through a
tangled meadow-flat,--not a rush nor a bush but was reflected in it; in
short, Sam gave his philosophy of matters and things in general as he
went along, and was especially careful to impress an edifying moral.

"Wal, ye see, boys, ye know I was born down to Newport,--there where
it's all ships and shipping, and sich. My old mother she kep' a
boardin'-house for sailors down there. Wal, ye see, I rolled and tumbled
round the world pretty consid'able afore I got settled down here in
Oldtown.

"Ye see, my mother she wanted to bind me out to a blacksmith, but I kind
o' sort o' didn't seem to take to it. It was kind o' hard work, and
boys is apt to want to take life easy. Wal, I used to run off to the
sea-shore, and lie stretched out on them rocks there, and look off on to
the water; and it did use to look so sort o' blue and peaceful, and the
ships come a sailin' in and out so sort o' easy and natural, that I felt
as if that are'd be jest the easiest kind o' life a fellow could have.
All he had to do was to get aboard one o' them ships, and be off seekin'
his fortin at t'other end o' the rainbow, where gold grows on bushes and
there's valleys o' diamonds.

"So, nothin' would do but I gin my old mother the slip; and away I went
to sea, with my duds tied up in a han'kercher.

"I tell ye what, boys, ef ye want to find an easy life, don't ye never
go to sea. I tell ye, life on shipboard ain't what it looks to be on
shore. I hadn't been aboard more'n three hours afore I was the sickest
critter that ever ye did see; and I tell you, I didn't get no kind o'
compassion. Cap'ns and mates they allers thinks boys hain't no kind o'
business to have no bowels nor nothin', and they put it on 'em sick or
well. It's jest a kick here, and a cuff there, and a twitch by the ear
in t'other place; one a shovin' on 'em this way, and another hittin' on
'em a clip, and all growlin' from mornin' to night. I believe the way my
ears got so long was bein' hauled out o' my berth by 'em: that 'are's a
sailor's regular way o' wakin' up a boy.

"Wal, by time I got to the Penobscot country, all I wanted to know was
how to get back agin. That 'are's jest the way folks go all their lives,
boys. It's all fuss, fuss, and stew, stew, till ye get somewhere; and
then it's fuss, fuss, and stew, stew, to get back agin; jump here and
scratch yer eyes out, and jump there and scratch 'em in agin,--that
'are's life.

"Wal, I kind o' poked round in Penob