speedy end.

“My father being poor, neither myself nor my brothers and sisters received any other education than what was afforded by the common country school. It was, indeed, as much as my father could do at any time to support so large a family, and, at the end of the year, make both ends meet.

“As for myself, I was altogether a very ungrateful fellow, and appreciated neither the goodness of my father nor any of the other blessings which I had. Of the advantages of a moderate education which were offered to me I did not avail myself,—preferring mischief and idleness to my studies; and I manifested so little desire to learn, and was so troublesome to the master, that I was at length sent home, and forbidden to come back any more; whereupon my father, very naturally, grew angry with me, and no doubt thinking it hopeless to try further to make anything of me, he regularly bound me over, or hired me out, for a period of years, to a neighboring farmer, who compelled me to work very hard; so I thought myself ill used, whereas, in truth, I did not receive half my deserts.

“With this farmer I lived three years and a half before he made the discovery that I was wholly useless to him, and that I did not do work enough to pay for the food I ate; so the farmer complained to my father, and threatened to send me home. This made me very indignant, as I foolishly thought myself a greatly abused and injured person, and, in an evil hour, I resolved to stand it no longer. I would spite the old farmer, and punish my father for listening to him, by running away.

“I was now in my eighteenth year,—old enough, as one would have thought, to have more manliness and self-respect; but about this I had not reflected much.

“I set out on my ridiculous journey without one pang of regret,—so hardened was I in heart and conscience,—carrying with me only a change of clothing, and having in my pocket only one small piece of bread, and two small pieces of silver. It was rather a bold adventure, but I thought I should have no difficulty in reaching New Bedford, where I was fully resolved to take ship and go to sea.

“The journey to New Bedford was a much more difficult undertaking than I had counted upon, and, I believe, but for the wound which it would have caused to my pride, I should have gone back at the end of the first five miles. I held on, however, and reached my destination on the second day, having stopped overnight at a public house or inn, where my two pieces of silver disappeared in paying for my supper and lodging and breakfast.

“I arrived at New Bedford near the middle of the afternoon of the second day, very hot and dusty, for I had walked all the way through the broiling sun along the high-road; and I was very tired and hungry, too, for I had tasted no food since morning, having no more money to buy any with, and not liking to beg. So I wandered on through the town towards the place where the masts of ships were to be seen as I looked down the street,—feeling miserable enough, I can assure you.

“Up to this period of my life, I had never been ten miles from home, and had never seen a city, so of course everything was new to me. By this time, however, I had come to reflect seriously on my folly, and this, coupled with hunger and fatigue, so far banished curiosity from my mind that I was not in the least impressed by what I saw. In truth, I very heartily wished myself back on the farm; for if the labor there was not to my liking, it was at least not so hard as what I had performed these past two days, in walking along the dusty road,—and then I was, when on the farm, never without the means to satisfy my hunger.

“What I should have done at this critical stage, had not some one come to my assistance, I cannot imagine. I was afraid to ask any questions of the passers-by, for I did not really know what to ask them, or how to explain my situation; and, seeing that everybody was gaping at me with wonder and curiosity (and many of them were clearly laughing at my absurd appearance), I hurried on, not having the least idea of where I should go or what I should do.

“At length I saw a man with a very red face approaching on the opposite side of the street, and from his general appearance I guessed him to be a sailor; so, driven almost to desperation, I crossed over to him, looking, I am sure, the very picture of despair, and I thus accosted him: ‘If you please, sir, can you tell me where I can go and ship for a voyage?’

“‘A voyage!’ shouted he, in reply, ‘a voyage! A pretty looking fellow you for a voyage!’—which observation very much confused me. Then he asked me a great many questions, using a great many hard names, the meaning of which I did not at all understand, and the necessity for which I could not exactly see. I noticed that he called me ‘landlubber’ very frequently, but I had no idea whether he meant to compliment or abuse me, though it seemed more likely to me that it was the latter. After a while, however, he seemed to have grown tired of talking, or had exhausted all his strange words, for he turned short round and bade me follow him, which I did, with very much the feelings a culprit must have when he is going to prison.

“We went down a steep hill, and arrived presently at a low, dingy place, the only peculiar feature of which was that it smelled of tar and had a great many people lounging about in it. It was, as I soon found out, a ‘shipping office,’—that is, a place where sailors engage themselves for a voyage. No sooner had we entered than my conductor led me up to a tall desk, and then, addressing himself to a sharp-faced man on the other side of it, he said something which I did not clearly comprehend. Then I was told to sign a paper, which I did without even reading a word of it, and then the red-faced man cried out in a very loud and startling tone of voice, ‘Bill!’ when somebody at once rolled off a bench, and scrambled to his feet. This was evidently the ‘Bill’ alluded to.

“When Bill had got upon his feet, he surveyed me for an instant, as I thought, with a very needlessly firm expression of countenance, and then started towards the door, saying to me as he set off, ‘This way, you lubber.’ I followed after him with much the same feelings which I had before when I followed the man with the red face, until we came down to where the ships were, and then we descended a sort of ladder, or stairs, at the foot of which I stumbled into a boat, and had like to have gone overboard into the water. At this, the people in the boat set up a great laugh at my clumsiness,—just as if I had ever been in a boat before, and could help being clumsy. To make the matter worse, I sat down in the wrong place, where one of the men was to pull an oar; and when, after being told to ‘get out of that,’ with no end of hard names, I asked what bench I should sit on, they all laughed louder than before, which still further overwhelmed me with confusion. I did not then know that what I called a ‘bench,’ they called a ‘thwart,’ or more commonly ‘thawt.’

“At length, after much abuse and more laughter, I managed to get into the forward part of the boat, which was called, as I found out, ‘the bows,’ where there was barely room to coil myself up, and the boat being soon pushed off from the wharf, the oars were put out, and then I heard an order to ‘give way,’ and then the oars splashed in the water, and I felt the boat moving; and now, as I realized that I was in truth leaving my home and native land, perhaps to see them no more forever, my heart sank heavy in my breast; and it was as much as I could do to keep the tears from pouring out of my eyes, as we glided on over the harbor. Indeed, my eyes were so bedimmed that I scarcely saw anything at all until we came around under