Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/18

Rh Boston. She was not very well or strong, and worked hard to support her little family. I was sent to school, but very seldom went, — in fact, I "hooked Jack"  nearly all the time. There were no truant officers or policemen in those days, and only seven constables in  all Boston: old Reed, old Jones, old Clapp, the two old  Browns, and the two old — I-forget-their-names. I used to run down the harbor in the old sloop Sal after  paving-stones and sand, and sometimes at noon my  feeble voice might have been heard at the head of  State Street, crying out, "Here’s the Mail, Bee, and  Times." I also tended dinner-table in old Hunt’s cellar on Commercial Street. John B. Gough tended bar there too, and roomed at my mother’s. If I was wanted at any other time, I could easily be found down at the  wharves, in some ship’s jolly-boat, or up in one of her  tops, scanning the harbor. How I enjoyed listening to the sailors spinning yarns about the foreign countries  they had seen and the sunny islands of the Pacific! I caught the sea-fever badly. It struck to my brain, and I made up my mind to be a sailor anyway. I knew very well that I was not one of the best boys in Boston, though  I had one of the very best of mothers. She was so good and loving that I could not harbor the thought of  deserting her — I knew it would almost break her poor  heart; but I kept coaxing and teasing, teasing and coaxing, until I had almost bothered the life out of her. At last I gained her consent, and was made one of the happiest boys in all Boston. Without emotion I could say:

"Farewell to the land of my childhood and youth, &ensp;The land of the Bible, religion, and truth!