The Log from the Sea of Cortez

by John Steinbeck

We carried no cook and dishwasher; it had been understood that we would all help. But for some time Tex had been secretly mutinous about washing dishes. At the proper times he had things to do in the engine-room. He might have succeeded in this crime, if he had ever varied his routine, but gradually a suspicion grew on us that Tex did not like to wash dishes. He denied this vigorously. He said he liked very much to wash dishes. He appealed to our reason. How would we like it, he argued, if we were forever in the engine-room, getting our hands dirty? There was danger down there too, he said. Men had been killed by engines. He was not willing to see us take the risk. We met his arguments with a silence that made him nervous. He protested then that he had once washed dishes from west Texas to San Diego without stopping, and that he had learned to love it so much that he didn’t want to be selfish about it now. A circle of cold eyes surrounded him. He began to sweat. He said that later (he didn’t say how much later) he was going to ask us for the privilege of washing all the dishes, but right now he had a little job to do in the engine-room. It was for the safety of the ship, he said. No one answered him. Then he cried, “My God, are you going to hang me?” At last Sparky spoke up, not unkindly, but inexorably. “Tex,” he said, “you’re going to wash ‘em or you’re going to sleep with ’em.” Tex said, “Now just as soon as I do one little job there’s nothing I’d rather do than wash fo...