I really had found much to counterbalance the anxieties of my position
in the delightful novelty and variety of life around me, and not a
little to raise my hopes; for I had watched keenly for several hours as
much as I could see from the wharf of what was going on in this ship
and that, and I began to feel less confused. I perceived plainly that a
great deal of every-day sort of work went on in ships as well as in
houses, with the chief difference, in dock at any rate, of being done in
public. In the most free and easy fashion, to the untiring entertainment
of crowds of idlers besides myself, the men and boys on vessel after
vessel lying alongside, washed out their shirts and socks, and hung them
up to dry, cooked their food, cleaned out their pots and pans, tidied
their holes and corners, swept and brushed, and fetched and carried, and
did scores of things which I knew I could do perfectly, for want of
something better to do.

"It's clear there's plenty of dirty work to go on with till one learns
seamanship," I thought, and the thought was an honest satisfaction to
me.

I had always swept Uncle Henry's office, and that had been light work
after cleaning the school-room at Snuffy's. My hands were never likely
to be more chapped at sea than they had been with dirt and snow and want
of things to dry oneself with at school; and as to coal-carrying--

Talking of coals, on board the big ship, out of which great white bales,
strapped with bars of iron, were being pulled up by machinery, and
caught and flung about by the "unloaders," there was a man whose
business it seemed to be to look after the fires, and who seemed also to
have taken a roll in the coal-hole for pleasure; and I saw him find a
tin basin and a square of soap, and a decent rough towel to wash his