ejoiced as much as
anybody else. We were so excited with expectation that nothing else was
heard but the talk of the happy arrival, now so near. Some were even
willing to stay up at night, to be the first ones to see the shores of
America. It was therefore a great disappointment when the captain said,
in the evening, that we would not reach Boston as soon as he expected,
on account of the weather.

A dense fog set in at night, and grew heavier and heavier, until the
"Polynesia" was closely walled in by it, and we could just see from one
end of the deck to the other. The signal lanterns were put up, the
passengers were driven to their berths by the cold and damp, the cabin
doors closed, and discomfort reigned everywhere.

But the excitement of the day had tired us out, and we were glad to
forget disappointment in sleep. In the morning it was still foggy, but
we could see a little way around. It was very strange to have the
boundless distance made so narrow, and I felt the strangeness of the
scene. All day long we shivered with cold, and hardly left the cabin. At
last it was night once more, and we in our berths. But nobody slept.

The sea had been growing rougher during the day, and at night the ship
began to pitch as it did at the beginning of the journey. Then it grew
worse. Everything in our cabin was rolling on the floor, clattering and
dinning. Dishes were broken into little bits that flew about from one
end to the other. Bedding from upper berths nearly stifled the people in
the lower ones. Some fell out of their berths, but it was not at all
funny. As the ship turned to one side, the passengers were violently
thrown against that side of the berths, and some boards gave way and
clattered down to the floor. When it tossed on the other side, we could
see the little windows almost touch the water, and closed the shutters
to keep out the sight. The children cried, everybody groaned, and
sailors kept coming in to pick up the things on the floor and carry them
away. This made the confusion less, but not the alarm.

Above all sounds rose the fog horn. It never stopped the long night
through. And oh, how sad it sounded! It pierced every heart, and made us
afraid. Now and then some ship, far away, would answer, like a weak
echo. Sometimes we noticed that the wheels were still, and we knew that
the ship had stopped. This frightened us more than ever, for we imagined
the worst reasons for it.

It was day again, and a lit