“We hadn’t got fairly clear of the channel,” continued Bill Marline, “before the boy had become a general favorite all over the ship.  We washed him up and bent on a new suit of toggery on him, with a reg’lar tarpaulin, and there was almost a fight whether the forecastle or the cabin should have him.  At last it was left to the boy himself, and he chose to remain with us in the forecastle.  The boy wasn’t sick an hour on the passage until after we left the Cape of Good Hope, when the flag halliards getting fouled, he was sent up to the peak to loosen it, and by some lurch of the ship was throw upon deck.  Why it didn’t kill him was the wonder of all, but the boy was crazy for near a month from the blow on his head, which he got in falling, but he gradually got cured under our captain’s care.

“Well, do ye see, our captain was a regular whole-souled fellow, though he did sometimes work up a hand’s old iron pretty close for him, and so he took the boy into the cabin and gave him a berth alongside his own, and as he grew better took to teaching him the use of his instruments, and mathematics, and the like.  The boy they said was wonderful ready, and learned like a book, and could take the sun and work up the ship’s course as well as the captain; but what was the funniest of all was that, after he got well, he didn’t know one of us, he had forgotten or even how he came on board the ship, the injury had put such a stopper on his brain that he had forgotten all that ever occurred before it.  To my mind, howdsomever, it wasn’t much to forget, seeing he was little better than a baby, and hadn’t been to sea at all, and you know there aint anything worth knowing on shore, more’n one can overhaul in a day’s leave, more or less, within hail of the sea.”

“That’s true,” growled one or two of his messmates.

“Our ship was a first class freighter and passage vessel, and on the home voyage we had plenty of ladies.  ‘Twas surprisin’ to see how natural like the boy took to ’em, and how they all liked him.  He was constantly learning something, and soon got so be could parley vou like a real frog-eating Frenchman.  And then, as I said before, he took the sun and worked up the the ship’s reckoning like a commodore.  Well, do ye se, messmates, we made a second and third voyage together in that ship, and when master Will Ratlin—­for that was a name we give him when he first came on board, and he’s kept it ever since—­was a matter of fourteen years, he was nearly as big as he is now, and acted as mate, and through I say it, who ought to know somewhat about those things, I never seed a better seaman of twice his years, always savin’ present company, messmates.”

“In course, Bill,” growled three or four of his messmates, heartily.