home from my first v'y'ge as mate of the
Daylight just in time for his funeral. I was disapp'inted to find the
old man was gone. I'd fetched him some first-rate tobacco, for he was a
great hand to smoke, and I was calc'latin' on his being pleased: old
folks like to be thought of, and then he set more by me than by the
other boys. I know I used to be sorry for him when I was a little
fellow. My father's second wife she was a well-meaning woman, but an
awful driver with her work, and she was always making of him feel he
wasn't no use. I do' know as she meant to, either. He never said
nothing, and he was always just so pleasant, and he was fond of his
book, and used to set round reading, and tried to keep himself out of
the way just as much as he could. There was one winter when I was small
that I had the scarlet-fever, and was very slim for a long time
afterward, and I used to keep along o' gran'ther, and he would tell me
stories. He'd been a sailor,--it runs in our blood to foller the
sea,--and he'd been wrecked two or three times and been taken by the
Algerine pirates. You remind me to tell you some time about that; and I
wonder if you ever heard about old Citizen Leigh, that used to be about
here when I was a boy. He was taken by the Algerines once, same's
gran'ther, and they was dreadful f'erce just then, and they sent him
home to get the ransom money for the crew; but it was a monstrous price
they asked, and the owners wouldn't give it to him, and they s'posed
likely the men was dead by that time, any way. Old Citizen Leigh he went
crazy, and used to go about the streets with a bundle of papers in his
hands year in and year out. I've seen him a good many times. Gran'ther
used to tell me how he escaped. I'll remember it for ye some day if
you'll put me in mind.

"I got to be mate when I was twenty, and I was as strong a fellow as you
could scare up, and darin'!--why, it makes my blood run cold when I
think of the reckless things I used to do. I was off at sea after I was
fifteen year old, and there wasn't anybody so glad to see me as
gran'ther when I came home. I expect he used to be lonesome after I
went off, but then his mind failed him quite a while before he died.
Father was clever to him, and he'd get him anything he spoke about; but
he wasn't a man to set round and talk, and he never took notice himself
when gran'ther was out of tobacco, so sometimes it would be a day or
two. I know better how he used to feel n