combined resources only amounted to a dollar and seventy-five cents. Ham
Durrett never contributed to anything. On this sum Thomas Jefferson
compromised.

Saturday dawned clear, with a stiff March wind catching up the dust into
eddies and whirling it down the street. No sooner was my father safely on
his way to his office than Thomas Jefferson was reported to be in the
alley, where we assembled, surveying with some misgivings Thomas
Jefferson's steed, whose ability to haul the Petrel two miles seemed
somewhat doubtful. Other difficulties developed; the door in the back of
the shed proved to be too narrow for our ship's beam. But men embarked on
a desperate enterprise are not to be stopped by such trifles, and the
problem was solved by sawing out two adjoining boards. These were
afterwards replaced with skill by the ship's carpenter, Able Seaman Grits
Jarvis. Then the Petrel by heroic efforts was got into the wagon, the
seat of which had been removed, old Thomas Jefferson perched himself
precariously in the bow and protestingly gathered up his rope-patched
reins.

"Folks'll 'low I'se plum crazy, drivin' dis yere boat," he declared,
observing with concern that some four feet of the stern projected over
the tail-board. "Ef she topples, I'll git to heaven quicker'n a bullet."

When one is shanghaied, however,--in the hands of buccaneers,--it is too
late to withdraw. Six shoulders upheld the rear end of the Petrel, others
shoved, and Thomas Jefferson's rickety horse began to move forward in
spite of himself. An expression of sheer terror might have been observed
on the old negro's crinkled face, but his voice was drowned, and we swept
out of the alley. Scarcely had we travelled a block before we began to be
joined by all the boys along the line of march; marbles, tops, and even