“Well, then,” he remarked thoughtfully, “I don’t want you to go to sea again. Go to Salem, in the state of Massachusetts. I have a wife and children there, and shall be at home in a few weeks.” This was a kind offer, and I at once agreed to take his advice. I had already grown somewhat weary with the confinement of my new mode of life, though, on the whole, considering my education, and the character of the influence exerted upon me in the _Macedonian_, I was a steady lad. Mr. Smith had left me pretty much to my own inclinations during the two months of my residence with him; yet my utmost misconduct had been the drinking of a little spirit, and the violation of the Sabbath by roaming about the docks and wharves. My Sabbath evenings I had usually spent in a more profitable manner, it being my habit to spend them at the Methodist chapel in Duane street. On returning to the house of my kind employer, I lost no time in communicating to him my change of purpose. He objected, and justly too, to be left just as the pains he had taken to instruct me were about to be requited by my usefulness. However, as I offered him five dollars, he consented to my departure. At that time there were no steamboats ploughing the waters of the Sound, so I engaged a steerage passage to Providence, for five dollars, on board a packet sloop, and, with a light heart and elastic step, carried my clothes-bag on board. Here, however, I met with a trifling loss. While ashore waiting for a fair wind, a negro, who had engaged a passage in the sloop, robbed my bag of several articles of wearing apparel, and took French leave. In consideration of this mishap, the captain exacted only three dollars passage-money. From Providence a stage, chartered exclusively by a party of sailors, conveyed me to Boston; from whence I soon reached the house of my cousin in Salem. Mrs. Turner received me with great kindness; indeed, she pretended not to be surprised at my visit, assigning as a reason the very satisfactory fact that she had seen me with my bag on my shoulder in the _grounds of a teacup_! She was a believer in fortune-telling and dreams, having, for aught I know, received her convictions as an heirloom from her witch-burning[17] ancestors. At any rate she was strongly confirmed in her favorite theory by my timely arrival; verifying, as it did, to the very particular of the bag on the shoulder, the truth-telling tea-grounds. She gave me another proof, after I had been there a few weeks, of the truthfulness and verity of dreams, by calling me up one morning, with an injunction to make haste to the post-office, for she had dreamed of catching fish. Sure enough, if she caught no fish in her dreams, she caught a very fine one in the letter I brought to her, for it contained a one hundred dollar bill from her husband, with information that his ship was blockaded in the port of New London by Commodore Hardy.