he lot, refused to do duty unless I was put on
the ship's books for rations. It was a rough school for a child, but I
throve in it, and learned many things, though some of them I had better
not have learned. The captain seemed a stern and morose man, and for
many months he took no notice of me; but one day as I was trying to
climb up the rattlins of the lower shrouds I fell to the deck. He ran
to me, lifted me up, and carrying me to his cabin, placed me on his own
bed, and with an anxious countenance examined me all over to find where
I was hurt. He rubbed my temples and hands, and Jack, who followed him
into the cabin, said he looked quite pleased when I came to again. I
was some weeks recovering, and he watched over me all the time with as
much care as if I had been his own child.

"`Ah! the man's heart is in the right place, and I'd sooner sail with
him than with many another softer-spoken gentleman I've fallen in with,'
remarked Jack one day after I had recovered.

"We heard from one of the crew, who had before sailed with the captain,
that he had a little son of his own killed from falling on deck, and
this it was which made him take to me."

"Yes, God has implanted right and good feelings in the bosoms of all His
creatures," observed the Doctor. "But when they are neglected, and sin
is allowed to get the better of them, they are destroyed. None of our
hearts are in their right place, as the saying is. They are all by
nature prone to ill. The same man who was doing you the kindness might
in other ways have been grievously offending God."

"Ay, sir, it might have been; but it would not become me to find fault
with one who had rendered me so great a service," said Tom. "After I
was well, he used to have me into his cabin every day to teach me to
read and write, and the little learning I ever had I gained from him.
We had been out four years, and the ship had at last got a full cargo,
and was on the point of returning home, when we fell in with another
ship belonging to the same owners. The captain of her had died, and the
first mate had been washed overboard, and so the supercargo invited our
captain to take charge of her. As he had no wife nor children living at
home, this he consented to do, and thus it happened that I remained out
in the Pacific another four years. Tom for my sake went with him to the
other ship. We were nearly full.

"`One more fish, and then hurrah for old England, lads,' sung