In order to make the most of his time, he went over to Elm Island to study navigation with Lion Ben, and then, by Captain Rhines’s advice, to Salem, where was a French family, who, having fled from their native country, during the revolution, in poverty, leaving their property behind, supported themselves by teaching French, giving music lessons, and employing themselves in any way which would bring the means of subsistence. They also found no lack of sympathy among the inhabitants, who, being a seafaring community, not only shared in the universal good will at that time felt towards the French, but also were naturally touched by the miseries of those who, having seen better days, and accustomed to every comfort, found themselves, in old age, poor and in a strange land.
Fred Williams had an uncle in Salem, a tanner. Walter boarded with him, doing work enough in the tan-yard to defray the expense of his board. Thus, under the instruction of persons of culture, and in daily contact with them, he not only obtained a knowledge of the language, but learned to speak it properly, and in a manner quite different from the patois of Peterson, which, picked up from the lower class of people, was, however, fluent, coarse, and vulgar.
Salem, as our readers will recollect, was the home of Ned Gates, who, ready to like anybody who came from the neighborhood of Pleasant Cove, received Walter with open arms, insisted upon having him at his house to tea, and to stay all night, about half the time, and spent every spare moment he could get with him.
Ned would go down to the yard and help Walter break bark, pull hides out of the pits, take out the spent tan, and hang up the sides of leather to dry, in order that his friend might have more time to study French, and stuck to him like his skin. Were they not going to be shipmates together, and share in perils?
Ned’s parents never wanted him to go to sea, and did all in their power to prevent it; but finding his heart set upon it to such an extent that he was utterly indifferent to everything else, and unhappy, they yielded with the best grace possible. But when he was shipwrecked, and came so near perishing with hunger on the raft, they were greatly encouraged, thinking it would incline him to comply with their wishes and abandon the sea. Ned’s mother was not only a most affectionate parent, but a warm-hearted Christian woman. Like all Christian mothers, she had been accustomed to hear her little boy say his prayers, and continued the practice after he came to be a large boy. Ned would leave the light burning, and his mother would come up, sit by his bedside, hear him repeat the Lord’s Prayer, then kneel down beside the bed and pray herself. Ned was a good boy, and loved his mother dearly, but was full of life, and sometimes would do something out of the way, so much so, that his mother, after hearing him say his prayer, would get up, take the candle in her hand as though about to leave the room, observing, “Edward, you have been a bad boy, to-day; I don’t know as I ought to pray with you to-night.” This never failed to bring Ned to terms. He would own up, if it was any concealed mischief, confess, and promise amendment, for he could not bear to go to sleep till his mother had prayed with him; yet he was nearly sixteen years old, as smart a boy as ever went aloft to furl a royal or reeve signal halyards. When the crew abandoned the sinking ship, Ned, as we have before stated, preferred to stick by the captain.
Who says vulgarity, coarseness, and profanity are necessary concomitants of courage?
“Edward,” said his mother, as he took the candle to go to bed, the first night after getting home from Pleasant Cove, “leave the light; I’ll come and get it.”
“Mother,” said he, after saying his prayers, “how nice it seems to be once more in the old bed, and say my prayers to you, as I used to do!”