WALKING TO BOSTON.--SUSPECTED TO BE RUNAWAYS.--FIND A SHIP AND SIGN
ARTICLES.
We had a good sixty miles to walk, yes, sixty-five of them, from our
homes to Boston. There was a stage coach which ran daily each way, but
it was five miles from our house to the nearest point of the turnpike
road, on which the stage traveled. We were too poor to afford such a
magnificent conveyance, and therefore had arranged to walk the entire
distance. In addition to our bundles or packs which I had already
described, David having an outfit exactly like mine, we had provisions
enough, as we hoped, to last until we reached Boston, and a cash
capital of a little over five dollars each. We were strong lads, and
capable of a great deal of exertion, and we figured out that we would
walk the distance in two days, begging the privilege of sleeping in
a barn during the intervening night. I left home immediately after
breakfast, which was served an hour earlier than usual, in order to
give me a good start. It was the same at David's house, and it was not
yet seven o'clock before we were on the road.
We got along all right for ten or twelve miles, meeting perhaps a
dozen people in wagons or on foot, and just stopping long enough to
"pass the time of day." Our first adventure was with a man in a wagon
and accompanied by a boy of about our age. The man spoke to us rather
gruffly, asked who we were, and where we were going.
We told him our names and our fathers' names, where we lived, and the
rest that the reader knows.
"I don't think you're telling the truth," said the man.
"We have told you the exact truth," I answered, "and my friend David
will say the same thing."
"Of course he would do so," was the answer, "but that won't make it
true. I believe you're a pair of runaway apprentices, and I'm going to
arrest you!"
"We are nothing of the sort," I answered, "we have never been
apprenticed to anybody, and we're not running away."
"We'll see about that," was his reply, "get into the hind part of my
wagon, and come back to the village."
David and I exchanged glances momentarily, and each shook his head.
David said, in a low whisper, "We won't go. It will lose us too much
time."
Thereupon I spoke up and answered, "We don't want to ride in your
wagon back to the village or anywhere else, and we won't do it. We will
keep on our road, and if you choose to bring the sheriff to arrest us
you may do so. We warn you beforehand, that we shall demand that our
expenses shall be paid if you find out that we have told the truth."
"Get into the wagon, I say. Do as I tell you!"
David was about to speak up, when I shook my head and warned him to be
silent. I briefly replied, "Good-day, sir," David doing the same, and
we proceeded on our journey.
The man called after us two or three times. In fact, he got down
from his wagon, throwing the reins into the hands of the boy that
accompanied him. We quickened our pace, and I suppose he realized that
he would have a very difficult task to coerce two able-bodied youths of
seventeen into entering his wagon against their wills. At all events,
he did not follow us, and, looking over my shoulder, I saw him remount
his wagon-seat and proceed on his way.
Perhaps I ought to explain that it was the custom of that time to
apprentice, or bind out, boys to learn trades. According to law and
practice, a boy was bound to serve his master for seven years, in
return for learning the trade and being fed and clothed during the
time of his apprenticeship. Sometimes the apprentice received wages for
his services during the last year, or the last two or three years, of
his time; and sometimes a premium was paid by the apprentice or on his
behalf. A good deal depended on the character of the trade in which he
was engaged, and also upon the excess or scarcity of boys wishing to
learn trades.
The man who stopped us was fairly justified in suspecting that we were
runaway apprentices, as it was in no ways unusual for boys who had been
bound out and thought that they were badly treated, to run away from
their masters. Usually they went in pairs, and they also directed their
steps to the nearest important seaport, for the double reason that they
could more easily avoid recapture, and at the same time find employment
of some sort. The great majority of the boys of that time had, like
David and myself, a longing for the sea, and it was quite natural for
any one meeting us on the road to conclude that we were what the man
supposed us to be when he endeavored to stop us.
We kept steadily on our way and met with no further trouble. When we
judged, by the position of the sun and also by the distance we had
traveled that it was past the hour of noon, we sat down by the bank of
a brook at the roadside, opened our packs, and took out our dinner. We
had ravenous appetites from our long walk, and the cold meat and bread
which had been prepared for us was quickly eaten. We washed it down
with water from the brook, and after resting for perhaps half an hour,
went on.
About sunset we reached a good-looking house on the right-hand side of
the road, and perhaps a hundred yards away from it. Somewhat timidly we
approached, going around to the side door, and not venturing to make
our call at the front one. A stern-looking man came out, and before we
spoke he eyed us with apparent suspicion. Evidently he was like the
man on the road and took us for runaway apprentices; at all events his
manner had very little welcome in it and I thought it best to explain
at once who we were.
"We are the sons of Samuel Crane and William Taylor of Pembroke," I
said. "We are on our way to Boston, with our fathers' consent, to go
to sea, and we ask the privilege of sleeping in your barn to-night if
you have no objection. If you want us to do any work to pay for our
lodging, we are ready to do it, or we will pay in money if you insist."
The idea of paying for sleeping in a barn seemed to hit him on the
funny side, as the sternness of his features relaxed, and a smile
played about them. In reply to my statement and request he said,--
"Looks to me very much as though you youngsters were running away from
your masters. Are you telling me the truth?"
"Yes, sir," I replied; "we are telling you the exact truth. We have no
papers about us to prove who we are, but we give you our words that we
are not runaways at all, but just what we claim to be."
"Let me see what you have in that bundle," said the man. "I want to be
sure you haven't taken anything that doesn't belong to you."
I felt a flush of anger as he made this suggestion, and was about
to reply rather tartly to the intimation that we might have stolen
something. But the consciousness of my innocence of any wrong-doing,
and, furthermore, the knowledge that the contents of our packs would
prove it, restrained me. I said not a word, but undid my bundle and
spread the contents before his eyes.
He gave a rapid glance at the articles displayed, and said in a sort of
undertone, "New clothes, new stockings, new shirt; nothing else; all
right." Then addressing himself to us directly, he said,--
"Boys, I believe just what you've told me. No runaway apprentice
carries a pack like that. You are welcome to sleep in my barn; no, you
sha'n't do that, you shall sleep in the house! You're hungry, and will
want some supper; come right in."
"Thank you, sir," I said; "our mothers put up something for us to eat,
enough to last us to Boston, provided we are economical. So we can eat
our supper out here under the trees, and will sleep wherever you tell
us to."
"Oh, nonsense, boys, come into the house and eat supper here. Save your
provisions for to-morrow, and then you can eat just as hearty a dinner
as you want to on the road without fear of starvation."
We thanked him and accepted his invitation. We had a good supper, and
after it sat and talked with the farmer perhaps for an hour or more,
told him our plans, and all about ourselves and families. The farmer
and his wife were very kind to us; they told us they had two children,
a boy about our age, and a girl two or three years younger. Both of
them were away on a visit to some relatives in a neighboring town,
and I fancied that the farmer and his wife were rather glad of their
absence, lest we might have aroused in their boy a desire to follow our
example.
We found that we had walked a little more than half the entire distance
from our homes to Boston; if we traveled at the same rate we would
reach Boston at sunset of the next day. As we were leaving the house of
our hospitable friend in the morning, after a good breakfast, for which
and the supper and lodging he would take no compensation, he suggested
to us that we had better stop outside of Boston three or four miles,
so as to enter the city in the morning.
"Your best way of going into Boston is through Charlestown," he said.
"When you get about three miles this side of Boston look out for a red
house on the left of the road, with a clump of trees around it, and ask
if that is where Mr. Johnson lives. Tell him you spent the night with
me, my name is Samuel Bickford, and I recommended you to him. He may
have the same suspicion of you as I had, and you can satisfy him just
as you satisfied me as to your character, and you can convince him that
you passed the night at my house by describing the place and the folks
in it."
We thanked him very kindly for his advice, and promised that if it ever
came in our way we would certainly make a return for his hospitality. I
little thought at that time that the opportunity would ever arrive, and
certainly I did not, in my wildest dreams, imagine the way in which it
would come about.
As I look back now to our reception at this house, I take great credit
to David and myself that we made such a favorable impression on our
host.
It was then about seventeen years since the close of the Revolutionary
War, and during all this time the country had been overrun by idle
fellows who served in the army, and after the disbandment of the
troops took to a wandering, and, in many cases, a dissolute, life.
They tramped along the principal highways, and, in fact, over pretty
nearly all the roads of New England. They begged their food and
lodging, though more frequently they stole the lodging outright, as
they slept in barns without troubling themselves to ask the privilege
of doing so.
As the years rolled on their number decreased, but at the time of which
I write they were quite numerous, and in winter filled the jails and
poor-houses to over-flowing. Like ourselves, they had an aversion to
winter travel, but started out in the spring. You will remember that we
left home in the spring, and consequently were beginning our journeys
at the same time as these tramping idlers began theirs.
They pretended to be seeking work, but were careful never to find it.
In summer they wanted a job at shoveling snow, and in winter professed
to be hay-makers. People living along the highways had suffered much
from the beggary and depredation of this class of individuals, and
consequently it is more the wonder that our host so readily accepted
our story and gave us the hospitality of his house. It must have been
that the frank and honest faces of David and myself served as our
passports on that occasion.
We found Mr. Johnson's house without difficulty, were received at first
in the same suspicious manner as on the night before, and afterwards
with the same open-handed hospitality. In the morning we walked rapidly
into Boston, and, not knowing where to go, headed straight for the
water-front and the ships that lay there.
As we crossed the bridge from Charlestown to Boston, our curiosity was
roused at the sight of the vessels anchored in the harbor or lying at
the piers. We had never before seen a ship; the largest floating craft
of any kind that had ever greeted our eyes were the row-boats on the
Merrimac River, and the cargo-boats that plied occasionally between
the falls along that stream. Neither kind of craft was numerous, and
all were the merest pigmies compared with the vessels we saw after we
reached Boston.
As we stood looking at a ship at the head of one of the wharves, a man
came up and spoke to us. He asked who we were, and where we had come
from; to both of which questions we promptly replied. Then he said,--
"I suppose you've come to Boston to find a ship, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir." I answered; "that's what we've come for. Can you tell us of
a ship that is going to sea right away?"
"Yes, I can," he answered; "this ship right here, the Washington, is
going to sail just as soon as she can get a crew. How old are you?"
We told our ages, and added that we knew nothing about ships at all,
but thought we could learn.
"Oh, you'll learn quick enough," he answered, "there's no fear of that.
I'll go aboard with you, and see if the captain will take you along.
Come ahead, boys, this way, come along."
He started in the direction of the ship, which was tied up to the
wharf, and we followed. He led us up the gang-plank, and very quickly
we found ourselves standing on the deck of what seemed to us a colossal
craft.
"Stay here a minute," said our new-found friend, "while I find the
captain;" and away he went in search of that individual.
Very soon he returned and took us aft to the captain's room. The
captain questioned us very sharply, and he did not impress either of us
favorably. After a good many questions he seemed satisfied, and said he
would take us as green hands. Then he called the mate of the ship to
accompany us to the shipping office, where we "signed articles," and
then went with the mate to the ship again.
The man who had first accosted us disappeared when he introduced us to
the captain, and we did not see him again until he came on board with
a sailor who was considerably under the influence of liquor. The man
proved to be a runner for the ship, or rather for the shipping office
that had undertaken to supply the Washington with a crew. Two likely
lads like ourselves were prizes for him, but he did not consider it
worth his while to say so.
The mate showed us where we were to sleep, and small as had been the
garrets in which we slept at home, they were palatial compared with our
new quarters. We were in the forward part of the vessel, and each of us
had a narrow bunk that was built up against the sides. There was just
room enough in each bunk to lie there comfortably; turning over was a
matter of difficulty, and David said that the best way to turn over was
to turn out and then get in the other way.
Then the mate went with us to a shop not far away, where we were rigged
out with sailors' suits, which he said would be charged against us on
the ship's books. "Anything you want," said he, "on the voyage, you
will get out of the slop-chest, and be charged with it in the same way."
The clothing we had taken off was made into bundles, and then we
started with the mate back to the ship again. On our journey from the
ship to the shop we followed him; but on the return he kept us in
front, and so near that he could grasp either of our collars at the
same time. He had been quite good-natured and pleasant spoken, but
now that we had been shipped and were dressed as sailors, he was very
gruff, and ordered, rather than requested us. When we got on board the
ship he was all right again.
I didn't understand it then, but did afterward. You see that, the
moment we got into those new clothes, we were in possession of ship's
property, and if we had run away there would have been a loss of the
value of the goods. It was the mate's duty to see that we didn't run
away, and he carried it out fully.
When we got on board we were set at work clearing up things about
the ship. Her deck was covered with lumber, and, though her hold was
nearly full of cargo, packages, barrels, and boxes continued to arrive
at frequent intervals. As fast as they came they were lowered into
the hold, and before sunset the space below was crowded to its full
capacity, and the hatches were put on. In our work we had nothing to do
with the cargo, but were put in charge of a good-natured sailor named
Bill Haines, who was to show us how to perform our duties. We got along
with him very well, but when night came we were heartily tired, and
after a supper of stewed beef and potatoes, with dry biscuit, we went
to our bunks and slept soundly. No, I can't say that we slept soundly,
but we would have done so had we not been disturbed repeatedly during
the night by the arrival of other members of the crew, the majority of
them in a condition of greater or less intoxication.
Then, too, the place was badly ventilated, and the air was very foul. I
compared it with our garrets at home, with thin cracks that allowed the
wind to blow in upon us, and the comparison was not at all in favor of
the ship. I had a headache in the morning, and so had David; but a few
whiffs of the air on deck made us all right again.