a fine old frigate, the flagship of the commodore, had
a fatherly air and seemed to say: "Be good and you will all have a
chance."

Once more we got our shore-going clothes ready, only to be disappointed,
and again the promises made to us proved elusive. The day following our
arrival, we were told that no shore liberty would be given at Key West,
and while the reasons were all sufficient, a man who has set his mind on
an outing ashore after a hundred days at sea, finds it somewhat hard to
reconcile himself to the inevitable.

One of the hardest, if not the hardest, thing we had to bear was the
lack of letters and news from home. When one has been deprived of all
tidings from his own people for so long the longing for word of them
becomes almost unbearable.

In the midst of our toughest work we felt that a letter from home would
act like a strong tonic and brace us for the effort, and it would have
done so. But no such balm came, though we eagerly scanned every incoming
vessel for the signal "We have mail for you." Now at last, though there
might be tons on tons of coal to be put in at Key West, though the ship
might have to be scrubbed and painted from truck to water line, we felt
certain we would get letters from home. Letters that we ached for. And
so when we sighted the fleet and old fort, and realized that we had
reached Key West and mail at last, our joy was too great for utterance.

The whaleboat went ashore and brought back two bags of precious
missives, with the sad news that eight bags had been sent on a despatch
boat to the "Yankee" at Santiago.

We were glad enough to get two bags, yet we almost gnashed our teeth
when we thought of the eight fat pouches that were chasing us around the
island of Cuba.

The mail was brought to the wardroom and dumped out on the table for the
commissioned officers to sort and pick out their own letters. A
news-hungry group stood the while at the doors, watching and mentally
grumbling that such an awfully long time was being taken to accomplish
so simple a thing.

Finally the master-at-arms was sent for and the worth-its-weight-in-gold
mail turned over to him to distribute. To the gun deck poured the eager
throng. The master-at-arms backed up against the scuttle-butt for
protection, then shouted out: "Let one man from each mess get the mail;
the rest of you stand off, or you won't get any till to-morrow." The
rest of us stood to one side then, realizing that time would b