“Well, it’s a narrow belt that stretches right across the Atlantic, from America to Africa, where it rains nearly all the time, and is almost always calm. It shifts about a little with the seasons, but is generally north of the equator, say from four to ten or twelve degrees. It varies in width, too. When we got caught in it, on our way home, it must have been seven or eight degrees wide. We were twelve days crossing it. It was cloudy every day, and such heavy, black clouds, too,—why, our thunder-storms in summer are nothing to be compared to them. We had a little deluge every day, with thunder and lightning, and sometimes a sudden squall, that would last an hour, and then all would be calm again. The air was so hot and suffocating that most of the men were about half sick, and some of our provisions were spoilt, too; but at last we got out of the doldrums, into the trade-winds, and though we had one or two gales after that, they were nothing to those tedious calms. We arrived at New York in good order, and I came right on to Boston the same day, with a free pass that the captain got for me. Several others of the Susan’s crew came with me. We called on the owners the next morning, and they were quite astonished to see us. They supposed we were dead, long ago. They asked each of us where we belonged, and gave us money enough to pay our fares.”
“And was that all?” inquired Mrs. Preston, with surprise.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jerry; “and that was more than they were bound to do. Our wages were paid for the outward voyage, and as the vessel was wrecked on the homeward passage, we couldn’t claim anything more.”
“That seems hard,” continued Mrs. Preston. “They might have paid your wages up to the time the vessel was lost, and not felt it much, either, I dare say. I suppose they were insured.”
“That isn’t the custom,” replied Jerry; “if the vessel is wrecked, the sailor loses his wages. I thought I was lucky to get enough to pay my fare home. I called at Uncle Henry’s store, in Boston, the same forenoon, and he made me go home to dinner with him, all dirty as I was. I felt cheap enough; but aunt and the children were glad to see me, and treated me first-rate. I started for home by the steamboat, that afternoon, and the cars and stage brought me as far as the Cross-Roads. Nobody from this way was over there, so I concluded I had got to walk over; but soon after the doctor came along and picked me up,—and that is the end of my story.”
“And now,” said Mrs. Preston, “I hope you have had enough of going to sea, and will settle down on the farm, and be a sober and steady young man.”
“That’s just what I mean to do,” replied Jerry. “You won’t catch me going to sea again, you may depend upon that. It’s a regular dog’s life. If father’s willing, I’ll stay at home and work on the farm in the summer, and go logging with him in the winter. Or, if I can’t do that, I’ll learn a trade of some sort or other. Anyhow, I mean to do something to earn an honest living.”
Mrs. Preston said she was very glad he had come home with that resolution; and, after a few words of encouragement and advice,—the hour for retiring having arrived,—the family separated, and Jerry found his way to the well-remembered little bedroom, which he had always called his own, and which he found just as he left it, fifteen months before, with the same patchwork quilt of many colors, the same green-paper curtain at the window,—only a little less green,—the same substantial yellow chair, the same capacious horse-hair trunk in the corner, and the same little square of looking-glass on the wall, inclosed in a brown-paper frame.