Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/19

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&ensp;Thou bright land of blessings in every form, &ensp;I leave thee and fly to the billow and storm."

It was on a bright, sunny morning in the month of June that we sailed. Old "Sol" never shone brighter, as he shed his warm rays into the back windows of the  old Spurr house on Commercial Street. Here mother hired several rooms on the second floor, and it was in one  of these back rooms that I received her blessing. I shall never forget the time or the place. There was a fond embrace from a loving mother, a kiss on the forehead,  and a "God bless you, my son! Be a good boy, obey  your captain, and never forget to say your prayers." Kind reader, no earthly being can bless you as a loving mother can. As I looked up and saw the thin, pale face of my mother, I felt the hot tears roll down my young  cheeks. I was almost choked. I could not look up again or utter a single word, but I thanked God that I  had her consent to go, and that I was not running  away to sea and leaving mother and home for



In less than an hour I was on board the good old schooner Longwharf Captain Cook of Provincetown,  and standing down the Bay, bound to the Banks for  a fishing cruise.

From this time, I made several trips cod-fishing and mackerel-catching, and also a number of voyages to the  West Indies and some of the Southern ports. As so much has been written, however, about the slave-ships  and the pirates of the West Indies, I will not go into