"Nathaniel Peacock and I are minded to go with you into that new
world, Captain John Smith, if so be you permit us," I said, "and
there we will serve you with honesty and industry."

There was a smile come upon his face as I spoke, and he looked
down upon Nathaniel and me, who were wedged among that throng which
watched the apprentices quarrel, until we were like to be squeezed
flat, and said in what I took to be a friendly tone:

"So, my master, you would journey into Virginia with the hope
of making yourself rich, and you not out from under your mother's
apron as yet?"

"I have no mother to wear an apron, Captain Smith, nor father
to say I may go there or shall come here; but yet would serve you
as keenly as might any man, save mayhap my strength, which will
increase, be not so great as would be found in those older."

Whether this valiant soldier was pleased with my words, or if in
good truth boys were needed in the enterprise, I cannot say; but
certain it is he spoke me fairly, writing down upon a piece of paper,
which he tore from his tablets, the name of the street in which he
had lodgings, and asking, as he handed it to me, if I could read.

Now it was that I gave silent thanks, because of what had seemed
to me a hardship when my mother forced me to spend so many hours
each day in learning to use a quill, until I was able to write a
clerkly hand.