Learning the ropes isn’t all a boy’s first lessons at sea. He must learn also to wash and mend his own clothes. At least he must try to learn and go through the forms. I never could wash a flannel shirt, and how the extraneous matter called dirt, which the washing process is intended to disperse, is gotten rid of by soap and muscle at an equal average over the entire surface of the garment is for me to-day one of earth’s mysteries. I could wash a shirt in spots. When I tried to convince myself that I had finished it I could still see where I had washed clean and where I had not. There is a certain system in the proper manipulation of a garment in a washtub which to me is incomprehensible. An old sailor is usually a good washer. It’s part of his trade. Those on the _Wizard_ would reprove the boys for their slipshod work. “Such a slovenly washed shirt as that,” said Conner, an old man-of-war’s man, “hung in the rigging is a disgrace to the ship.” He alluded to one of mine. The failure was not from any lack of labor put on it. The trouble lay in that I didn’t know where to put the labor on. It was easier to tie a shirt to a line, fling it overboard and let it tow. This will wash clothes--wash all the warp out of them in time. The practice was at last forbidden the boys on the _Wizard_. It’s a lazy boy’s wash. The adage “It’s never too late to mend” is not applicable on shipboard. It should there read “It’s never too early to mend.” Of course a boy of sixteen, whose mother has always stitched for him, will allow his clothes to go until they fall off his body before using his needle. As I did. And I sewed myself up only to rip asunder immediately. I went about decks a thing of flaps, rips, rags, and abortive patches, until they called me the ship’s scarecrow. And so would many another spruce young man under similar discipline. It’s good once in one’s life to be brought thus low.