{"id":"01KF7FPTGGBFP2VZEE7GVMHQVW","cid":"bafkreidu3w6ht47o5q6nmkzmcywneatufr33prmduerixvelwnjnk7zjpu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":20117,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.455Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":20036,"text":"“And shall I nail down the lid, sir?” moving his hand as with a hammer.\r\n\r\n“Aye.”\r\n\r\n“And shall I caulk the seams, sir?” moving his hand as with a\r\ncaulking-iron.\r\n\r\n“Aye.”\r\n\r\n“And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?” moving his hand\r\nas with a pitch-pot.\r\n\r\n“Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and\r\nno more.—Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me.”\r\n\r\n“He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he\r\nbaulks. Now I don’t like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he\r\nwears it like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he\r\nwon’t put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with\r\nthat coffin? And now I’m ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It’s like\r\nturning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I\r\ndon’t like this cobbling sort of business—I don’t like it at all; it’s\r\nundignified; it’s not my place. Let tinkers’ brats do tinkerings; we\r\nare their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin,\r\nfair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at\r\nthe beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at\r\nthe conclusion; not a cobbler’s job, that’s at an end in the middle,\r\nand at the beginning at the end. It’s the old woman’s tricks to be\r\ngiving cobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all old women have for\r\ntinkers. I know an old woman of sixty-five who ran away with a\r\nbald-headed young tinker once. And that’s the reason I never would work\r\nfor lonely widow old women ashore, when I kept my job-shop in the\r\nVineyard; they might have taken it into their lonely old heads to run\r\noff with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let\r\nme see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with\r\npitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over\r\nthe ship’s stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some\r\nsuperstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere\r\nthey would do the job. But I’m made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I\r\ndon’t budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing about with a grave-yard\r\ntray! But never mind. We workers in woods make bridal-bedsteads and\r\ncard-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We work by the month, or\r\nby the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask the why and wherefore\r\nof our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, and then we stash it\r\nif we can. Hem! I’ll do the job, now, tenderly. I’ll have me—let’s\r\nsee—how many in the ship’s company, all told? But I’ve forgotten. Any\r\nway, I’ll have me thirty separate, Turk’s-headed life-lines, each three\r\nfeet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, if the hull go down,\r\nthere’ll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight\r\nnot seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer, caulking-iron,\r\npitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let’s to it.”\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 127. The Deck.\r\n\r\n_The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the\r\nopen hatchway; the Carpenter caulking its seams; the string of twisted\r\noakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the bosom of\r\nhis frock.—Ahab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway, and hears Pip\r\nfollowing him._\r\n\r\n“Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand\r\ncomplies with my humor more genially than that boy.—Middle aisle of a\r\nchurch! What’s here?”\r\n\r\n“Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck’s orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the\r\nhatchway!”\r\n\r\n“Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault.”\r\n\r\n“Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does.”\r\n\r\n“Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy\r\nshop?”\r\n\r\n“I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?”\r\n\r\n“Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?”\r\n\r\n“Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but\r\nthey’ve set me now to turning it into something else.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPNZVQN0MWH12S4195JDT","peer_label":"Chapter 124","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPNZVQN0MWH12S4195JDT","peer_label":"Chapter 124","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTEXFASD59DG93HEKKX6","peer_label":"Chunk 10","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTBR0AESEEW3E5RAQJYD","peer_label":"Chunk 8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.917Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.871Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}