Jack Mason, the Old Sailor | Page 5

way
off, where the white men lived. The Indians could not talk like us. They
could talk, but they did not use the same words. The captain made out
to tell the Indian what he wanted, by using signs, just as he would have
done if he had been talking with a deaf and dumb man. And what do
you think the father of that little girl said, when he knew that the
captain wanted to take the girl home with him? If anybody should ask
your father if he would let you go away and never come back again,
you can tell what your father would say. He would say, "No, I cannot
spare my dear little child."
[Illustration]

But the Indian said, "Yes, give me some money, and you can take my
little girl, and carry her away with you. I have got more girls in my
house." The little Indian girl wanted to go with us, so the captain gave
her father some money, and when the ship sailed, he took her along
with him. But the poor Indian girl did not live till our ship got home.
She was taken very sick, and died. We all felt very bad when she left us.
We had taught her a great many things. She could read a little. She
knew all her letters, and could spell out such easy words as there are in
your little primers and picture books. She did not know any thing about
God, and Christ, and heaven, before she came to the ship. But some of
us told her about them. She was glad to hear about them. Oh, how her
bright eyes did sparkle when she heard that Christ came into the world,
and died for such little girls as she! How happy it made her, to think
that He loved her! By and by, she used to pray every night, when she
went to bed. I taught her to say that sweet little prayer which you know
so well, and love so well:
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep: If I
should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Oh, I was very sorry when our little Anna died! We called her Anna.
She had another name at home, but we liked Anna better than we did
her old name. I was very sorry when she died, and we were all sorry.
[Illustration: The Fishermen.]

THE LITTLE SAILOR BOY.
The story I told you about the Indian girl makes me think of a little boy
that we once had in our ship. He was a very good boy. The captain
liked him very much. He was not the captain's child. But the captain
used to say that he loved little George as much as if he was his child.
The reason the captain loved him, and the reason everybody loved him,
was because he was so kind and so good natured, and because he
always did just as he was told to do.

I must tell you how George first came to live with us in the ship. We
were once a great many hundred miles off, and the wind blew very hard.
It blew so hard that we could not sail where we wanted to go, and by
and by the ship went upon a bank of sand. There we had to stay a good
while. We could not get away. Nobody was drowned. We ought to have
been very thankful for that. I hope we were thankful. While we were
lying on the sand bank, the waves dashed against the ship so hard, that
we were afraid it would break in pieces. We did not know what to do.
Some of us thought we might as well jump into the water, and try to
swim to the shore. But the captain said that we should certainly get
drowned if we tried to do that.
You wonder why we did not get into our boat, and row to the shore.
We should have done so if we had not lost our boat. But we had no
boat. The waves had dashed against it, and tore it away from the place
where we kept it, so that we could not get it again.
But when we thought we must all be lost, we saw a boat coming toward
the ship. Some fishermen had seen us, and were so kind that they came
to us in their boat, so that we could get to the shore. Oh, how glad we
were when we saw them coming! But the waves were so high, that for a
good while we thought it would sink before it got to us. The men