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 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Good Luck Spell”
Nat is lying still in the dark, trying to stay awake until his older brother Hab falls asleep. Nat has found a silver shilling. It is supposed to be good luck to jingle silver in your pocket under a full moon, and the moon is full tonight. To amuse himself, Nat does math in his head. Unfortunately, Nat falls asleep before he has a chance to try his spell.
The next day, Nat’s family is moving from Danvers to Salem. Nat’s father used to be a ship’s captain, but he lost his ship (the second ship he had lost) and the experience “took the tuck” (13) out of him as Nat’s grandmother says, by which she means that he lost his spirit. He intends to become a cooper (barrel-maker). As they enter Salem, Nat’s grandmother points out a house near the water that was built by Nat’s great-great-great grandfather Captain Turner. The house is the only one in the town of Salem that has seven gables.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Privateers”
Nat tells his sister Lizza (Elizabeth) about his good luck spell. He intends to try again to work the charm, but a storm comes up and covers the moon. Nat realizes he'll have to wait a whole month till another new moon. The first sunny day when Nat comes down to breakfast, he hears a fife and drum playing out on the street, and his father explains that someone is gathering a crew for a privateer—a privately-owned ship with a license from the government to capture enemy ships—in this case, British ships.
Nat and his father go down to the waterfront. Nat asks his father what he would do with more money than ever had before in his life. His father says that he would buy an “expectation” from a sailor on a privateer. Then he would get part of the money the sailor makes from the sale of the captured ship and its cargo.
At the docks, Nat’s father sets him up on a nearby sea chest and tells him to wait there for his return. While Nat is waiting, the owner of the sea chest returns and asks Nat what he is doing. Nat explains who he is and that he is buying expectations. The sailor says, "Captain Bowditch's boy, eh! I remember when the Polly went aground. April 19, 1775." (13) He tells Nat he has one expectation left that amounts to one tenth of his share of whatever prize they capture. He asks what Nat will give him for it. Nat shows him the shilling. The amused sailor takes Nat’s shilling and gives him a receipt. He tells Nat not to tell anyone that Tom Perry sold a tenth of his expectations for a shilling.
Later, Nat asks his father how long it’s likely to be before a privateer comes back. His father says it could be months or even years.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Word From the Pilgrim”
Nat starts school in Salem. When Hab tells Master Watson that Nat has been to school for two years already, Master Watson is scornful of a school taught by women. On the first day, the schoolmaster asks the students what happened on April 19, 1775. Nat answers that it was the day his father ship ran aground. The schoolmaster shakes him for being impertinent. He was supposed to say that it was the date of the battle of Lexington, which was the start of the American Revolution.
The only arithmetic problems Master Watson gives the boys Nat's age are ones Nat can work in his head. One day, Nat asks for a big problem like the ones the older boys get. Annoyed, Master Watson gives him a long, complicated math problem. Nat returns to his seat, solves the problem, then brings the answer to Master Watson. Master Watson accuses him of cheating. He threatens to beat Nat if Nat doesn’t tell him who helped him.
Nat’s brother Hab suggests that master Watson test Nat by giving him a problem to work right in front of him. Nat finishes the problem quickly and hands the slate back to master Watson, who declares that if Nat could read Latin, he could go to Harvard (the oldest college in the country) right now. From that moment, Nat dreams of going to Harvard. College is expensive, but Nat believes that when Tom Perry returns, he will have enough money.
One day, Granny gives Nat a piece of paper and tells him to take it to Doctor Stearns, the apothecary (pharmacist). While Nat is waiting for Doctor Stearns to make up the tonic for his mother, he sees a newspaper and spots the name of the privateer Tom Perry works on. Pilgrim has returned with a captured British ship that is going to be auctioned. Doctor Stearns is going to the auction. He promises to find out about Nat’s friend.
Nat returns to Doctor Stearns’s shop, and Doctor Stearns tells Nat that Tom Perry died a hero, saving his superior officer’s life. There won’t be any prize money for Nat, which means he’ll have to find some other way to pay for college.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
In the first scene, we see Nat using math to entertain himself. For Nat, math is more than a tool to get a job done. He does calculations for fun the way another person might sing or write poetry. The first scene also introduces the motif of celestial navigation. Later, Nat will figure out how to navigate a ship using the moon, but he also uses the moon and stars to navigate his life. He looks to the moon for good luck. On the second night, when he tries again to work his good luck spell, a cloud covers the moon. Nat will have the same problem later when trying to use the moon to calculate his ship’s longitude.
Before attending the school at Salem, Nat went to a “dame school.” A dame school was run by a local woman who made a little money by teaching basic reading, arithmetic, knitting and sometimes writing to young children. For some children, especially girls, dame school was all the education they ever received. At this time, there was no free public education. Tuition at a dame school might only be a few shillings a year, but fees at the school in Salem would have been higher even if Master Watson allowed girls as pupils.
Nat’s family was moderately well off before his father lost his ship. Afterward, Habakkuk Bowditch turned to the manufacturing barrels, hoping that he would be luckier as a barrel-maker than as a ship’s captain. According to Memoir of Nathaniel Bowditch, Habakkuk had also loaned money to his father Ezekiel Bowditch for a business venture, which failed. Regarding the craft of cooperage: according to Nat the Navigator, the trade of barrel-making was at that time considered essential knowledge for a ship captain. Unfortunately, Nat’s father took up his new trade in the middle of a war when the economy was in turmoil. The British blockade of American ports prevented New Englanders from trading with other countries. Conflict at sea also disrupted traditional trade routes, making it difficult to transport goods and food. This meant that the cost of food and other necessities increased while at the same time, people were unable to sell their own products. More than once, Nat’s father is described as having lost his tuck. To tuck something means to secure it. For example, you tuck your shirt in to keep it from flapping. So, Granny is saying that Nat’s father has come loose and is flapping in the wind.
In chapter 1, Nat’s grandmother makes a point of calling his attention to the house with seven gables that was built by his great great great grandfather John Turner. Nathaniel Bowditch was indeed descended from the Captain Turner who first owned the house. It is the same house that inspired the author Nathaniel Hawthorne to write a novel called The House of Seven Gables. Nathaniel Hawthorne was also descended from Captain Turner, so Hawthorne and Bowditch were actually fourth cousins, although Nat was thirty-six when Nathaniel Hawthorne was born.
Buying an expectation is Nat’s first experience with speculation, and it doesn’t go well; he loses his shilling. That is the risk you take in any investment. Later, in chapter 11, Nat will once again risk all the money he has in the world, buying and selling boots and shoes, but that time, he will succeed in quadrupling his investment. When Tom Perry agrees to hand over a tenth of his prize in exchange for a shilling, Nat might have made 100 times or more the value of a shilling. This is would be an unusual thing to do, and the scene raises the question of how serious Tom his. When he is reported to have died a hero, however, the reader is left with the impression that Tom was an honorable man.
