, and whose curly
brown head some fond mother has doubtless caressed many a time; yet here
he is, an unknown sailor before the mast, with all his gifts wasted, and
doomed perhaps to sink lower still.

But these are the exceptions; the majority are sailors of the ordinary
type, careless, light-hearted, improvident, never looking beyond the
present moment--content to accept the first job that "turns up," and
quite satisfied with a day's food and a shirt to their backs. Some are
coiled up on lockers and spare sails, others sleeping off their last
night's "spree" on the bare planks, and rolling over and over with every
plunge of the vessel.

* * * * *

Whew! what a stream of cold air comes rushing down the hatchway, as it
opens to let in the deck watch, glad enough to get below again out of
the cold and wet! Their shouts, as they dash the brine from their beards
and jackets, and chaff the comrades who are unwillingly turning out to
relieve them, arouse Frank, who for a moment can hardly make out where
he is. Then it all flashes upon him, and he "tumbles up," and goes on
deck.

Certainly, if any one ever could feel dismal at sea, it would be during
the hour before dawn, the most cheerless and uncomfortable of the whole
twenty-four. After spending the night in a lively game of cup and ball,
with yourself for the ball, and an amazingly hard wooden bunk for the
cup, you crawl on deck, bruised and aching from top to toe. While gazing
upon the inspiring landscape of gray fog and slaty blue sea, you
suddenly feel a stream of cold water splashing into your boots, while an
unfeeling sailor gruffly asks "why in thunder you can't git out o' the
way?" Springing hastily aside, you break your shins over a spar which
seems to have been put there on purpose, and get up only to be instantly
thrown down again by a lee lurch of the ship, amid the derisive laughter
of the deck watch. Meanwhile a shower of half-melted snow insinuates
itself into your eyes, and up your sleeves, and down the back of your
neck; and all this, joined to the agonizing thought that it will be at
least two hours before you can get any breakfast, speedily fills you
with a rooted hatred of everything and everybody on board the ship.

Well might poor Frank, contrasting his dismal surroundings with the
comfortable rooms and piping-hot breakfasts of his forsaken home, begin
to think that he had made a fool of himself. But he choked down t