He merely equipped himself with knowledge of his environment without any awareness of provision or without bothering about the future.
In his own way of acquiring knowledge, he quickly discovered, just as on the plantation house-boys were different from field-boys, that on the _Arangi_ there was a classification of boys different from the return boys.

This was the boat's crew.

The fifteen blacks who composed it were closer than the others to Captain Van Horn.

They seemed more directly to belong to the _Arangi_ and to him.

They laboured under him at word of command, steering at the wheel, pulling and hauling on ropes, healing water upon the deck from overside and scrubbing with brooms.
Just as Jerry had learned from _Mister_ Haggin that he must be more tolerant of the house-boys than of the field-boys if they trespassed on the compound, so, from Captain Van Horn, he learned that he must be more tolerant of the boat's crew than of the return boys.