e to
the harbor, close to the deep rough tides of life.

Into these tides I was now drawn down--and it did me some good and a
great deal of harm. For I was too little those days for the harbor.

Sam had the most wonderful life in the world. He could go wherever he
liked and at any hour day or night. Once, he said, when a "feller" was
drowned, he had stayed out on the docks all night. His mother always let
him alone. An enormous woman with heavy eyes, I was in awe of her from
the first. The place that she kept with Sam's father was called "The
Sailor's Harbor." It stood on a corner down by the docks, a long, low
wooden building painted white, with twelve tight-shuttered, mysterious
windows along the second story, and below them a "Ladies' Entrance." In
front was a small blackboard with words in white which Sam could read.
"Ten Cent Dinners" stood at the top. Below came, "Coffee and rolls."
Next, "Ham and eggs." Then "Bacon and eggs." And then, "To-day"--with a
space underneath where Sam's fat father wrote down every morning still
more delicious eatables. You got whiffs of these things and they made
your mouth water, they made your stomach fairly turn against your
nursery supper.

But most of our time we spent on the docks. All were roofed, and
exploring the long dock sheds and climbing down into the dark holds of
the square-rigged ships called "clippers," we found logs of curious
mottled wood, huge baskets of sugar, odorous spices, indigo, camphor,
tea, coffee, jute and endless other things. Sam knew their names and the
names of the wonder-places they came from--Manila, Calcutta, Bombay,
Ceylon. He knew besides such words as "hawser," "bulkhead" and
"ebb-tide." And Sam knew how to swear. He swore with a fascinating ease
such words as made me shiver and stare. And then he would look at me and
chuckle.

"You think I'll go to hell for this, don't you," he asked me once. And
my face grew hot with embarrassment, for I thought that he assuredly
would.

I asked him what were heathen lands, and he said they were countries
where heathen lived. And what were heathen? Cannibals. And what were
they?

"Fellers that eat fellers," he said.

"Alive?" I inquired. He turned to the gang:

"Listen to the kid! He wants to know if they eat 'em alive!" Sam spat
disgustedly. "Naw," he said. "First they roast 'em like any meat. They
roast 'em," he added reflectively, "until their skin gets brown and
bubbles out and busts."

One afte