“Yep. You're goin' to perfo'm prodigies o' valour an' implant a tin sword in the chest o' your uncle.”
“I won't!”
“Yep. You'll come home cove'd with glory an' gore, an' a full-rigged ship in each pocket, an' be hung at the Fede'al Gove'nment's expense, the rest o' your relatives attendin' the ce'emony.”
The captain and Calhoun and the two men were laughing loudly, and, not being able to stay angry to any purpose, I said nothing, and presently felt more calm, but I thought I would not mind being the death of Dan Morgan. He drew more amusement from me, and my attacking the flag of the country, than seemed right.
There was a boy with a green jacket in the school on Willet Street once who made it plain that he was for States' Rights. I think he did not know what they were. And we tied a rope around him and his green jacket, and took off the well-top in the yard, and let him down, so that he came up very wet, we were that interested in the subject, and most of us Whigs or Free Soilers, without knowing what these meant either. You do not have to know what politics mean, or patriotism, or any brave words, in order to feel strongly about them. But if anyone in Willet Street had hinted himself able to attack the flag of his country, it would have been bad for him.
Cavarly looked troubled, and rubbed his forehead with his hand.
“Look here, Ben. I don' like this business.”
“Make him cabin boy,” said Calhoun. “Land him with the first crew we capture.”
“That's so. I wouldn't like to play it low on the landlord. He's a white man, your father, Ben, hey? He ain't ve'y penet'ative, sort o' simple. But he's hones'. My! he's hones'.”
So I became cabin boy on the Nameless, as they called the Octarara now, having smeared out the beautifully painted name over the anchor holes; and I was set to very common jobs, to sweep, to clean, and fetch and carry gentlemen's meals, quite melancholy at first and disgusted with my luck. I was possessed of a sense of being loose and anchorless in the world. I could not feel my bearings after so great a revolution. As if the sky and the sea were to change places, it might be questionable in a man's mind whether it were proper to walk on his hands or his feet. Or, if he enters a strange city with his north and south wrong, he will not easily make friends with the compass in that place.