MY VOYAGE FROM NEW ORLEANS TO BOSTON
1833
I found myself a part of the cargo--shipped as freight, 2,000 miles,
from the tropics to the arctic region, without a friend to take care of
me. I was alone. This feeling, however, did not oppress me overmuch.
Every one on board tried to make a pet of me, and, besides, there was so
much to do, so much to see, so much to feel. From cabin to fo'cas'le I
was made welcome.
There was only one cabin passenger besides myself. I sat at table
opposite this passenger, and I remember that at the first meal they
brought on some "flapjacks" (our present-day wheat-cakes). I was very
fond of them, and ate them with sirup or molasses. I noticed that my
companion in the cabin did not use molasses with his. I could not
understand why any one should eat his flapjacks without molasses.
I thought this stranger too ignorant to know that molasses was the
proper thing with flapjacks, and tried to help him to a fuller knowledge
of the resources of the table. I reached over, and tried to pour some
molasses on his plate. Just then a heavy sea struck the ship, and I was
thrown forward with a lurch. The entire contents of the molasses jug
went in a flood over the man's trousers! Of course he was furious, and
did not appreciate my efforts to teach him. I expected him to strike me,
but he did not. It did not occur to me to beg his pardon, as I was doing
what I thought to be a pure act of kindness. We afterward became good
friends.
We were twenty-three days on the voyage. Before we had been aboard long
I became friendly with everybody on the ship, and they with me. I was
very active, and had the run of the boat. I was like a parrot, a goat,
or a monkey--or all three. There was no stewardess on the boat, and as I
had no one to look after me, I led a wild sort of life. I lived in the
fo'cas'le, or with the sailors on deck or in the riggings. I liked the
fo'cas'le best. I soon got to feel at home there. Sometimes I was in the
cabin with my molasses-hating friend, but the fo'cas'le was my delight,
and there I was to be found at all hours. During the twenty-three days
of the voyage I was not washed once! I wore the same clothes days and
nights, and became a little dirty savage!
It may be easily imagined that communication with these rough, coarse,
honest, but vulgar sailors had a terrible effect on me. Everything bad
that is known to sailors these sailors knew, and very soon I knew. I
observed everything, learned everything. I soon cursed and swore as
roundly as any of them, using the words as innocently as if they were
quotations from the Bible.
One of the games the sailors used to play with me was to go up into the
rigging and call down to me that there was a great plantation up there
that I could not see. Then they would throw lumps of sugar to me and
tell me they came from the plantation in the rigging, and monkeys were
throwing them to me. Of course I believed it all. How was I to know they
were lying to me? I was only four years old. They stamped upon my mind
the whole fo'cas'le--its rough life, its jollity, its oaths, and its
lies.
As soon as our ship came to anchor out came a boat with my uncle. I
remember that there was a little dog in the boat also. My uncle took me
to the wharf, and then to his tobacco store in Dock Square. There I
found awaiting us an old-fashioned chaise, and my uncle said he would
take me right out to my grandmother's, at Waltham. The drive took us
through two or three villages, and through several strips of forest.
Finally we drove up to a little gate that stood about half a mile from
the old farmhouse, and divided the next place from the farm of my
grandmother. There were my aunts, all waiting for me.
Imagine the astonishment of my grandmother and of my aunts on seeing
the dirty little street Arab that came to see them! I was as intolerably
filthy as any brat that ever came out of a sewer. I fairly reeked with
the smells and the dirt of the fo'cas'le! To the dust and grime of New
Orleans I had added the dust and grime of the ship, for I had not been
near soap and water since I left New Orleans. Fancy going to these clean
and prim old ladies in such a plight! But I was at least in good health,
and magnificently alive.
The first thing they did was to summon a sort of town-meeting, to have
me narrate the events of my voyage. But before I was to go before my
audience I must be washed and have a change of clothes. This part of the
program was postponed by an accident. The ladies heard me swear! It
shocked their gentle minds immeasurably. But I didn't know what swearing
meant.
What can not a boy learn in three weeks that is bad? I suppose I must
have picked up all the wickedness of the fo'cas'le without knowing what
it was. It seemed all right to me; but not to my good grandmother and to
my aunts.
They wanted to cleanse me outwardly and inwardly, and prepared to start
outwardly. They insisted that I must change my clothes and have a good
scrubbing. But before they began I told them some of my experiences
aboard ship. I told them about the sailors getting sugar from the
plantation up in the riggings and the monkeys throwing it down to me.
They told me there were no fields up there, no monkeys and no sugar,
except what the sailors had carried up with them.
I was indignant. "If you don't believe my story," said I, "about the
plantation in the rigging and about the monkeys and the sugar, you can
not wash me or change my clothes."
The line of battle was now drawn. If they did not want to believe my
story, I was not going to let them do anything for me. That
monkey-and-sugar story was my ultimatum. They refused to accept it. For
three days they laid siege to me, but I refused to be washed or clothed
in a fresh clean suit until they believed my story. I felt I was telling
the truth, and could not bear to have my word doubted. Finally they said
that they believed my story.
There is an old tale of a boy who was told by his parents, who did not
want him to cling any longer to the old myth about Santa Claus, that it
was not Santa Claus that brought him all the good things on Christmas,
but that they, his parents, had been giving him the presents year after
year. The boy turned to his mother and said: "Have you been fooling me
about the God question too?"