Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/119

Rh forting the afflicted, helping the poor and feeble with his own hands, and all with a perfect simplicity and absence of self-seeking that endeared him to all. To him I looked, and looked with confidence, as my successor in the duties of Chief Magistrate, whenever age or death should remove me from that post.

Dana had grown into a splendid fellow, the admiration of all the girls of the state, and the hero of all the lads. He carried on the medical studies into which I had initiated him with perseverance if without enthusiasm, but in fact he was a born seaman, if ever there was such a being; never so happy as on board his beloved ships, which he kept in scrupulous order, unless it might be when I allowed him to take one or other of them on a cruise among the neighbouring islands. Our friend the boatswain who administered such a drubbing to the President was his right hand man, and as keen a sailor as Dana himself; while the President still strutted and crowed for the amusement of the community, or for their more amusement cringed and quailed when any one thought it worth while to take him down a peg. For myself, the lines of my face were grown a trifle deeper and my hair a thought