I had a different idea about the Captain's legs. It was my belief
that they were what sailors call "sea-legs." I had often read, in
stories about the ocean, of people who were very sick and unhappy
until the got their "sea-legs." After that, as near as I could make
out, they could balance themselves better as they walked the deck,
and they didn't mind the rolling of the ship. It seemed resonable
that a man who had followed the sea for forty years, like the
Captain, would get "sea-legs" for good and all. But we never dared
to ask the Captain about it.

"Hey! Clarence!" he shouted again. "What's the matter with yer?
Think we want to stand here all day?"

The others of us, waiting on the wharf, were Ed Mason, Jimmy Toppan,
and myself. My name was Sam Edwards. (It still IS Sam Edwards, of
course, except that some people call me Samuel now).

"You boys provide the grub," the Captain had said, "an' I'll find
the boat for a week's cruise."

We were more than willing to agree to that, and we got our families
to agree to it. In fact we got them so much interested in it that
they fitted us out with a plentiful supply. I had a basket which
contained, among other things, a whole boiled ham,--one of those
hams that are all brown on the outside, covered with cracker-crumbs
and sugar, with cloves stuck in here and there. It makes me hungry
to think of them. Jimmy's grandmother had provided all kinds of food,
including a lot of her celebrated sugar-gingerbread, and a water-melon.
Jimmy was carrying the water-melon now, by means of a shawl-strap. Ed
Mason brought up the rear of our procession, as we came down the wharf,