w York. He tried to find my father, but did not
know how to do it, for no one knew my mother's name. At last he left me
with a family in New York, and he went to sea again; but he never could
find out anything about my mother, although he inquired in Liverpool and
elsewhere. The last time he went to sea, I was nine years old, and he
gave me a present on my birthday, the day before he sailed. It was the
last; he never came back again; he died of ship fever.

"But Father Jack did well by me; he had me placed in a free school, at
seven years of age, and always paid my board in advance for a year.

"So you see, sir, I had a fair start to help myself, which I did right
off. I went errands for gentlemen, and swept out offices and stores. No
one liked to begin with me, for they all thought me too small, but they
soon saw I got along well enough.

[Illustration]

"I went to school just the same, for I did my jobs before nine in the
morning; and after school closed at night, I had plenty of time to work
and learn my lessons. I wouldn't give up my school, for Father Jack told
me to learn all I could, and some day I would find my father, and he
must not find me a poor, ignorant boy. He said I must look my father in
the face, and say to him without falsehood: 'Father, I may be poor and
rough, but I have always been an honest boy and stood by the ship, so
you needn't be ashamed of me.' Sir, I could never forget those words."
He dropped his cap, drum, and sticks, bared his little arm, and showed
the figure of a ship in full sail, with this motto beneath it, pricked
into the skin: "Stand by the ship."

"When I was twelve, I left New York and came to Detroit with a gentleman
in the book business. I was there two years, when the war broke out.

"One day, a few months afterward I was passing by a recruiting office,
and went in. I heard them say they wanted a drummer. I offered; they
laughed and said I was too little; but they brought me a drum and I beat
it for them. They agreed to take me. So the old stars and stripes was
the ship for me to stand by."

The colonel was silent; he seemed to be in deep thought. "How do you
ever expect," he said, "to find your father? You do not even know his
name."

"I don't know, sir, but I am sure I shall find him, somehow. My father
will be certain to know that I am the right boy, when he does find me,
for I have something to show him that was my mother's," and he drew
forth a little canvas bag