{"id":"01KFNR8BCV2REDKG4S48Z2D47W","cid":"bafkreiahwncem4piusitytj3lcn6yx5dv2rgaahdhnyq3uard2ajwvdeia","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":20088,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.413Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":20009,"text":"was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the\r\ntime. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at\r\nleast as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of\r\nevil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged.\r\nThey declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they\r\nhad heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay.\r\n\r\nThe lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see\r\nto it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in\r\nthe feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the\r\nvoyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly\r\nconnected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be;\r\ntherefore, they were going to leave the ship’s stern unprovided with a\r\nbuoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a\r\nhint concerning his coffin.\r\n\r\n“A life-buoy of a coffin!” cried Starbuck, starting.\r\n\r\n“Rather queer, that, I should say,” said Stubb.\r\n\r\n“It will make a good enough one,” said Flask, “the carpenter here can\r\narrange it easily.”\r\n\r\n“Bring it up; there’s nothing else for it,” said Starbuck, after a\r\nmelancholy pause. “Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so—the coffin,\r\nI mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it.”\r\n\r\n“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","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR85GH93A0CQQ5YJQ7H16H","peer_label":"126","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR85GH93A0CQQ5YJQ7H16H","peer_label":"126","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":"01KFNR8BBKDB1EY8SN0544G9G3","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:07.073Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:20.355Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}