me still more incredulous. For what business had a man from Greenland to
be in my company? Why was he not at home among the icebergs, and how
could he stand a warm summer's sun, and not be melted away? Besides,
instead of icicles, there were ear-rings hanging from his ears; and he
did not wear bear-skins, and keep his hands in a huge muff; things,
which I could not help connecting with Greenland and all Greenlanders.

But I was telling about my being sea-sick and wanting to retire for the
night. This Greenlander seeing I was ill, volunteered to turn doctor and
cure me; so going down into the forecastle, he came back with a brown
jug, like a molasses jug, and a little tin cannikin, and as soon as the
brown jug got near my nose, I needed no telling what was in it, for it
smelt like a still-house, and sure enough proved to be full of Jamaica
spirits.

"Now, Buttons," said he, "one little dose of this will be better for you
than a whole night's sleep; there, take that now, and then eat seven or
eight biscuits, and you'll feel as strong as the mainmast."

But I felt very little like doing as I was bid, for I had some scruples
about drinking spirits; and to tell the plain truth, for I am not
ashamed of it, I was a member of a society in the village where my
mother lived, called the Juvenile Total Abstinence Association, of which
my friend, Tom Legare, was president, secretary, and treasurer, and kept
the funds in a little purse that his cousin knit for him. There was
three and sixpence on hand, I believe, the last time he brought in his
accounts, on a May day, when we had a meeting in a grove on the
river-bank. Tom was a very honest treasurer, and never spent the
Society's money for peanuts; and besides all, was a fine, generous boy,
whom I much loved. But I must not talk about Tom now.