n my life; for his tarpaulin
is mighty becoming to his pale, dark face, and those jet moustaches of
his, when he has not time to tend them and keep every hair in place,
will be quite fierce. He looked as solemn when he got his sea-rig on, as
if he was about preaching a sermon.

O, that reminds me that I have not told you of our visit to old Father
Taylor's church in Boston! His text was,--"He that cometh unto me shall
never thirst." And every word of the sermon was just suited to the plain
tars whom he was addressing. He baptized some children more touchingly
than any one I ever saw. Their mother was the widow of a sailor, who had
been lost on a late cruise, and sat beside the altar alone with two
little boys, the youngest an infant in her arms. As the old father took
it from her and kissed it, a tear of sympathy with the bereaved parent
actually fell from his kind eye, on the little, round cheek; and I shall
never forget the manner in which, after the rite was performed, he
replaced it in her arms, saying,--"Go back to your mother's bosom, and
may you never be a thorn there."

Captain Peck, our host,--and a worthy man he is, who was himself a
sailor till he was washed overboard and lost his health,--has just come
in to say that it is time for "our chest," as he calls brother's
portmanteau, to be on board; so I must say good by. My next will
probably be sent from some port, into which we may run for a few hours.

Yours, ever,

PIDGIE.

LETTER III.

OUR MESSMATES.

FROM PIDGIE TO HIS COUSIN BENNIE.

Bay of Fundy, July 9th, 1846.

O Bennie, how I wish you were here! You used to enjoy so much skulling
around that little pond of Mr. Mason's in his flat boat, what would you
do to be bounding over the water as we are now? I am sitting
Turk-fashion on the deck-floor, leaning against the mast, and, as you
see, writing with a pencil, being afraid to use my inkstand, lest some
stray wave should give it a capsize. There comes one now, that has
washed our floor for us, and it needed it badly enough; nor do I mind
the wetting, for I am bare-footed and my duck trousers always expect it.
We have been five days now upon the water, and since we have thrown
overboard the good things that Clarendon laid in for the voyage, and
taken to sailor's fare, we have no more of that horrid sea-sickness.
Hard biscuit and water are just as good as any thing else, if you only
get used to it, and the fish which we caught this mornin