"If you ever get lost in a city, don't try to find your way back, but hail the first hack you see, and tell the driver to take you to your hotel." This I did, and as the carriage rumbled over the streets across several blocks, I was wishing and praying that I might get to my room without being seen by my brother. He was not in the lobby of the hotel, and I was congratulating myself, as I wearily toiled up the stairs, that I had missed him, and he would never know of my misfortune; but I was doomed to disappointment. Opening the door, there he was in the room! As I stood before him, bedraggled with mud and water, his eyes opened wide and he took me in. "Where have you been?" he exclaimed. I gasped out: "To the fire!" He was not a prayer-meeting man, and I will not repeat his language. As he rolled on the bed, yelling like a Comanche Indian, I was utterly disgusted with him. I saw nothing to laugh about. I have never helped at a fire since then, and when I hear the fire alarm and see the engine in its mad rush, I am inclined to want to go in the other direction.
OFF TO SEA
is a beautiful thing to read about, but it has a serious side. I didn't mind separating with my brother so much. He had introduced me to the captain and purser of the steamer, besides these, I knew not a soul. I was much interested, for the hour or two before nightfall, watching the shipping. Everything was new to me, but darkness came down upon us before we were out of the harbor. I shall never forget the sensation when the vessel struck the first billow of the rolling ocean. As the old vessel lurched forward, and her timbers began to creak, some one said: "That's pretty strong for a starter." Another said: "Shouldn't wonder if we didn't have a rough voyage." And yet another: "It is always dangerous at sea in March." For the first time I began to get alarmed. I watched the swinging lamps, the supper tables that looked as if they were going over and spill all the dishes; the sick passengers as they flew either to their staterooms or to the upper deck. Only a little while elapsed before I was in bed myself, wishing for my brother and abusing myself for ever undertaking the trip.
Oh! the desolation and loneliness of that horrid night as I rolled with every motion of the vessel! I never slept a wink. Next morning I looked out of the port-hole and saw the mad waves of the ocean. To my surprise the sun was shining; but it looked to me like a storm was raging. I learned afterwards that the Atlantic is always rough and that I was the only one on board who was much alarmed. Three days and nights I kept my bed from sheer fright and home-sickness. I know it was not sea-sickness, for I tested myself, time and time again, afterwards and never had the first symptom.
I had about made up my mind that I would never see the home folks again, but would die in a few days and be buried in the ocean. The third day the old Captain came in on his rounds of inspection. When he found that I was not sick, he shouted: "Pshaw, boy, get out of this and be a man; get on deck and get a sniff of the salt air and you will be all right in two minutes and as hungry as a wolf. Out, out with you; be a man." In less time than it takes to write it
I WAS COMPLETELY TRANSFORMED.
All my fears were gone and I found the Captain's words true. As I looked at the hundreds of people on the open deck, there were eight hundred passengers, all happy and cheerful, I felt disgraced to have been such a coward. There was the boundless ocean on every side. No sign of land anywhere and, strange to say, I was not a bit afraid. The reassuring words of the Captain had saved me. Many a poor fellow has given up and gone down in the battle of life, who might have been saved if someone had only spoken the cheering words in time.
Down through the tropical islands to Aspinwall, now called Colon, across the Isthmus of Darien, where the Panama Canal is now being constructed, on the railroad to the ancient city of Panama and up the beautiful Pacific into the lovely harbor of Acapulco, Mexico, where we stopped a day for coal, and finally through the Golden Gate; we dropped anchor in the Bay of San Francisco, just twenty-four days from New York. Not a soul in all the great city did I know; but I was soon in the hands of the friends of my brother. I felt like Mrs. Partington when she struck land after being to sea, she exclaimed: "Thank the Lord for terra cotta," and I promised myself never again to get on an ocean steamer.