Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/326

. The smallest pieces of money were a five-cent piece, and a picayune, — six and a quarter cents, — and a  Spanish coin called fourpence. It used to confuse Jack before the mast very much, that in Boston it was six  shillings to the dollar, and in New York eight; that an  eighth of a dollar, or twelve and a half cents, should be  called ninepence in Boston, a shilling in New York, a  long bit in New Orleans, and a levy in the Western  States.

We got along splendidly keeping bachelor’s hall, but we poor mortals were unable to endure so much prosperity, and, after remaining five weeks, surrendered the  shanty to Miss Dinah, our aged colored landlady. The old lady was almost broken-hearted and wept bitterly  when we left, saying, "I done feels drefful sorry fo’ all  my white chilens to go ’way and leave po’ Dinah all  ’lone." A few days afterward I shipped on board the steamboat George Washington, bound for Cincinnati.

On our third trip up the Ohio, one day a deck hand stepped up to me and said:

"Where were you raised, Charlie?"

"Down east, in a little town near Boston, called Roxbury."

"Well, there is a man living in the town where I was raised whose name is the same as yours, and I’ll bet  two to one he is your father. He’s got a family near  Boston. He is now living in Spencer, Medina County,  Ohio."

He then gave me directions as to how to find him.

After we had discharged the freight, I left the boat with all my earthly possessions, which were simply a