Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/330

 My father ultimately found his way back to Boston, but it was ten years after this time, and forty-two years  and a half from the time he first left the town. While walking out from the Albany depot not a single building or landmark did he recognize until he reached  the old Roxbury line. There, with bitter remorse, he

THE HOUSE WHERE I WAS BORN.

stood in front of the old mansion which had once been his happy and comfortable home.

A few days after my return I learned that able seamen were wanted for the navy, and thought quite strongly of  shipping in it again, thinking I might possibly obtain a  petty officer’s berth. Calling one day at Jack Wright’s