What a sad place; what a living grave is this for him to return to! Where would he find the most familiar names? In the cemetery. Who would he feel most like? Like “Rip Van Winkle.” Who are these bright and blooming lasses passing by? They are her grown-up children--she with whom he sat up that last Sunday night in the old-fashioned front parlor on the old-fashioned sofa. Where is she? That is she, that stout, middle-aged woman across the street. Is she thinking of him? No; she is thinking whether there shall be cabbage or turnips for dinner. Who is that codgery-looking man going up the street. That is the man she didn’t wait for and married. Should the Argonaut return home if he could? No. Let him stay where he is and dream on of her as she was, bright, gay, lively, blooming, and possibly romantic. The dream is solid happiness compared with the reality. The recollections treated in this chapter are to me as a commencement and an ending of the shadows of a series of coming events. CHAPTER II. GOING TO SEA. Eight years later I shipped “before the mast” on the A 1 first-class clipper _Wizard_ bound from New York to San Francisco. When I made up my mind to become a sailor, I had tried several of this world’s callings and seemed to find none suitable. I had asked counsel of several elderly gentlemen in my native village as to the best way of securing all things needful during my sojourn in this world. They said many wise and good things. They looked wise and good. But really the wordy help they offered was unsatisfactory. So I cut the knot myself and said I would be a sailor. I explained to my male and female friends that I felt myself destined for a maritime career. I needed more excitement than could be got out of a shore humdrum life. The sea was the place for enterprising youthful Americans. The American merchant marine needed American officers and sailors. All heard me and agreed. No doubt it was the best thing. And I talked on and they agreed with all my arguments. How people will agree with you when it’s all one to them what you do! I was eighteen and in most respects a fool, including this--that I did not know it.