This is what we did that winter at Chinik, the home of the Eskimo, in that far away spot near the Arctic Sea. There were tales of the Norsemen and Vikings, told by their hardy descendants sitting beside us, as well as the stories of Ituk and Moses, the aged, called "Uncle," Punni Churah, big Koki, and "Lowri."
To the verity of the following narrative all these and many others can willingly vouch.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE RETIRED SEA CAPTAIN.
ANY years ago, close under the shadow of old Plymouth Rock, there was born one day a fair-skinned, blue-eyed baby. Whether from heredity, or environment, or both, the reason of his spirit will perhaps never plainly appear, but as the child grew into manhood he seemed filled with the same adventurous aspirations which had actuated his forefathers, causing them to leave their homes in old England, and come to foreign shores. Scarcely had he passed into his teens before he was devouring tales of pirates, and kindred old sea yarns, and his heart was fired with ambition to own a vessel and sail the high seas. Not that he thirsted for a pirate's life, but a seafaring man's adventures he longed for and decided he must have.
Under these conditions a close application at his desk in the village school was an unheard-of consequence; and, having repeatedly smarted under the schoolmaster's ferule, not to mention his good mother's switches plucked from the big lilac bush by her door, he decided to run away to the great harbor, and ship upon some vessel bound for a foreign land.
This he did. Then followed the usual hard, rough life of a boy among sailors in distant ports; the knotted rope's end, the lip blackening language and curses, storms, shipwrecks and misfortunes; all followed as a part of the life so hastily chosen by the adventurous young lad, until he acquired familiarity with all that appertained thereto, and he was a man.