rec'lect he used to speak consider'ble about his mother. I shipped one
v'y'ge with him before the mast, before I went out mate of the Daylight.
I happened to be in port the time the Ranger got in, an' I see this
chist lying round in Cap'n Manning's storehouse, and I offered to give
him what it was worth; but we was good friends, and he told me take it
if I wanted it, it was no use to him, and I've kept it ever since.

"There are some of his traps in it now, I believe; ye can look." And we
took off some tangled cod-lines and opened the chest. There was only a
round wooden box in the till, and in some idle hour at sea the young
sailor had carved his initials and an anchor and the date on the cover.
We found some sail-needles and a palm in this "kit," as the sailors call
it, and a little string of buttons with some needles and yarn and thread
in a neat little bag, which perhaps his mother had made for him when he
started off on his first voyage. Besides these things there was only a
fanciful little broken buckle, green and gilt, which he might have
picked up in some foreign street, and his protection-paper carefully
folded, wherein he was certified as being a citizen of the United
States, with dark complexion and dark hair.

"He was one of the pleasantest fellows that ever I shipped with," said
the captain, with a gruff tenderness in his voice. "Always willin' to do
his work himself, and like's not when the other fellows up the rigging
were cold, or ugly about something or 'nother, he'd say something that
would set them all laughing, and somehow it made you good-natured to see
him round. He was brought up a Catholic, I s'pose; anyway, he had some
beads, and sometimes they would joke him about 'em on board ship, but he
would blaze up in a minute, ugly as a tiger. I never saw him mad about
anything else, though he wouldn't stand it if anybody tried to crowd
him. He fell from the main-to'-gallant yard to the deck, and was dead