“I ALMOST wish I had not ran off in such a hurry," said Benjamin to himself, as, tired and disappointed, he turned from the last publishing office he could find in New York, his application for employment having met with the usual reply that no extra help was needed. "I can't go back, though," he continued, still speaking to himself. "I want work, and work I must find, for I am very short of money. I have been told that I can get employment in Philadelphia, so to Philadelphia I must go.”
But other trials, different from any he had yet known, lay before him. After some delay, he found a boat that would, he hoped, take him half-way to the city he was so anxious to reach; but they had been hardly two hours at sea before a violent storm of wind and rain came on. A squall caught the boat, tearing the rudder sails into ribbons, and driving the little craft upon Long Island, at a point where there was no landing. "I see men on the shore," said Benjamin, "let us call to them for help." The captain shouted, and the crew joined him, but whether the noise of the wind and waves drowned their voices, or whether the men on the island did not wish to help, no one knew, for they were soon lost to sight.
“What are we going to do now?" asked Benjamin; "a wild, rough night is before us." "Yes, it will be a bad night," said the captain, "but I've known a worse. There's only one thing we can do, wait patiently for the morning, and for the wind to change." So they all crowded under the hatches to pass as best they could a night of great discomfort. Sleep was out of the question, for the waves dashed over the hatches, and found their way in. Perhaps during the long, weary hours of the night Benjamin thought of his father's God, of his mother's Savior, and wished he too were a Christian.
The long dreary night wore slowly away; Benjamin was rejoiced to see daylight, and when, though feeling very stiff and uncomfortable, he struggled to his feet, his clothes were all dripping; he could not change them, for his small trunk had been sent on to Philadelphia.
“You're not used to sleeping in such wet blankets," said one of the boatmen.
“Not exactly," replied Benjamin as cheerfully as he could under the circumstances, "but it can't be helped, so I'm going to make the best of it.”
“Do, if you can," said the boatman.
As soon as the gale had spent its fury they got off the sandbank, and were at sea again, but it was night before they got to port, after having been thirty hours on the water without food or drink. When he landed, tired and hungry, the rain was still falling fast, but his first care was to find something to eat. Seeing a small shop he went in and bought some gingerbread, and learned to his dismay that the boat on which he ought to have taken passage had sailed the day before, and that there would not be another for four days. What was he going to do? He could not afford to go to an hotel, but he must find food and shelter somewhere.
Returning to the shop where he had bought the gingerbread, the shopkeeper, a pleasant, kindly-faced woman, agreed to board and lodge him for a small sum till the boat was ready to start.
He was to go to Philadelphia sooner than he expected. He had dinner with his hostess, and toward evening went out for a walk; going to the wharf he saw a boat with several people in it.
“Where are you going?" he inquired of a middle-aged man who seemed to be in command.
“To Philadelphia.”
“That is just where I want to be," said Benjamin; "can you take me? I lost the boat, and I don't like waiting about.”
“Don't mind if I do. Can you row?"
"Yes," answered Benjamin.
“Jump in, young man, we must be off.”
He did not wish to act dishonorably towards the kind shopkeeper, but the boat could not wait while he returned to explain his sudden departure; so he jumped in, wondering what she would think and say. Benjamin rowed with a will, taking more than his share of the work. They reached Philadelphia about midnight; but when he offered to pay his passage, the skipper refused it, saying, "Put your money in your pocket, lad, you've earned your passage, and done it well too; you might be an old sailor by the way you handle an oar." They remained on the boat till daylight.
Benjamin was very hungry, having eaten nothing since his dinner with the shopkeeper the day before. Seeing a boy eating a piece of bread, he said to himself, "That's what I want," and to the boy, "Where did you get it?" "Over there," said the boy, pointing in the direction of a baker's. He went in and asked for some biscuits.
“We don't make biscuits.”
“Well, give me a threepenny loaf."
"We haven't got any.”
“Never mind, give me threepenny-worth of any bread you have." Three large penny rolls were laid on the counter. Benjamin went out of the shop eating one, and with the two others tucked under his arm.