The large schooner Onrust was in the canal at Richmond loaded with cement for Fort Taylor at Key West and the fort on the Dry Tortugas Island. My late shipmates and myself shipped on her by the month, she being a coasting vessel. It was a novel experience for us all to be on a schooner. Everything was so different from a square-rigged ship. The captain was also the owner. Economy was his motto. Instead of eating in the forecastle, we had our meals in the cabin, the captain acting as host. None of the crew felt as comfortable as if feeding in sailor style and all etiquette dispensed with. In the forecastle was a small box stove, and that was a nuisance. The watch below would make a wood fire and go to sleep. It would only be a short time before the fire would be out and then we would wake up shivering with the cold atmosphere. As yet I did not enjoy the luxury of a bed or blankets. My finances, since leaving the frigate, had been at a low point. Besides the trouble below, we felt the cold more severely when on deck. All hands agreed on one point--that the stove was a nuisance. That was my only experience with a fire in the forecastle during my life on the sea. No matter how cold the weather, clothing wet or dry, a sailor never catches cold on the ocean if he will keep away from a stove. We sailed, instead of being towed, down the James River. When near Fortress Monroe, the main boom snapped short off near the jaws. Then there was trouble. We put into Norfolk for a new boom. Everything being ready, we hoisted sail for a new start. And such a job to get the main and foresails up on that brute of a schooner! But our experience was yet to come. In a few days we were rounding Cape Hatteras and a heavy gale came up. Then was the time the schooner showed what she could do. The main-sail had to be lowered for reefing. The hour was about midnight, and a dark, stormy winter night it was. The captain was steering, as all the men were needed for reefing, the cook included.