“Here are your ‘Stars,’” said he to the driver of the team, shivering outside. “I’ve done my part; now see if you can get ’em to Bethlehem before six o’clock.”
THE CALL OF THE SEA
By Frederick Palmer
The only memory of his father that Franklin Thompson had was the photograph of a young naval officer in uniform which his mother, with tears in her eyes, often showed him. She died when Franklin was six, leaving him, her only cause for living longer, to the care of his father’s brother. When he realized how unwelcome he was in his new home, the only solace he had in the world was the photograph. He would look at it for an hour at a time, and read again and again the inscription on the back.
Before he was quite alone in the world he had heard the sea a-calling. On his holidays he would walk to the shore, and watch the ships go and come. Each was a speaking individuality, which he would recognize should he see it again. The salt breath was ever in his nostrils, the tang of salt spray in his veins.
When he was eleven, his cousin Edward, five years his senior, received the appointment to Annapolis. If Franklin felt any envy he stifled it. The inscription on the photograph in his father’s own hand forbade that.
“Be honest; envy nobody; strive hard,” it ran.
Two years later Franklin knew that his school-days were at an end.