“Yes, sir,” replied the boy.
“Well,” said the captain, after waiting a moment in vain for the boy to begin his story. “Where do you come from, and what’s your name? Haven’t you got any father and mother?”
“My name is William,” replied the boy, “William Blake. I haven’t got any father. He used to go to sea, and his ship got lost and they were all drowned.”
“Haven’t you got any mother?” asked the captain.
The boy hesitated a moment. Then his lips began to tremble with emotion, and after making several attempts to answer, he put his hands before his sightless eyes and burst into violent weeping.
The tender-hearted men were overcome at the sight of the child’s grief. He tried to stifle the sobs that shook his slender frame, but his grief was too great for him to master. The brave men who never hesitated to enter a burning building to rescue those who were in danger, who never thought of their own lives when those of others were menaced, broke down to see a little blind boy crying for his mother.
“Is your mother dead too?” asked the captain in a low voice, a great contrast to his usual hearty tones.
“No, I don’t think she is. I don’t know,” sobbed the boy.
“Don’t you know where she is?” asked the captain, gently.
“No, sir,” replied the boy, trying hard to speak distinctly. “She fell down, and she couldn’t speak to me nor move, and then they carried her off in a wagon.”