THE SEAWEED STORY
nce upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they made up their minds that they ought to move their office to Boston. And so they did. And, after that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston and Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had their office on India street. Then the change began in that little city and that wharf.
Once, in the long ago, the brig Industry had sailed from Boston for a far country, and little Jacob had gone on that voyage. Little Jacob was Captain Jacob's son and Lois's, and the grandson of Captain Jonathan, and when he went on that voyage he was almost thirteen years old. And little Sol went, too. He was Captain Solomon's son, and he was only a few months younger than little Jacob. Captain Solomon had taken him in the hope that the voyage would discourage him from going to sea. But, as it turned out, it didn't discourage him at all, but he liked going to sea, so that afterwards he ran away and went to sea, and became the captain of that very ship, as you shall hear.
The Industry had been out a little more than a week, and she had run into a storm. The storm didn't do any harm except to blow her out of her course, and then she ran out of it. And the next morning little Jacob came out on deck and he looked for little Sol. The first place that he looked in was out on the bowsprit; for little Sol liked to be out there, where he could see all about him and could see the ship making the wave at her bow and feel as if he wasn't on the ship, at all, but free as air. It was a perfectly safe place to be in, for there were nettings on each side to keep him from falling, and he didn't go out beyond the nettings onto the part that was just a round spar sticking out.
When little Jacob got to the bow of the ship, he looked out on the bowsprit, and there was little Sol; but he wasn't lying on his back as he was most apt to be, nor he wasn't lying down with one hand propping up his head, which was the way he liked to lie to watch the wave that the ship made. He was lying stretched out on his stomach, with both hands propping up his chin, and he was looking straight out ahead, so that he didn't see little Jacob. And the Industry was pitching a good deal, for the storm had made great waves, like mountains, and the waves that were left were still great. The ship made a sort of growling noise as she went down into a wave, and a sort of hissing noise as she came up out of it, and little Jacob was—well, not afraid, exactly, but he didn't just like to go out there where little Sol was, with the ship making all those queer noises. You see, it was little Jacob's first storm at sea. It was little Sol's first storm, too; but then, boys are different.