1800.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
305 
“ THE BEST JUVENILE MAGAZINE EVER PUBLISHED IN ANY LAND OR LANGUAGE .” 
OUR YOUNG FOLKS, 
\ 
The great popularity which Our. Young Folks has enjoyed from its commencement seems Increasing steadily and surely every month. Its hundreds of thousands of readers all find 
something to their liking in each number. The Conductors of the Magazine make a Constant study of the tastes and best interests of the young people of the country, and, availing them¬ 
selves of the almost unlimited resources at their command, they provide monthly a variety that must entertain and benefit all classes of readers. They furnish excellent Stories, graphic 
Sketches of Travel and Character, new and attractive Chapters of History, fascinating descriptions of some kind of Animals or Plants, practical articles of great value for the everyday 
life of all, and departments of Entertainment and Correspondence full of fresh and delightful attractions. All these are contributed by the best writers, and their articles are profusely 
illustrated by the most skillful artists. 
Mr. Aldrich's “Story of a Bad Boy ” has attracted universal attention and interest. From the August number we copy an extract describing the appearance of 
SAILOR B E If AT RIVERMOUTH. 
“ ITullo !” cried Pepper, dropping his hands. “ Look there ! is n't that a bark coming up 
the Narrows?” 
“ Wliere?” 
“Just at the left of Fishcratc Island. Don't you see the foremast peeping above the old 
derrick?” 
Sure enough it was a vessel of considerable size, slowly beating up to town. In a few 
moments more the other two masts were visible above the green hillocks. 
“ Fore-topmasts blown away,” said Pepper. “Putting in for repairs, I guess.” 
As the bark lazily crept from behind the last of the islands, she let go her anchors and 
swung round with the tide. Then the gleeful chant of the sailors at the capstan came to us 
pleasantly across the water. The vessel lay within three-quarters of a mile of us, and we 
could plainly see the men at the davits lowering the starboard long-boat. It no sooner 
touched the stream than a dozen of the crew scrambled like mice over the side of the mer¬ 
chantman. 
In a neglected seaport like Rivermoutli the arrival of a large ship is an event of moment. 
The prospect of having twenty or thirty jolly tars let loose on the peaceful town excites 
divers emotions among the inhabitants. The small shopkeepers along the wharves antici¬ 
pate a thriving trade; the proprietors of the two rival boarding-houses—the “ Wee Drop ” 
and the “ Mariner’s Home ”—hasten down to the landing to secure lodgers ; and the female 
population of Anchor Lane turn out to a woman, for a ship fresli from sea is always full of 
possible husbands and long-lost prodigal sons. 
Dut, aside from this, there is scant welcome given to a ship's crew in Rivermoutli.' The 
toil-worn mariner is a sad fellow ashore, judging him by a severe moral standard. 
Once, I remember, a United States frigate came into port for repairs after a storm. She 
lay in the river a fortnight or more, and every day sent us a gang of sixty or seventy of our 
country’s gallant defenders, who spread themselves over the town, doing all. sorts of mad 
things. They were good-natured enough, but full of old Sancho. The “ Wee Drop ” proved 
a drop too much for many of them. They went singing through the streets at midnight, 
wringing off door-knockers, shinning up water-spouts, and frighteriing the Oldest Inhabit¬ 
ant nearly to death by popping their heads into his second-story window, and shouting 
“Fire!” One morning a blue-jacket was discovered in a perilous plight, lialf-way up the 
steeple of the South Church, clinging to the lightning-rod. How he got there nobody.could 
tell, not even bluc-jacket himself. All he knew was, that the leg of his trousers had caught 
on a nail, and there he stuck, unable to move either way. It cost the town twenty dollars 
to get him down again. He directed the workmen how to splice the ladders brought to his 
assistance, and called his rescuers “butter-fingered land-lubbers ” with delicious coolness. 
• Dut those were man-of-war’s-mcn. The sedate-looking craft now lying off Fishcratc Island 
was n’t likely to carry any.such cargo. Nevertheless, we watched the coming in of the long, 
boat with considerable interest. 
As it drew near, the figure of the man pulling the strokc-oar seemed oddly familiar to me. 
Whore could I have seen him before? When and where? His back was towards me, but 
there was something about that closely cropped head that I recognized instantly. • 
“ Way enough !” cried flic steersman, and all the oars stood upright in the air. The man 
in the bow seized the boat-hook, and, turning round quickly, showed me the honest face of 
Sailor Ken of the Typhoon. 
“It’s Sailor Ben !” I cried, nearly pushing Pepper Whitcomb overboard in my excitement. 
Sailor Ken, with the wonderful pink lady on his arm, and the ships and stars and anchors 
tattooed all over him, was a well-known hero among my playmates. And there lie was, 
like something in a dream come true ! 
I did n’t wait for my old acquaintance to get firmly on the wharf, before I grasped his 
hand in both of mine. 
“ Sailor Ben, don’t you remember me ?” 
lie.evidently did not. lie shifted his quid from one cheek to the other, and looked at me 
meditatively. 
“ Lord luv ye, lad, I don’t know you. I was never here afore in my life.” 
“ What!” I cried, enjoying his perplexity, “ have you forgotten the voj'age from New 
Orleans in the Typhoon, two years ago, you lovely old picture-book?” 
Ah! then he knew me, and in token of the. recollection gave my hand such a squeeze that 
I am sure an unpleasant change came over my countenance. 
“ Bless my eyes, but you have growed so! I should n’t have knowed you if 1 had met you 
in Singapore!” 
Without stopping to inquire, as I was tempted to do, why he was more likely to recognize 
rue in Singapore than anywhere else, I invited him to come at once up to the Nutter House, 
where I insured him a warm welcome from the Captain. 
“ Hold steady, Master Tom,” said Sailor Ben, slipping the painter through the ring-bolt 
and tying the loveliest knot you ever saw; “hold steady till I see if the mate can let me off. 
If you please; sir,” lie continued, addressing the steersman, a very red-faced, bow-legged 
person, “ this here is a little shipmate o’ mine as wants to talk over back times along of me, 
if so it’s convenient.” 
“ All right, Ben,” returned the mate, “sha’ n’t want you for an hour.” 
Leaving one man in charge of the boat, the mate and the rest of the crew went off togeth¬ 
er. In the mean while Pepper Whitcomb had got out his cunncr-jinc, and was quietly fish¬ 
ing at the end of the wharf, ns if to give me the idea that lie was n’t so very much impressed 
by my intimacy with so renowned a character as Sailor Ben. Perhaps Pepper was a little 
jealous. At any rate, lie refused to go with us to the house. 
Captain N,utter was at home reading the Rivermoutli Barnacle. He was a reader to do an 
editor’s heart good; he never skipped over an advertisement, even if he had read it fifty 
times before. Then the paper went the rounds of the neighborhood, among the poor peo¬ 
ple, like the single portable'eye which the three blind crones passed to each other in the 
legend of King Acrisius. The Captain, I repeat, was wandering in the labyrinths of the 
Rivermoutli Barnacle when 1 led Sailor Ben into the sitting-room. 
My grandfather, whose inborn courtesy knew no distinctions, received my nautical friend 
as if lie had been an admiral instead of a common forecastle-hand. Sailor Ben pulled an 
imaginary tuft of hair on his forehead, and bowed clumsily. Sailors have away of using 
their forelock as a sort of handle to bow with. 
The old tar had probably never been in so handsome an apartment in all his days, and 
nothing could induce him to take the inviting mahogany chair which the Captain wheeled 
out from the corner. 
The abashed mariner stood up against the wall, twirling liis tarpaulin in his two hands 
and looking extremely silly. He made a poor show in a gentleman’s drawing-room, but 
what a fellow he had been in his day, when the gale ble\* great guns and the topsails want¬ 
ed reefing! I thought of him with the Mexican squadron off Vera Cruz, where 
“ The ringing battle-bolt sung from the Ihrec-dteckcr out of the foam,” 
and he did n’t seem awkward or ignoble to me, for all his shyness. 
As Sailor Ken declined to sit down, the Captain did not resume his scat; so we three stood 
in a constrained manner until my grandfather went to the door and called" to Kitty to bring 
in a decanter of Madeira and two glasses. 
“ My grandson, here, has talked so much about you,” said the Captain, pleasant!}', “that 
you seem quite like an old acquaintance to me.” 
“ Thankee, sir, thankee,” returned Sailor Ben, looking as guilty as if he had been detested 
in picking a pocket. 
“ And I’m very glad to see yon, Mr.—Mr.—” 
“Sailor Ben,” suggested that worthy. 
“Mr. Sailor Ben,” added the Captain, smiling. “ Tom, open the door, there’s Kitly with 
the glasses.” 
I opened the door, and Kitty entered the room bringing the tilings on a waiter, which she 
was about to set on the table, when suddenly she uttered a loud shriek; the decanter and 
glasses fell with a crash to the floor, and Kitty, as white as a sheet, was seen flying through 
the hall. 
“ It’s liis wraith ! It ’sliis wraith J” we heard Kitty shrieking, i:i the kitchen. 
My grandfather and I turned with amazement to Sailor Ben. His eyes were standing out 
of his head like a lobster’s. 
“ It’s my own little Irish lass !” shouted tlic sailor, and lie darted into the hall after her. 
Even then we scarcely caught the meaning of liis words, but when we saw Sailor Ben and 
Kitty sobbing ©n each other’s shoulder in the kitchen, we understood it all. 
“ I begs your honor’s parden, sir,” said Sailor Ben, lifting his tear-stained face above Kitty's 
tumbled hair ; “ I begs your honor’s parden for kicking up a rumpus in the house, but it's 
my own little Irish lass as I lost so long ago !” 
“Heaven preserve us!” cried the Captain, blowing Ids nose violently,—a transparent 
dodge to hide his emotion. 
Miss Abigail was in an upper chamber, sweeping; but on hearing the unusual racket be¬ 
low, she scented an accident and came ambling down stairs with a bottle of the infallible 
liot-drops in her hand. Nothing but the firmness of my grandfather prevented her from 
giving Sailor Ben a tablespoonful on the spot. But when she learned what had conic about, 
—that this was Kitty’s husband, that Kitty Collins was n’t Kitty Collins now, but Mrs. Ben¬ 
jamin "Watson, cf Nantucket,—the good soul sat down on the mcal-clicst and sobbed as if— 
to quote from Captain Nutter—as if a husband of her own had turned up ! 
A happier set of people than we were never met together in a dingy kitchen or anywhere 
else. The'Captain ordered a fresh decanter of Madeira, and made all hands, excepting.my¬ 
self, drink a cup to the return of “ the prodigal sea-son,” as he persisted in calling Sailor Ben. 
When Sailor Ben’s hour had expired, we walked with him down to the wharf, where the 
Captain held a consultation with the mate, which resulted in ail extension of Mr. WaLon’s 
leave of absence, and afterwards in liis .discharge from liis ship. W’e then went to the 
“ Mariner’s Home” to engage a room for him, as he would n’t hear of accepting the hos¬ 
pitalities of the Nutter House. , 
“You see, I’in only an uneddlcated man,” lie remarked to my grandfather .by way of 
explanation, 
CHAPTER XVI. 
IX WHICH SAILOIl BEX SPIXS A YAYX. 
The following letter expresses fairly the opinion entertained of “Our Young Folks," 
as communicated in numerous letters to the Publishers. 
To the Editors of “Our Young Folks." Springfield, Feb. 23,1S69. 
“ Your magazine is such source of delight in our family, and at the same time so valua¬ 
ble and instructive to our children, that I feel impelled to write you and thank you lor what 
you are doing for them and lor others like them. We have taken the magazine ever since 
it started, but we think it more interesting than ever this year. 
•• The ‘ Story of a Bad Hoy ’ pleases my hoys so much that they fairly commit each instal¬ 
ment to memory. Mr. Trowbridge’s articles on Glass-Making we have found particularly 
interesting, and so are the articles by Mr. Parton. and Mr. Hale, and Mrs. Agassiz, i assure 
you that tile monthly arrival of vour Magazine is a great event in our household. Expec¬ 
tation gets on liptoe'about the middle of (inch month, after which time the Post-office hoy 
is closoly watched by two pair of eager young eyes, on tile lookout for what they call 
‘ the best magazine that ever was.’ 
“ in sober earnest, dear Editors. I feel that you arc doing my children an inestimable good, 
that, vou are furnishing to them a si vie of reading in every respect admirable and particu¬ 
larly adapted to them ; and as I see the interest with which they read what you prepare tor 
them, and observe its restraining and developing influence upon their young minds, I feel 
grateful that ill their education I have such a valuable assistant as jour magazine. 
Kespectfully yours, Mrs. A. M.” 
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to anyone who wishes to examine the magazine, on application to the Publishers, 
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