As it is a painful story, I shall not detail the course of events which followed, in respect to my mother. It must be sufficient to say, that my brother Seth grew up rather a wild fellow, and the neighbors said――“I thought it would be so, for he comes of a bad father.” At last, when he was about seventeen years old, he went to sea, and was not heard of afterwards. For myself, I went to school till I was nine years old, when I went, as cabin-boy, on board a vessel which plied between Middletown and New York. Here I continued for several years――though I was often beaten because they said I belonged to a bad family. They seemed to think I could do nothing right. However, I bore it all, and grew up a sailor. When I was about fifteen, I went on a voyage to St. Domingo, and was instructed by my mother to make inquiries about my uncle at Port au Prince. This I did, but as it was about twenty years since the events occurred which I have mentioned, I could hear nothing of him. After my return, I made several other voyages, and was soon able to do something towards the support of my mother and sister. At last I went upon a voyage which produced results which may be interesting to the reader. I shall give an account of it in the next chapter. The Indian and his Dog. On the borders of the state of Pennsylvania there lived a man by the name of Le Fevre, who had a family of eleven children. One morning, the youngest of these, about four years of age, was found to be missing. The distressed family sought after him, by the river and in the fields, but to no purpose. Terrified to an extreme degree, they united with their neighbors to go in quest of him. They entered the woods, and beat them over with the most scrupulous attention. A thousand times they called him by name, but were answered only by the echoes of the wilderness. The different members of the party employed in the search, at length assembled themselves together, without being able to bring the least intelligence of the child. After reposing for a few minutes, they formed themselves into several different bands, and renewed the search. Night came on, but the parents refused to return home. Their anxiety increased by knowing that the forests were inhabited by panthers and wolves, and they could not but paint to their imagination the horrid spectacle of some of these dreadful animals devouring their darling child. “Derick, my poor little Derick, where are you?” frequently exclaimed the mother, in the most poignant grief,――but all was of no avail. As soon as daylight appeared, they recommenced their search, but as unsuccessfully as the preceding day. At last, an Indian, laden with furs, coming from an adjacent village, called at the house of Le Fevre, intending to repose himself there, as he usually did, in his travels through that part of the country. He was much surprised to find no one at home but an old negress, kept there by her infirmities.