“My mother sailed on a merchant ship from France to Baltimore, where my father was living.  A great storm arose; the ship was driven on rocks, where she split, and all hands had to take to the boats.  They gave themselves up for lost; but at last a ship bound for Liverpool took them up.  They had lost everything but the clothes they had on; but the captain was very kind to them; he gave them clothes, and some money.

“My mother refused to remain at Liverpool, though she was quite sick, for she wanted to get to this country so badly; so she took passage in another merchant ship, just going to New York.  She was the only woman on board.  She grew worse after the ship sailed; the sailors took care of her.  Father Jack was a sailor on this ship, and he pitied her very much, and he did all he could for her.  But she died and left me, an infant.

“Nobody knew what to do with me; they all said I would die—­all but Father Jack; he asked the doctor to give me to him.  The doctor said:—­

“’Let him try his hand, if he has a mind to; it’s no use, the little one will be sure to go overboard after it’s mother;’ but the doctor was wrong.

[Illustration:  "I went errands for gentlemen, and swept out offices and stores."]

“I was brought safe to New York.  He tried to find my father, but did not know how to do it, for no one knew my mother’s name.  At last he left me with a family in New York, and he went to sea again; but he never could find out anything about my mother, although he inquired in Liverpool and elsewhere.  The last time he went to sea, I was nine years old, and he gave me a present on my birthday, the day before he sailed.  It was the last; he never came back again; he died of ship fever.

“But Father Jack did well by me; he had me placed in a free school, at seven years of age, and always paid my board in advance for a year.

“So you see, sir, I had a fair start to help myself, which I did right off.  I went errands for gentlemen, and swept out offices and stores.  No one liked to begin with me, for they all thought me too small, but they soon saw I got along well enough.

[Illustration]

“I went to school just the same, for I did my jobs before nine in the morning; and after school closed at night, I had plenty of time to work and learn my lessons.  I wouldn’t give up my school, for Father Jack told me to learn all I could, and some day I would find my father, and he must not find me a poor, ignorant boy.  He said I must look my father in the face, and say to him without falsehood:  ’Father, I may be poor and rough, but I have always been an honest boy and stood by the ship, so you needn’t be ashamed of me.’  Sir, I could never forget those words.”  He dropped his cap, drum, and sticks, bared his little arm, and showed the figure of a ship in full sail, with this motto beneath it, pricked into the skin:  “Stand by the ship.”

“When I was twelve, I left New York and came to Detroit with a gentleman in the book business.  I was there two years, when the war broke out.