Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/81

Rh wouldn’t, but was all for going to sea, they said very well, a sailor I could be, but first I must go to school, for sailors must have learning  too. But I couldn’t wait; the wish for the blue water was in my very blood, so I slipped  away and shipped for China before they knew  it. That was a hard voyage in some ways, but a wonder of a one in others, and when I came  home I would listen to nothing they said, but  was off and away again before I had been in  port much more than a week.”

“And you’ve sailed and sailed and sailed ever since?” Billy asked. A sharp dip of the boat nearly upset him but he managed to speak  calmly. He thought it a good plan to keep the old man talking that he might not notice  the rising clouds behind him.

“Yes, sometimes on sailing ships and sometimes on steamers, in every trade and bound for every port on earth. I drifted into the Navy at last, and was a bluejacket on just such  a battleship as we saw go by today, and it was  in that service that I first began to see what a  mistake I had made. There were, among the young officers, boys not half my age, but knowing four times more than I ever would. I had to salute when they spoke to me, and I was