try to
find some other calling, I would run away. He told me, for an
ungrateful young hound as I was, that I might run away to Old Nick if I
chose--not the Sant Niklas of the Oude Kerke, but a very different kind
of customer. "Thank you, father," said I, beginning to tie up my few
things in a bundle. "Stop," says he. "Here's five guilders for you. I
don't want you to starve for the first few days, while you are seeking
for work, graceless young calf as you are!"--"Thank you, father, again,"
I says, pocketing both the guilders and the compliment. "And stop
again, my man," he says; "and take this along with you, with my
blessing, for your impudence!" With this, he seizes me by the collar,
gets my head between his legs, and, with the big leathern strap he used
to bind his pack with, he gives me the soundest thrashing I ever had in
my life. That's the way to harden boys! It was in the middle of
January, and pretty sharp weather, when we had this explanation. It was
at our home at Amsterdam; and my good mother sat crying bitterly in a
corner, with my little sisters clinging to her, and squalling; but as I
walked out of the house forever, I felt as hot all through me as though
it had been the middle of July.

I walked from Amsterdam to Rotterdam steadily, bent upon going to sea.
Of course, I had never as yet made a voyage, even in a fishing-boat; but
I had been up and down all the canals in Holland ever since I was a
child; and I fancied that the ocean was only a very large canal, and
that a sea-going ship was only a very big treykschuyt. In a large port
like Rotterdam I thought that there would be no difficulty in finding a
craft, the skipper of which would give me a berth aboard; and, indeed,
throughout a very long life I have usually found that it does not matter
a stuyver how poor, ignorant, and friendless a boy may be, there is
always room for him at sea, if he sets his mind steadily on finding a
ship. Mind, I don't say that he won't be the better sailor for the
book-learning he may have been lucky enough to pick up. I never
despised book-learning, although no great scholar myself; but a boy
should learn to use his hands as well as his eyes. He should have a
trade, never mind what it is; but it must be a trade that he can earn
pay, and lay a little prize-money by, now and then; and a scholar
without a trade is but a poor fellow. He may turn parson, or
schoolmaster, to be sure; but it would be a mighty quee