I dare say there are not many of my young readers who have heard about
Jacky Cable, the sailor-boy, and of his wonderful adventures on
Huggermugger's Island. Jacky was a smart Yankee lad, and was always
remarkable for his dislike of staying at home, and a love of lounging
upon the wharves, where the sailors used to tell him stories about
sea-life. Jacky was always a little fellow. The country people, who
did not much like the sea, or encourage Jacky's fondness for it, used
to say, that he took so much salt air and tar smoke into his lungs
that it stopped his growth. The boys used to call him Little Jacket.
Jacky, however, though small in size, was big in wit, being an
uncommonly smart lad, though he did play truant sometimes, and seldom
knew well his school-lessons. But some boys learn faster out of school
than in school, and this was the case with Little Jacket. Before he
was ten years old, he knew every rope in a ship, and could manage a
sail-boat or a row-boat with equal ease. In fine, salt water seemed to
be his element; and he was never so happy or so wide awake as when he
was lounging with the sailors in the docks. The neighbors thought he
was a sort of good-for-nothing, idle boy, and his parents often
grieved that he was not fonder of home and of school. But Little
Jacket was not a bad boy, and was really learning a good deal in his
way, though he did not learn it all out of books.

Well, it went on so, and Little Jacket grew fonder and fonder of the
sea, and pined more and more to enlist as a sailor, and go off to the
strange countries in one of the splendid big ships. He did not say
much about it to his parents, but they saw what his longing was, and
after thinking and talking the matter over together, they concluded
that it was about as well to let the boy have his way.