73 pages • 2 hours read
Jean Lee LathamCarry On, Mr. Bowditch
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1955A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary “Freedom”
Later that morning, Nat receives a note from the apothecary, Doctor Nathan Read. Doctor Read has an apprentice who is interested in science. He invites Nat to come to his home Sunday evening to talk. Nat is interested in Doctor Reed, who is known to be interested in machinery. He holds a patent from Congress on a steam engine he designed for use on ships. He had tried to get a patent for a steam wagon as well, but Congress turned it down, thinking it was too ridiculous.
While Doctor Read is showing Nat his workbench, his tools, and his books, he offers a book to Nat saying that that might be interested in reading it, but it’s in French. Nat says that he can’t read French yet ,but he can learn it. Doctor Read gives Nat a French grammar book, a dictionary, and a copy of the New Testament in French.
Frederick Jordy comes into the chandlery. Jordy is French, and Doctor Read has told him Nat that is studying that language. Mr. Jordy suggests that they trade lessons, so that Nat can learn French and Mr. Jordy can learn English.
One day, Elizabeth Boardman comes into the chandlery to buy a present for her father. Nat suggests that her father might like a set of parallel rulers (a drafting tool used by navigators). When Elizabeth asks whether her father might have them already, Nat snaps at her that of course he does. Any good sailing master would have them. He quickly apologizes for his outburst. He hadn’t meant to bark at her. Elizabeth says that she knows he didn’t mean it; he’s so smart he can’t help stumbling over other people’s dumbness like a chair in the dark. Then he wants to kick something—only unlike chairs, people have feelings.
The next morning, Doctor Bentley brings Nat the news that Captain Boardman’s ship has returned, but Elizabeth’s father has died in the West Indies. Nat goes to Captain Boardman's house, where he finds Elizabeth frantic with grief. Nat shows Elizabeth how to tell time by the Big Dipper and the north star just as his mother did for him. Eventually, Elizabeth is calm enough to rest.
Over the next two years, Nat often thinks about what he will do when he is free—how he will find his own place in the world. He fears he might spend the rest of his life in the chandlery adding up columns of numbers. The week before he turns twenty-one, Nat wakes feeling lost. When he gets out of bed, however, he finds a note slipped under his door. In the note, Mr. Hodges tells Nat he wants Nat to think of this house as his home.
Chapter 11 Summary: “What Next?”
England is at war with France, and both French and English ships have been attacking American ships. Ben Meeker shows Nat a cutting from a newspaper in which the editor of the paper says that President Washington should have sided with France.
Nat says that newspapers shouldn’t have any right to criticize the president. Doctor Bentley, overhearing him, tells Nat that freedom means being able to state your opinion even if it makes people angry. Not all problems, he says, have only one answer.
Doctor Bentley tells Nat that he and Captain Gibaut are planning to do a survey of Salem over the summer, and they want Nat to work on their crew. When Nat tells his sister Mary about the job, she says she is glad Nat is not going to sea. A month later, they learn that their younger brother Sammy has died of a fever in the West Indies.
That summer, Nat earns $135. At the end of the summer, Captain Gibaut asks Nat if he would like to serve on the Henry as a ship’s clerk on a venture to the island of Bourbon, a French colony on the east coast of Africa. He could invest his summer earnings buying something to sell when they get to their destination. After speaking to Monsieur Bonnefoy, who will be returning home to Bourbon with them, Nat invests almost all his money in boots and shoes.
He receives a setback when he learns that Captain Gibaut will not be commanding the Henry after all.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Down to the Sea”
Nat decides to ask the ship owner, Elias Derby if he could send his venture on the Henry anyway. He learns that Captain Prince, who will be commanding the Henry, wants to keep Nat on as clerk. Captain Prince adds that between ports, Nat will act as second mate (the second officer in command after the captain and first officer).
Nat and the first officer, Mr. Collins, divide the crew into watches. Nat has the starboard watch, and Mr. Collins has the larboard watch. Nat surprises himself by choosing Dan Keeler; Dan is a troublemaker.
On their sixth day out, Nat takes a reading of the position of the sun to find their latitude (the ship’s position in relation to the equator). It is much harder to figure out their longitude (how far around the circumference of the earth they have sailed). They don’t have a chronometer (a special timepiece designed for navigation), so the only other way to measure their position is by taking a measurement of the moon’s position as it crosses over a stationary point like a star. Taking a lunar, as it is called, requires a lot of very complicated math, and it’s hard to get exactly the right conditions for a good measurement of the moon’s position.
Nat studies his almanac and finds a good night to take a lunar. He explains to the cabin boy, Johnny, that they have to figure out how far west of the Meridian of London they are by catching the moon as it crosses in front of a certain star. Nat shows Johnny how to use the sextant.
The next night, Dan Keeler asks Nat if he really allowed Johnny to use his sextant. Nat offers to teach Dan. From then on, Nat spends the dog watch explaining navigation to the men. One of the most frustrating things for him is that he keeps tripping over his students’ slowness. Whenever he figures out a way to explain something so that the men understand, he writes down the explanation. Eventually, he fills up an entire notebook with notes on how to teach.
One night early in May, Nat gets a good lunar observation and calculates that they are sixty-one miles east of their dead reckoning. He tells Captain Prince that if his calculations are right, they will reach Bourbon on the eighth. Captain Prince is doubtful, but Nat turns out to be right.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
According to Nat the Navigator, Doctor Reed’s apprentice was a former schoolfellow and friend of Nat’s, and they spent many enjoyable evenings together. Doctor Reed was fourteen years older than Nat and one of the youngest of the men who took Nat under their wing and mentored him. He provides the example of what Nat’s life might have been like if he had been able to go to Harvard. Both men were brilliant, studious, and had wide-ranging interests. What particularly stands out in the comparison is that the two men are equally successful in life. The implication is that for someone like Nat, formal education is an unnecessary formality.
Nat’s outburst with Elizabeth—his impatience with her ignorance—is an example of what his various biographers describe as relatively rare outbursts of emotion. They were always short-lived, and he was quick to apologize. Elizabeth’s colorful explanation—tripping over other people’s dumbness—shows understanding for Nat while at the same time emphasizing the need for him to temper his reaction. Nat is better at remembering and understanding information than other people but that doesn’t make him better than anyone else.
Nathaniel Bowditch’s other biographers reported that his mathematical thinking (the conviction that there should only be one right answer) combined with his commitment to truth sometimes made him inflexible. One example is his idea that newspapers should not be allowed to print editorials criticizing the president. He makes an error in his thinking because he assumes there is only one correct answer, and the president has it. In real life, sometimes the best answer comes from discussion; people with differing opinions work together to find the best solutions. That is why freedom of speech is so essential. It is not just a question of fairness or equality. It is how society advances.
In fact, the summer he spends surveying isn’t Nat’s first surveying job. Mr. Hodges owned a piece of land in partnership with another man, and they wanted to divide it exactly in half. Nat volunteered to do the job. The other man, however, suspected that Nat was biased in favor of his employer and paid for a regular surveyor to do the job over again. Nat was indignant at the implication that he might have been dishonest and had to admit to a certain pleasure when the other man lost several feet of land that he might otherwise have had (Memoir of Nathaniel Bowditch).
The notebook in which Nat records his most successful teaching strategies could be seen as the beginning of his book the American Practical Navigator, which is still sometimes called the Seaman’s Bible; he looked at how his pupils thought and what tools they needed in order to be able to navigate accurately, and he put it all in one book. Nat’s experience teaching the men is his first experience seeing the impact of education on people who don’t have his natural aptitude. The act of learning gives the men a sense of control and accomplishment. In the past, any able seaman could aspire to become a shipmaster in time, but times were changing, and navigation had become the essential skill that separated ordinary seamen from officers, so Nat was giving them the knowledge and skills improve their lives.
