Bennie Ben Cree | Page 7

they all now fell to looking at me inquiringly, which made me nervous and out of countenance.
"I'll have to refer you to the p'oper official, Mr. Cree," said Cavarly.
"Ben, boy," said my father, in a voice quickly growing husky, while his eyes looked dim and sad, "your uncle advises you ship naval apprentice, and he thinks you're as well not aboard the Saratoga as yet."
"He's quite right, sir," said Cavarly. "There was no favo'itism where I learned seamanship."
"Man can't throw the necessa'y belayin' pins at his relative," said Mr. Morgan. "It lace'ates the feelin's."
"And Captain Cavarly is good enough to----"
"Oh, tha's all right, tha's all right."
"He'll see if he can't get you a berth with him, if you like, Ben, supposing you feel that way."
My father paused, looking troubled and uncertain, while Cavarly murmured, "Tha's all right," soothingly, and Morgan, "Don' lace'ate the feelin's."
For me, I felt bewildered, and my heart seemed to be pumping my head full of confusion, so that I stammered, saying I would go. Then Cavarly and Morgan and my father went on talking, while Calhoun sat quietly listening, and I was content enough to have no further notice taken of me.
So it came about that I went with my father and Captain Cavarly that afternoon, and climbed to a little upstairs office, where an orderly stood within the door; and there I was examined and entered a naval apprentice, with the privilege of full seamanship in a year, all the while in that state of excitement I would not have known the difference if they had listed me a porpoise with the privilege of becoming a whale.
And afterwards we went by ferry to the navy yard, and saw the Octarara lying in dock, two-masted, side-wheeled, as steaming vessels mostly were in those days; neat though small; it might be less than two hundred tons, but a wonder in my eyes and very threatening to the Southern Confederacy. There seemed to be little doing on the Octarara, though the yard was full of noise and bustle. We found Morgan playing a banjo in the cabin and singing:
"This world is full o' trouble an' sin; Don' keep me mournin' here, O Lord! Don' keep me mournin' long."
"Howdy, Mr. Cree," he said. "The cap'en, he's troubled because we ain' goin' to be fit in time to crush the Southern Confede'acy. It's the sins an' sorrows o' this world troubles me. 'Don' keep me mournin' long.' Your son, sir, hasn't the liver complaint?"
And, seeing Cavarly looking at him uneasily, he fell to playing his banjo again.
The captain's trouble, which Morgan spoke of, lest the Octarara should not be fit in time to crush the Confederacy, seemed to me more and more natural. For the weeks went by, and the yard all the time rushed with work, and it seemed a slight on the Octarara, that wonderful craft, that they passed her by in the way of preparation. December slipped away. On Christmas Day my father had the captains, Morgan and Calhoun, up to a handsome dinner, where there was great exchange of cordiality, and much grumbling at the delay, with great comfort taken out of the grumbling.
It was notable how gladly we listened to Calhoun. The captain particularly seemed to ponder on what he said, and turn it over in his mind, as if looking for a secret meaning. The great variety of Calhoun's information was odd in one not very old in years, and especially his knowledge of foreign lands and seas, trade lines and ocean navigation at large, whereas I gathered that Cavarly had never been beyond coasting trade.
Calhoun in his talk let himself be easily led to speak of the South Atlantic, and what amount of American shipping was found there. And all through it ran the stream of his personal adventure, from which I thought, even so early in my knowledge of him, that seldom was so foolhardy a man, to walk into any danger or adventure, wherever he could find it, and walk out again when ready to do so. Indeed, I think this of Calhoun, and may say so now, that he was never so pleased and satisfied, as when edging along in some peculiar and perilous circumstance, and that he would go far out of his way to find that circumstance. It is a secret hid in the nature of many that they love nothing better than the chance to fight skilfully for their own lives, and seek this chance by jungles, glaciers, and high seas. But I never knew one who sought it more inquisitively than Calhoun.
In January Cavarly went away, and was gone, it might be, a week, but whether to Washington or Baltimore he did not say. Morgan said he was "after a list of Southern cities desirable to