{"id":"01KFNR8718P52Y7YCZ3JN389AV","cid":"bafkreigjrg67zhrle4ci2uma2nh3kxu3jews4uw5nsfsuow3ci3n6qqkpy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2924,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.905Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":2861,"text":"CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow.\r\n\r\nNext morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber,\r\nfor a block, I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my\r\ncomrade’s money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed\r\namazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between\r\nme and Queequeg—especially as Peter Coffin’s cock and bull stories\r\nabout him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person\r\nwhom I now companied with.\r\n\r\nWe borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own\r\npoor carpet-bag, and Queequeg’s canvas sack and hammock, away we went\r\ndown to “the Moss,” the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the\r\nwharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg so\r\nmuch—for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their\r\nstreets,—but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we\r\nheeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg\r\nnow and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I\r\nasked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and\r\nwhether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in\r\nsubstance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet\r\nhe had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of\r\nassured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate\r\nwith the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers and\r\nmowers, who go into the farmers’ meadows armed with their own\r\nscythes—though in no wise obliged to furnish them—even so, Queequeg,\r\nfor his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.\r\n\r\nShifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about\r\nthe first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The\r\nowners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his\r\nheavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the\r\nthing—though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in\r\nwhich to manage the barrow—Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it\r\nfast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. “Why,”\r\nsaid I, “Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would\r\nthink. Didn’t the people laugh?”\r\n\r\nUpon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of\r\nRokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water\r\nof young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and\r\nthis punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided\r\nmat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once\r\ntouched at Rokovoko, and its commander—from all accounts, a very\r\nstately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain—this\r\ncommander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg’s sister, a\r\npretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding\r\nguests were assembled at the bride’s bamboo cottage, this Captain\r\nmarches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself over\r\nagainst the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the\r\nKing, Queequeg’s father. Grace being said,—for those people have their\r\ngrace as well as we—though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such\r\ntimes look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying\r\nthe ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts—Grace, I\r\nsay, being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial\r\nceremony of the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and\r\nconsecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed beverage\r\ncirculates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the\r\nceremony, and thinking himself—being Captain of a ship—as having plain\r\nprecedence over a mere island King, especially in the King’s own\r\nhouse—the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the\r\npunchbowl;—taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass. “Now,” said\r\nQueequeg, “what you tink now?—Didn’t our people laugh?”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR831YR6VCJS7E92BYRP79","peer_label":"Chapter 13. Wheelbarrow","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR831YR6VCJS7E92BYRP79","peer_label":"Chapter 13. Wheelbarrow","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86Z9GSP1KYVQFH2VEBTQ","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.708Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:14.999Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}