"It was all owing to a resolution that I formed when I was ten years old. My father was sent to New Orleans with the little navy we had, to look after the treason of Burr. I accompanied him as cabin-boy. I had some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt, could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards, and was fond of gambling in every shape. At the close of dinner one day, my father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, and said to me:
"David, what do you mean to be?"
"'I mean to follow the sea,' I said."
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"'Follow the sea!' exclaimed my father; 'yes, be a poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime?'
"'No, father,' I replied, 'I will tread the quarter-deck, and command as you do!'
"'No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with such principles as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. You will have to change your whole course of life if you ever become a man.'
"My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke, and overwhelmed with mortification. 'A poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital!' That's my fate is it? I'll change my life, and I will change it at once. I will never utter another oath, never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor, never gamble, and as God is my witness I have kept these three vows to this hour."
The Star Spangled Banner
The sun is slowly sinking in the west. The men of the army and navy are drawn up at attention. At every fort, army post, and navy yard, and on every American battle-ship at home or abroad, the flag of our country is flying at full mast. The sunset gun will soon be fired, and night will follow the day as darkness follows the light. All is ready, the signal is given, the men salute, and the flag to the band's accompaniment of "The Star Spangled Banner" slowly descends for the night to be folded and kept for the morning's hoisting.