CHAPTER I

MY FATHER AND I CALL ON CAPTAIN WHIDDEN


My father's study, as I entered it on an April morning in 1809, to learn
his decision regarding a matter that was to determine the course of all my
life, was dim and spacious and far removed from the bustle and clamor of
the harbor-side. It was a large room paneled with dark wood. There were
books along the walls, and paintings of ships, and over the fireplace there
stood a beautiful model of a Burmese junk, carved by some brown artist on
the bank of the Irawadi.

My father sat by the open window and looked out into the warm sunshine,
which was swiftly driving the last snow from the hollows under the
shrubbery.

Already crocuses were blossoming in the grass of the year before, which was
still green in patches, and the bright sun and the blue sky made the study
seem to me, entering, dark and sombre. It was characteristic of my father,
I thought with a flash of fancy, to sit there and look out into a warm, gay
world where springtime was quickening the blood and sunshine lay warm on
the flowers; he always had lived in old Salem, and as he wrote his sermons,
he always had looked out through study windows on a world of commerce
bright with adventure. For my own part, I was of no mind to play the
spectator in so stirring a drama.

With a smile he turned at my step. "So, my son, you wish to ship before the