“Ben, boy,” said my father, in a voice quickly growing husky, while his eyes looked dim and sad, “your uncle advises you ship naval apprentice, and he thinks you're as well not aboard the Saratoga as yet.”
“He's quite right, sir,” said Cavarly. “There was no favo'itism where I learned seamanship.”
“Man can't throw the necessa'y belayin' pins at his relative,” said Mr. Morgan. “It lace'ates the feelin's.”
“And Captain Cavarly is good enough to——”
“Oh, tha's all right, tha's all right.”
“He'll see if he can't get you a berth with him, if you like, Ben, supposing you feel that way.”
My father paused, looking troubled and uncertain, while Cavarly murmured, “Tha's all right,” soothingly, and Morgan, “Don' lace'ate the feelin's.”
For me, I felt bewildered, and my heart seemed to be pumping my head full of confusion, so that I stammered, saying I would go. Then Cavarly and Morgan and my father went on talking, while Calhoun sat quietly listening, and I was content enough to have no further notice taken of me.
So it came about that I went with my father and Captain Cavarly that afternoon, and climbed to a little upstairs office, where an orderly stood within the door; and there I was examined and entered a naval apprentice, with the privilege of full seamanship in a year, all the while in that state of excitement I would not have known the difference if they had listed me a porpoise with the privilege of becoming a whale.
And afterwards we went by ferry to the navy yard, and saw the Octarara lying in dock, two-masted, side-wheeled, as steaming vessels mostly were in those days; neat though small; it might be less than two hundred tons, but a wonder in my eyes and very threatening to the Southern Confederacy. There seemed to be little doing on the Octarara, though the yard was full of noise and bustle. We found Morgan playing a banjo in the cabin and singing: