GUY FINDS A FRIEND.
POOR GUY! his misfortunes were following close upon the heels of one
another. He had looked upon the loss of his money as the greatest of
calamities, but now a worse had befallen him. He was at swords’ points
with Bob Walker, and he did not see how he could get on without him. Bob
was so self-reliant, and could so easily adapt himself to circumstances
that Guy had already learned to lean upon him. Fully sensible of his own
lack of courage and independence, he wanted somebody to advise and
sympathize with him. Longing to get away by himself where he could brood
over his sorrows to his heart’s content, he hurried out of the steerage,
and was making his way aft, when he ran plump into the arms of some one.
It was the steward.
“Ah! this will never do,” said the officer. “Steerage passengers are not
allowed abaft the waist.”
“Eh?” exclaimed Guy.
“Come here,” said the steward, “and I will explain what I mean. Do you
see this gangway that runs athwartships? Well, you mustn’t come any
nearer the stern than that. Go for’ard now.”
Guy started in obedience to his command, and just then the supper-bell
rung. The first to answer the summons was Bob Walker, who went into the
wash-room and tucked up his sleeves preparatory to performing his
ablutions. Guy went in also, and followed his movements.
Having recovered from his seasickness by this time, he was, of course,
very hungry, and the savory odors that came from the cabin every time
the door was opened served to quicken his appetite. He hung up his cap,
and was about to turn on the water, when the ubiquitous steward once
more appeared.
“Now, pard, this won’t do, either,” said he, taking hold of the boy’s
arm and waving his hand toward the door.
“Why not?” demanded Guy, trying to throw off the steward’s grasp. “I
want to wash before supper, don’t I?”
“If you do you will find plenty of buckets on the main deck.”
“I am not in the habit of washing in buckets, and I sha’n’t do it,”
replied Guy, greatly astonished.
“Oh, that’s the way the wind sets, is it?” exclaimed the steward,
changing his tone and manner in an instant. “You’re standing on your
dignity, are you, you dead beat? Now mark you,” he added, shaking his
finger in the boy’s face, “if I catch you as far aft as this gangway
again I’ll walk you for’ard by the nape of the neck. Now get out o’
this! Out you go, with a jump.”
Guy did not go with a jump exactly, but he went with a very strong push,
for the steward, exerting all his strength, flung him headlong through
the door, and kicked his cap after him. Bob stood by, wiping his hands,
and, as Guy made his hasty exit, he chuckled audibly, and gave the
steward an approving wink.
When he went into the cabin to supper he jingled some silver in his
pocket, and shook his head in a very wise and knowing manner.
“You’ll come out at the top of the heap before I do, will you?” he
soliloquized. “It looks like it now, does it not? You’re not sharp
enough to make your way in this wicked world, my innocent young friend.
I was as poor as you were yesterday morning, and now I’ve got forty
dollars to help me along. A fig for such fellows as you! I am better off
without you.”
Guy, filled with rage and grief, picked up his cap and made his way
forward. He fully realized now what it was to be adrift in the world.
With no money in his pocket, no friend to whom he could go for advice or
assistance, and with the prospect before him of being put off the boat
in a strange place and among strange people, his situation was indeed a
trying one.
He glanced into the steerage as he walked by the door, but could not
make up his mind to enter. It looked gloomy in there, and the occupants
stared at him so rudely that he hurried on, anxious to get out of their
sight.
“A man is no man unless he has money in his pocket,” said the runaway to
himself. “Everybody is down on me now, because I am broke. It beats me
where that purse could have gone so suddenly. I know it was in my pocket
last night when I hung up my clothes, for I heard it strike against the
bulk-head. If it were not for that safe scrape I’d work my way home on
some vessel, take the whipping I know I’d get, and settle down with the
determination to behave myself. But I shall never see home again, for I
shall starve to death. I brought no provisions with me, and I can’t
raise the money to buy a seat at the second table. I sha’n’t get a bite
to eat until I reach Saginaw, and then I shall have to beg it.”
A bright prospect this for the boy who had so confidently expected to
find nothing but fair weather and plain sailing before him! Instead of
leaving all his troubles at home, he was running into others that he had
never dreamed of.
“Here you are!” exclaimed a cheery voice at his elbow. “Come in and take
a bite with us.”
Guy, who had been walking along with his eyes fastened thoughtfully on
the deck, looked up and found himself in front of an open door that led
into the quarters occupied by the crew of the propeller, who were
engaged in eating their supper. In one corner of the room was a huge
mess-chest, which did duty as a table, and the sailors sat around it,
holding their plates on their knees.
Guy stopped and took a good look at the man whose voice had aroused him
from his reverie, and recognized him at once as one of the wheelsmen. He
was a man rather past the prime of life, with grizzly hair and whiskers,
and hands and face as brown as an Indian’s. Although he was somewhat
better dressed than the majority of his companions, and had doubtless
bestowed a little pains upon his toilet before sitting down to supper,
he was a rough-looking fellow, but still there was something in the mild
blue eye which beamed from under his shaggy brows that won Guy’s heart
at once.
“You’re the lad who lost his money, ain’t you?” continued the sailor.
“Yes, I am,” replied Guy, almost ready to cry again.
“Haven’t you nary shot in the locker?”
“Not one. I’m dead broke.”
“Never mind,” said the sailor kindly, seeing that Guy’s eyes were
rapidly filling with tears. “I’ve known many a man in my time in the
same fix. Why, bless you, when I was your age I used to think no more of
it than I did of eating my regular allowance of salt horse or standing
my trick at the wheel. Haven’t had any supper, have you?”
“No; nor I can’t get any, either.”
“Yes, you can. Walk up to that table and call for what you want. We’ve
four darkey waiters, but they’ve all gone out to the galley after the
plum-pudding. They’ll be in directly. When you have greased your
jaw-tackle with some of our turkey and other fine fixings, tell us how
you come to be out here so far from shore without a cent in your pocket
for ballast.”
Guy understood the invitation thus conveyed, and did not hesitate to
accept it. He did not wait for the darkies to come in with the
plum-pudding, and neither did he find “turkey and other fine fixings” on
the chest; but there was an abundant supply of good, wholesome food, and
Guy having found an empty plate helped himself most bountifully. His
spirits rose a little as his appetite became somewhat appeased, and in
compliance with the wheelsman’s repeated request he related the story of
his loss, to which everybody listened with interest. When he came to
tell that the steward had taken his room from him, and that the captain
had ordered that he must go ashore at the steamer’s first landing-place,
he could scarcely restrain his tears.
After he had finished his narrative some of the sailors questioned him
in regard to his history, but when they got through they knew no more
than when they begun, for Guy gave anything but truthful answers. The
wheelsman said nothing. He seemed to be thinking busily. When he had
laid aside his plate and filled a short, black pipe, which he drew from
his pocket, he beckoned to Guy, who followed him to the main deck.
“Now, then,” said the wheelsman as he and the runaway seated themselves
beside an open gangway, out of earshot of everybody, “you say your name
is John Thomas. Mine’s Dick Flint, and I’m glad to see you. How are
you?”
“Well enough in body, but rather uncomfortable in mind,” replied Guy as
he took the sailor’s hand and shook it cordially. “But, after all, I
feel better than I did an hour ago, for I’ve had something to eat.”
“I know how it seems to be hungry,” said the wheelsman. “Now, maybe you
wouldn’t lose nothing if you was to tell me your plans. What are you
going to do when you reach the Western country? Got any folks there?”
“I have an uncle, as I have already told you,” replied Guy, “but I don’t
know where he is. Indeed, I don’t much care; for since I left Syracuse I
have changed my mind about trying to find him. I am going to be a hunter
and trapper.”
“You are!” exclaimed Flint, measuring the boy with his eye.
“Yes. I am going out to the Rocky Mountains to fight Indians and grizzly
bears and make myself famous. There’s plenty of fun and excitement to be
found in that life, and I have always wanted to follow it.”
“If it is excitement you are after you had better go to sea. You’ll find
it there, take my word for it. I don’t know anything about this hunting
business, but you’ll need guns and traps, won’t you? And how are you
going to get them with your locker empty?”
“Yes, I shall need at least three hundred dollars; but where it is to
come from I don’t know. I must go to work and earn it somehow.”
“Did you ever follow any kind of business?”
“No; I have been to school all my life.”
“Well, you had better go a-sailoring with me. You can earn the money you
want in that way. You see, I don’t run here on the lakes—I belong
outside.”
“Outside?” repeated Guy.
“Yes, out on the ocean. I have sailed the blue water, man and boy, for
thirty-five years, and if I live I expect to sail it thirty-five more. I
left an old mother in Ohio when I went to sea—I ran away from her, like
a fool as I was—and for twenty years I never heard from her. At last I
found myself in Boston with a few hundreds in my pocket, and I thought I
would go back to the old place, and, if my mother was still above
hatches, the money I had saved would make her comfortable for the rest
of her days. But I didn’t find her,” said Flint, while a sorrowful
expression settled on his face—“never had a chance to tell her how sorry
I was that I had treated her so, and that if she would forgive me and
own me as her son once more I would try and make up for it. She had been
under the sod ten years, and the old place was in the hands of
strangers. Nobody knew me or ever heard of me. Of course I couldn’t stay
there, and hearing that there was a schooner in Chicago loading for
Liverpool, I went up and engaged a berth on her. Finding that she wasn’t
ready to sail, I shipped as wheelsman in this tub to go one trip to
Buffalo and back. The schooner will be off the ways and have her cargo
aboard by the time we get there, and if you say the word maybe I can
work you in as cabin-boy or something.”
“But you forget that I must leave this boat at Saginaw,” said Guy.
“No, I don’t. There’s more’n one way to get around that. Will you go?
That’s what I want to know?”
“I will, and I am under great obligations to you for the offer.”
“Belay that,” said the sailor. “I know what it is to be without money or
friends—I am used to it, but you ain’t, I can see that plain enough, and
I want to help you out. Now about your money—when did you see it last?”
The loss of the purse was a matter that the wheelsman inquired into very
particularly. He questioned Guy closely for ten minutes, and having
finished his pipe, knocked the ashes from it and arose to his feet.
“I must go on watch now,” said he. “When you get ready to go to bed,
tumble into my bunk. There’s room enough in it for both of us, and any
of the boys will show you where it is. Keep up a good heart and you’ll
come out all right. I’ll make a sailor man of you.”
Flint walked off, leaving Guy sitting silent and thoughtful. His mind
was relieved of a great load of anxiety, for he had found somebody to
lean upon. And this new friend was more to his liking than the one he
had lost, for he had more confidence in him. Having been a wanderer upon
the face of the earth for thirty-five years, Flint of course knew all
about his position and was fully competent to give advice in any
emergency. But still there was one objection to him. Guy would have
thought more of him if he had been a hunter instead of a sea-faring man.
He did not want to go before the mast for he was too firmly wedded to
his idea of living in the woods. He had thought and dreamed of it for
years, and he clung to it still.
“This sailoring will be a merely temporary business,” thought Guy, “and
perhaps it is after all the best thing I could do. I am well enough
acquainted with city life to know that I can’t make much money at
anything just now, having no trade or profession. The only course open
to me is to go into a store or office, and there I could command but
three or four dollars a week, out of which I should have to pay my
board, so I could not save anything. I may be able to earn eight or ten
dollars a month as cabin-boy, and as I shall be under no expense for
board of course I shall have all my money at the end of the voyage.
Besides, while I am earning the three hundred dollars I need, I shall be
getting used to hard fare and hard weather, and consequently I shall be
in better condition to begin my career as a hunter. I shall adopt
Flint’s plan, for I don’t think I could do better.”
Having come to this conclusion Guy made his way to the sailors’ quarters
and went to bed in a very happy frame of mind.
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