There was one thing, however, that Jerry, at first, felt more than even the hard work and poor fare of his new calling; this was, the iron discipline to which he found himself subjected. He had never been accustomed to obey any one, at home; but here, it was prompt, instant obedience, or a blow. This deep-rooted habit of disobedience, together with his settled habit of laziness, made his “breaking in” at sea much more painful than it would otherwise have been. One morning he did not instantly obey the summons when called up, and, without intending it, dropped asleep again; a moment afterwards he found himself sprawling among the chests in the forecastle, every bone in his body aching as though it had been twitched out of its place. The captain, with one jerk, had brought him from his bunk to the floor, and accompanied the act with an imprecation on his eyes, for not turning out when called. Jerry had to take his turn in watching on deck, at night. One night he was greatly fatigued, and sitting down on the boom he fell asleep with his head in his lap. The second mate happened to be on deck, and seeing the situation of Jerry, he seized the rope’s-end, and approaching him stealthily, brought it down with all his strength upon the back and shoulders of the boy. Jerry, in his fright, came near leaping overboard, and it was a long time before he again took a nap at the watch. At work, too, a kick, or cuff, or a bit of rope was always handy, if there was any inclination to skulk. “Hurrah, there! bear a hand! heave along! heave along!” was constantly sounding in his ears,—a system of driving which he found anything but agreeable.
Jerry also added unnecessarily to the bitterness of his lot, during the first few weeks of the voyage, by his surly, insolent manners towards the sailors. Being treated as inferiors themselves by their officers, sailors have no opportunity to play the superior except towards the boys on ship-board, and they are very apt to make the most of this opportunity. It is best for the boy to submit patiently and good-naturedly to this petty tyranny; for, if he is saucy or surly, they show him no mercy. Jerry soon learned this, from his own experience. He at first bore the treatment of the crew with much ill-grace; but he was soon cured of this fault, and learned to be civil and obliging towards them.
In addition to all these troubles and hardships, Jerry found himself thrown into intimate companionship with men, some of whom were not only shockingly profane and disgustingly indecent, in their language, but even boasted of the immorality of their lives. But these evil influences, though they startled Jerry a little, at first, were not the things that troubled him;—and yet, with his unformed habits and principles, they were a thousand times worse for him than all the stern hardships of the sea.
CHAPTER XIII.
MARY.
Jerry was missed at home;—to be sure, his departure was not felt so sensibly as it would have been, had he acted the part of a dutiful son and an affectionate brother. Still, all mourned his sudden disappearance; especially, as they knew not what had become of him. For a while, Mrs. Preston looked up the road, many times every day, to see if she could discern anything of the runaway, for she had strong expectations that he would return. But he did not come, nor were any tidings received from him. In her distress and anxiety on his account, she forgot all his bad conduct, and only remembered that he was her son,—her only son. Little Mary, too, was much troubled at the loss of her brother. She did not fully comprehend the occasion of his absence, and as little was said in her presence about it, she somehow got the notion into her head that Jerry had been seized and carried off by certain wicked people whom she called “bugaboos.” “Mother,” she would say, “when Jerry gets to be a great-big man, wont he get away from the bugaboos; and come back again?” And then her mother would look sad, and reply, “I hope so, my dear.”
About a fortnight after Jerry’s departure, Mrs. Preston received a letter from her husband’s brother in Boston. She opened it with mingled hope and trembling, for it was in reply to one she had addressed him, the day after Jerry left home. But it gave her no information in regard to his whereabouts. Jerry’s uncle simply stated that he had been absent from home, and did not get her letter till a few days previous; that he had made inquiries, but could learn nothing of Jerry; and that he would be on the look-out for him, and give her immediate information should he hear anything concerning the runaway. She laid the letter down with a sigh; and that evening she wrote to her husband, informing him of the situation of affairs,—for she had delayed doing so until now, in hope of hearing what had become of Jerry. Being at work in the woods, far away from any post-office, Mr. Preston did not receive this letter until it had got to be quite an old affair, and so he did not think it worth while to return home, to look after his son.
Clinton continued to be a frequent visiter at Mrs. Preston’s, and was regarded as one of the family, rather than a stranger. When riding down to the Cross Roads, he always stopped to inquire if they had any errands to be done at the store; and often, when going back and forth, he would drop in a few moments, to chat with the children, or join in their sports. There was in the yard a great image of snow, twice as large as a man, which Clinton had made to amuse little Mary. The frequent thawings and freezings to which this snow giant was subjected, gave him a smooth, thick coating of ice, so that a snow ball made no impression upon him. This, Clinton said, was his coat of mail. By causing water to drop down its chin, when it was freezing cold, Clinton made a beard of icicles for the image, which gave it a very grotesque look. One morning, after a thaw, Mary was highly delighted with a discovery she made of a long icicle hanging from the nose of the “old man,” as she called him. A few days after there was a heavy fall of moist snow, which swelled the image to gigantic proportions, the outline of the figure being still preserved; but soon it tumbled to pieces of its own weight, and only a heap of hardened snow and ice remained to tell its story.
Clinton was a favorite with the family, and his visits gave them much pleasure; yet Mrs. Preston could not look upon him without a feeling of sadness, for his presence always reminded her of her own son—the playmate from infancy of Clinton. Nor could she help contrasting their characters and prospects. She thought what a difference a few years had made, in the two boys; and then she wondered whether this difference was to go on, ever widening, to the end of their lives.
Thus week after week passed away, and the family were beginning to recover from the melancholy occasioned by Jerry’s flight from home, when a new and unwelcome guest entered the house. This guest was sickness, and Mary was its victim. She grew ill so alarmingly fast, from the hour of her attack, that James was soon despatched for the doctor. When this functionary arrived, he felt of Mary’s pulse and temples, looked at her tongue, and made some inquiries of her mother in relation to her symptoms. He then pronounced her to be in a fever, but expressed some hope of being able to throw it off. Opening the little leathern trunk, which he always carried with him in his professional visits, he took from it several kinds of medicines, and gave them to Mary’s mother, with directions how to administer them. But Mary continued to grow worse and worse, in spite of the good doctor’s medicine. She tossed about on her little bed, moaning piteously, and complaining continually of the dreadful pain in her head. Night came, and she could not sleep, although the lamp in the room was shaded, and her mother moved noiselessly about in her gentle ministries to the sick one. Every little while she would call for drink, for she said she was burning up with the heat; but she ate nothing.