EXCERPT FROM
Vagabond Adventures
by Ralph Keeler
J.R. Osgood & Co.,
1870
The pier of Conneaut, where we finally arrived, was now invested with absorbing interest to me. I wondered which of the tanned faces that looked up from the dock belonged to my future mistress; and I wondered, too, which of the weather-beaten fishermen's huts along the shore - about the only habitations in sight - was to be my future home. I hoped it was the one with the little boats before it on the beach, and the long fish-nets spread out to dry; where the white gulls seemed to make their head-quarters, wheeling about the little roof, or sliding up against the sky, or swooping the surf, and skimming along the billows of the lake. I was thus musing, in grateful convalescence, on the upper-deck, when the steward approached, and pointed me out to his wife. She was, as I remember her, a chubby, black-eyed little person, with a pleasant voice. At her woman's question as to whether I had my things all packed and ready, I became embarrassed; but the steward helped me out by answering for me, " Yes, he has'em on his back." The knowledge of my forlorn condition, and a sudden choking sensation in the throat, came upon the good little woman at one and the same time, as I was made aware by an attempt to speak, which she abandoned, substituting very much to the lowering of my boyish pride - a fearless and vigorous hugging, together with a hearty, loud-sounding kiss, right before the passengers, the greasy pantryman, and others of the crew. Then the steward's wife, without another word, hurried me ashore into a one-horse wagon, with the soiled linen, and drove away up to the village, which was a mile or two from the lake.