embers of the family found
occupations by which the domestic burdens were lifted a little; but,
with only the three youngest to clothe and to keep at school, there was
still much more outgo than income, and my mother's discouragement every
day increased.

My eldest brother had gone to sea with a relative who was master of a
merchant vessel in the South American trade. His inclination led him
that way; it seemed to open before him a prospect of profitable
business, and my mother looked upon him as her future stay and support.

One day she came in among us children looking strangely excited. I
heard her tell some one afterwards that she had just been to hear
Father Taylor preach, the sailors minister, whose coming to our town
must have been a rare occurrence. His words had touched her personally,
for he had spoken to mothers whose first-born had left them to venture
upon strange seas and to seek unknown lands. He had even given to the
wanderer he described the name of her own absent son--"Benjamin." As
she left the church she met a neighbor who informed her that the brig
"Mexican" had arrived at Salem, in trouble. It was the vessel in which
my brother had sailed only a short time before, expecting to be absent
for months. "Pirates" was the only word we children caught, as she
hastened away from the house, not knowing whether her son was alive or
not. Fortunately, the news hardly reached the town before my brother
himself did. She met him in the street, and brought him home with her,
forgetting all her anxieties in her joy at his safety.

The "Mexican" had been attacked on the high seas by the piratical craft
"Panda," robbed of twenty thousand dollars in specie, set on fire, and
abandoned to her fate, with the crew fastened down in the hold. One
small skylight had accidentally been overlooked by the freebooters. The
captain discovered it, and making his way through it to the deck,
succeeded in putting out the fire, else vessel and sailors would have
sunk together, and their fate would never have been known.

Breathlessly we listened whenever my brother would relate the story,
which he did not at all enjoy doing, for a cutlass had been swung over
his head, and his life threatened by the pirate's boatswain, demanding
more money, after all had been taken. A Genoese messmate, Iachimo,
shortened to plain "Jack" by the "Mexican's" crew, came to see my
brother one day, and at the dinner table he went through the whole
adventu