At some time—Benny thought he might have been six years of age just then—his father was taken ill in the port of Calcutta, and it was necessary to provide a new master for the ship.
Captain Foster and his family took lodgings ashore, and within a year Benny was both motherless and fatherless. From that time on he had been cared for in haphazard fashion by such acquaintances as his parents had formed, and he believed some efforts were made toward learning if he had any relatives in the United States.
Whether anything was accomplished in that direction he could not say; but simply knew that in January of this same year Captain Clark sought him out for the purpose of carrying him to Boston, having learned of his condition from an American merchant in Calcutta.
On board the Amazonia he performed any light tasks which would have come within a cabin-boy’s line of duty; but was treated by Mrs. Clark as a friend rather than a servant, and so intimate an acquaintance had sprung up between himself and Fluff that he came to consider it his especial duty to care for the little Angora terrier, whose bright pink eyes gleaming out from amid the fluff of silken white hair gave him the appearance of being a remarkably intelligent animal.
“And he’s just as bright as he looks,” Benny said, as he concluded the poor story of his own life, while he hugged the dog yet closer to his bosom. “Fluff knows almost everything I say to him, and what he don’t just understand he guesses at. Why, before we had been out a week, Mrs. Clark let him sleep with me in my berth, and when it was heavy weather this poor little fellow would almost the same as talk to me, scolding because the jumping of the ship made him feel badly. His name was Fluff Clark, of course; but now that he hasn’t got anybody in all this wide world but me, I’m going to adopt him, and he’ll be Fluff C. Foster after this.”
“It strikes me there’s need of some one adopting you, lad,” Keeper Downey said with a grave smile. “I’m not certain but that Fluff is better able to care for himself than you are.”
“He’s too good a dog to need much caring for. Why, all he’d eat in a day wouldn’t amount to a cent’s worth, though he’s mighty particular about having things fixed up just such a way, and his pink nose will wrinkle quick when there’s nothing but salt beef left over for him. We always had lump sugar to give him for a treat; but he’d get along without that if he knew I couldn’t afford to buy it for him. It would surprise you to see how much that dog knows.”
Then Benny, eager that his pet should be duly appreciated, exhibited the dog in his various tricks, and the members of the crew, seeing that by such means the lad’s thoughts were kept from his great loss, applauded the performance until Fluff had shown himself half a dozen times over in his various acrobatic feats.
Keeper Downey rewarded the dumb performer, who certainly sustained the reputation which his young master had given him, and it was almost as if those cold, silent forms in the boat-room had been forgotten.
Benny’s clothing was thoroughly dried, and while Fluff entertained the crew, the lad fully dressed himself, donning an old pea-jacket many sizes too large, which had been wrapped about him when he was lashed to the spar.