"I don't ever want to go to sea again," he began. "It aint a bit like what _we_ thought it was. I don't know why them chaps in the 'Reader' called it 'blue.' It's green and black and yellow, and all kinds of colors, but I never see it look blue exceptin' when folks was looking at it from the land. It's cold, too, and wet and nasty. I wasn't dry once for the first two months, it seems to me. Ugh! I hate it. Never let to sleep till you're rested, and such horrid stuff to eat, and sick--my, how sick I was! Captain Bradley was a fair enough sort of man, but he fell ill of China fever, and we had to leave him behind in Canton, and Bill Bunce, the first mate, took his place. After that we had a hard time enough. I thought it was bad at first, but it wasn't nothing to that. He was always walloping us boys, and swearing and kicking and cuffing us about. Then we had a storm, and lost our mainmast, and came near foundering; and then we were stuck in a calm for three weeks, and the water aboard ran short. That was the time I had the fever. I'd have died, I know, if it hadn't been for Tad Brice. He was one of the sailors, and a real nice man. His boy at home was just as old as I am, and he sort of took an interest in me from the start. He used to come in and feed me, and when we were put on allowance, he saved half his water ration for me; and when I got to crying, and thinking about home and you all, he'd--" Here Charley choked and was silent. Aunt Hitty, who sat next, possessed herself of his thin hand and wept silently over it. "When I went away I meant to be a pirate, you know," went on Charley. "A pirate!" cried Aunt Hitty and Aunt Greg in awe-struck voices. "Yes. I didn't know much about what it meant, but it sounded somehow nice in the books, and I wanted to be one. But when I asked 'em about it aboard they roared and hooted and made fun, and they all called me Captain Kidd from that time on. And once, when we were in Shanghai" (Charley's voice sounded full of horror), "we saw two pirates. Tad Brice said they was pirates. The folks was taking 'em to jail. They was _dreadful_, black and ugly, and their eyes were so fierce and bad that it made me cold to look at 'em. I never wanted to be a pirate any more after that, but Bunce and the others, they all kept on calling me Captain Kidd just the same." "You absurd, ridiculous boy!" began Aunt Prue, but Grandmother hushed her up. "Now, Prue, I wont have poor Charley scolded when he's been so sick," she said--"He's only a boy, anyhow, and he's going to turn over a new leaf now; aint you, Charley? and go to school regular, and do his chores, and be the comfort of his granny's life. He's had enough of goin' to sea; haven't you, Charley? and he'll stay on the farm now, and we wont ever talk about this bad time he's had, and just be thankful to get him back home again."