A LOST BOY

Early Life; Off for a Voyage.

I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. In the winter it was work in the woods, cutting up the year's supply of fire-wood; and then, before the spring ploughing time, my brother and myself found pleasant labor and recreation combined in the maple woods, tapping the trees, gathering the sap and tending the fire under the great kettles where the sweet product of the maple was transformed into syrup and sugar.

I really think that I was more thoughtful than the average boy. I know that I read more. I do not remember ever feeling dissatisfied with my life or with the prospects that the future held out for me. Probably I was too young for these things to trouble me much; but I read everything in the way of books and papers that I could borrow, or purchase by saving a little money earned in various ways. I was fond of stories of adventure; but travel and adventure combined, interested me most. Therefore, as I grew older, I became imbued with a passionate desire to travel in foreign lands. The tropics were my ideal, and this feeling became stronger as the years went by.

When I was fifteen years of age my father removed to a large village where there was a graded school, and I entered the grammar school, then the high school from which I was graduated.

The passion for travel still had a strong hold upon me, but I saw no immediate prospect of gratifying it, for I was obliged to look about for some immediate means of earning a living for myself. When everything else fails, one can always find an opportunity to canvass for a publishing house or a novelty concern; so, soon after leaving the high school, I was trudging up and down the banks of the Penobscot river, calling from house to house. It was discouraging work, but I succeeded moderately well.

Late in the fall I went up to Bangor to canvass that city, and it was there that I made the acquaintance of a gentleman, which led to the experiences that I am about to relate, and which changed the whole course of my life.

Mr. William H. Sargent was a wealthy, retired merchant, with impaired health. His wealth had been acquired by trading with the South American countries, and the West Indies, and he still retained large interest in many vessels sailing to that part of the world.

It was his idea to make a voyage in one of these vessels, and the friendship which had developed between us, mostly through meeting in the reading room of the Public Library, caused him to suggest that I accompany him on his voyage to the Southern seas.

I accepted only too gladly, and that very evening I wrote a long letter to my mother, explaining my good fortune, bidding her not to worry by exaggerating, in her own mind, the dangers to be encountered.

The next few days I spent mostly with my benefactor, for as such I looked upon him, helping him in various ways in his preparations for the voyage. As for myself, I required little more than a modest supply of clothing.

Mr. Sargent was thoughtful and considerate, however, and insisted upon my procuring much that I deemed unnecessary for my modest requirements, paying for the same from his own pocket.

Our craft was a trim bark called the Ethelyn Hope, built at Searsport three years before. She was two hundred and fifty tons gross measurement and sat in the water jauntily and buoyantly. From her load water-line to the tips of her topmast she was as trim a craft as one could wish to see. As she lay at the wharf ready for sea, everything on deck had been made snug, and not a coil of rope or spare block was out of place. Her cargo consisted of case oil, salt fish and flour in her hold, and she carried a good deck-load of lumber. She was bound for Cayenne, French Guiana, on the north coast of South America.

The Ethelyn Hope was commanded by Captain Thomas Witham; and the first, second and third mates, with nine able seamen before the mast comprised the crew.