It was little wonder that things were doleful on board the old Sumter this particular Christmas eve, and so it passed like the evening of any other day.
But Bobby Seymour, when he awakened the next morning, gazed up at the huge deck beams of the steerage, and suddenly remembered something.
He slid out of his hammock and scrambled over to the chest that had his initials on the lid. He opened it, and dug out a neatly tied package from a corner. It was addressed to him with his full title, and was inscribed "Not to be opened until Xmas day."
He crawled over to an open port, and sitting down on the deck, deftly undid the wrapping. But he paused for a minute before he looked to see what it contained, and his eyes took on the sightless expression of deep thoughts far away as he gazed out over the sea.
The sun was flaming above the tree-tops on the distant shore, and the warm morning breeze fluttered the hair of his tousled curly head.
But Bobby did not see the sun or feel the breeze. He saw a wide stretch of snow-covered lawn, with the pine branches that lined the driveway weighted down, and each elm and apple bough all a-sparkle in a case of ice, and the sleigh bells "jingle-jangling" everywhere. He knew how his skates looked, hanging up on the nail behind the door, and his hockey-stick, and his sled. He could smell the hot buckwheat cakes and hear his little sisters laughing.
"They'd just be taking down their stockings," he said, a quiver coming to his eyelid.
In truth, Midshipman Bobby Seymour was nothing but a boy, and not a very tall one. He looked even younger than he really was as he sat there on the deck hugging his bare knees up to his chin, the still unopened package held tightly under his arm, and if a tear did roll down his cheek, and all the way down his neck beneath his collar, it was nothing to be ashamed of.
"Mr. Seymour," broke in a voice that brought back the heat and the smell of the ship quite suddenly. "Mr. Jephson wishes to see you on deck as soon as possible, sir."
Bobby made a dash at his eyes with the back of his hand, and looked up at the big red-mustached orderly. "Very good; be up there right away," he answered.