hours making their sweethearts valentines out of the jaws of leviathans.
Panel 5 [Small panel of Lawrence looking contemplative, Adelaide glancing over at him]
LAWRENCE:
What a bizarre world this is, mid-ocean.
ADELAIDE:
Indeed. But they’re all so accustomed to it that our land feels stranger to them.
ADELAIDE:
You were wise to bring an amusement. I imagine many men are less accustomed to weathering monotony than women. I tell you, a day in the home feels like it holds forty hours sometimes.
Panel 2 [Same shot, but she’s angling her head to the side, grinning with her eyes closed in a self-satisfied way as she mimes pulling a thread.]
ADELAIDE:
But, I can mend a wound just as I mend a dress.
LAWRENCE:
Impressive.
Panel 3[Adelaide turns slightly to face amidships and Lawrence follows her gaze. In the foreground, Joseph and Josué are eating on the main hatch. Joseph kicks away a large pig trying to stick its snout on his plate. Josué is laughing slightly.]
ADELAIDE:
It’s curious…whalers eventually become quite domestic out here during the doldrums, if the gifts they bring home are any testament to that.
JOSEPH: Tchht! Get! Damned pigs...When're we makin' this one into a pie?
Panel 4 [A panel on a black ground showing a variety of items as Adelaide's voice comes off screen. There's an intricately carved bust reading 'beloved forget me not', clothespins and needles, a needle case with a whaling scene etched on the side, a pie crimper shaped like a hippocampus, and a yarn swift]
ADELAIDE:
They whittle away the hours making their sweethearts valentines out of the jaws of leviathans.
Panel 5 [Small panel of Lawrence looking contemplative, Adelaide glancing over at him]
LAWRENCE:
What a bizarre world this is, mid-ocean.
ADELAIDE:
Indeed. But they’re all so accustomed to it that our land feels stranger to them.
Common throughout history, much of what we know of ancient times comes from the scenes depicted on such carvings or trinkets, even through to today. WW1 ‘trench art’ both the small pieces brought home and the larger ones carved into the walls of the chalk caves and caverns troops mustered for battle in tell stories most often ignored by the mainstream media. Same for POW art in recent wars, there was a POW camp here in WW1 and again in WW2, some of the Germans decided to remain rather go home home and there’s lots of intricate art in the area both from their tenure in the camp and also from the wooden carvings and inlays in a lot of houses. Many an otherwise unsupposing house has intricate woodwork on the mantels and stairs, some pieces would be worth more than the house itself if they were seperated and sold on the collector or high end decorator markets.
Huge fan of Adelaide– Or Ms. Waite, to keep within good manners. Perhaps a poem she may write, though maybe more Coleridge than Frost, knowing the direction this story is going.