had always been sailors, a statement which a perusal of the tombstones
in Thomaston cemetery will amply justify. Indeed, a Peasley who had
not acquired his master's ticket prior to his twenty-fifth birthday
was one of two things--a disgrace to the family or a corpse.
Consequently, since the traditions of his tribe were very strong in
Matthew Peasley VI, it occasioned no comment in Thomaston when, having
acquired a grammar school education, he answered the call of his
destiny and fared forth to blue water and his first taste of dog's
body and salt horse.

When he was fourteen years old and very large for his age, Matt
commenced his apprenticeship in a codfisher on the Grand Banks, which,
when all is said and done, constitutes the finest training school in
the world for sailors. By the time he was seventeen he had made one
voyage to Rio de Janeiro in a big square-rigger out of Portland; and
so smart and capable an A.B. was he for his years that the Old Man
took a shine to him. Confidentially he informed young Matt that if
the latter would stay by the ship, in due course a billet as third
mate should be the reward of his fealty. The Old Man didn't need a
third mate any more than he needed a tail, but Matt Peasley looked
like a comer to him and he wanted an excuse to encourage the boy by
berthing him aft; also it sounds far better to be known as a third
mate instead of a mate's bosun, which was, in reality, the position
the Old Man had promised Matt. The latter promptly agreed to this
program and the skipper loaned him his copy of Bowditch.

Upon his return from his first voyage as third mate Matt went up for
his second mate's certificate and passed very handily. Naturally he
expected prompt promotion, but the Old Man knew the value of
experience in a second mate--also the value of years and physical