With high hopes, I boarded the little steamer that plied between Boston and Gloucester. I thought it would be an easy matter to secure board on one of the many vessels that made short trips after mackerel. For three days I haunted the wharves in vain. The "skippers," one and all, gave the same reason for refusing my offers. "We are going after fish," said they, "and cannot be bothered with a sick man." At last one "skipper" discouraged me completely. He said to me: "I once took a sick man on board, and because we did not strike fish, the fishermen called the passenger a Jonah, and made his life miserable. Three days after we returned he died, and I swore then that I never would take another sick man to sea." This "skipper's" story, and my fruitless efforts caused me to abandon the salt water cure. I turned now to the hills around Gloucester. In the end I selected Bond's Hill, because it was surrounded by pine groves.
I found the hill covered with blueberry and huckleberry bushes, the latter loaded with fruit. On the brow of the hill the soil had been washed away, leaving great masses of bed rock (granite) towering above the cottages that clung to the base of the cliff. On the extreme brow of the hill I found a spot where the soil had gathered and maintained a grass-plot. Here I pitched my little tent. Here I lived from August to December. I called the spot the Eyrie, because it reminded me of the regions inhabited by eagles. A visit to the spot will disclose the fitness of the name.
On this spot my eighteen years of hermit life begun. At first I made it a practice to go to the city every day for one meal, bringing back food enough to last until another day. I found the huckleberries good wholesome food that did not aggravate my chronic dyspepsia.
Two weeks of outdoor life had brought a little color to my cheeks and had made me feel like a new man. About this time I awoke in the morning to remember that I had not coughed during the night. The cough that had harassed me night and day for two years, left me then and there, never to return.
Nature was performing wonders where medicine had failed.
Before the month of September had ended, my catarrh disappeared, and I no longer had use for the douche. From that time to this, I have been free from catarrh. I do not have even the symptoms, known as hay-fever.
The dull, heavy pain that I had experienced constantly from dyspepsia, gradually sub sided and eventually ceased. Since that time I have been able to eat any kind of food, at any time, day or night, without the depressing pains of indigestion.
During my first experience, climbing Bond's Hill, on my return from the city, had been almost beyond my strength. I had to rest three times before reaching my tent. By the middle of November my strength had returned nearly to the old standard, and I mounted the hill without a thought of weariness.
Standing one day on a massive spur of bed rock, near my tent, my thoughts went back to the statement of the doctors in relation to my lungs. I had just ascended the hill, without a long breath, and a hale, hearty feeling pervaded every fibre of my system. I knew, then, that my lungs were all right, and thanks to Nature, I had recovered my health and stood there comparatively a well man.
While I was yet weak, I passed many hours at the Eyrie, entranced by the magnificent panorama spread before me. I could see the larger part of the city of Gloucester, which extended, in a semicircle, from Riverdale to Eastern Point.