We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind. Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short, sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work. The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times. "What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just behind me. "It is a salute for us," says he. "Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once. "For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others. Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary toil. Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again, where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the fun died out. After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live, and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked--which would have been interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English. Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam it--dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity isn't in my nature. After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to the ship's beams--which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.