Arizona republican., 1898-06-19

N curately, a. series of those jests of 1 # z fate we call E5e1sEsAE- chance, made me ESsrSNN one of the ships Eh H1l company of the
 E; ;:$ $: $: $: ::::; :::;; assasfAAS week before that H5asHHe} s3iJlp bright windy W March day when | Nl she spread her
 \M broad wings and l caught the ocean swell of Sandy Hook, nothing had been farther from my thoughts than a voyage round the Horn
 A trip by balloon, an exploration | of African wilds, or or a raid on the north pole would have seemed propo- sition as feasible as this venture to the southward, to a young physician strug- | gling Intellectually to prove that the community had need of him and that the years of preparation for his profes- l sion had not been thrown away.
 Itwas chance the first that Capt. Alp 1 ner Peck should come back from a | voyage to the west coast to find the wife of his bosom in failing health, and 1 tC resolve to take her with him on his next run to the farther side of the sis | ter continent. It was chance the sec | ond that, in his anxiety for his spouse, the skipper should decide to ship a sur 1 geon; as, part owner of the Mary Peck, l he was entitled to some 1uxuries. It l vas chance the third that the captain and I, Alfred Morris, NJ. D., should meet at the house of friend ill the New Eng land city in which I was striving to earn | my daily bread; and it may have been 1 chance the fourth that we fraternized with uncommon cordiality. The sea- man told me something of his plans: l confided to him the story of a few skirmishes of my uphill fight. The talk ended in his making definite proposi- tion. I asked AS hours to consider it. and accepted it in 12. In going to sea I gave up little. A few patients, chronic as to maladies and uncertain as to pay ments, would be forced to seek new medical adviser; in exchange for them
 I bargained for passage on fine ship | forgetfu.ness of the landlord bugbear
 and pay sufficient to supply spending money at the ports we might touch at | and to bring me home with a little loose silver in my pockets.
 I Once the die was cast, the thought of 1 the voyage fixed me with glee; for it | offered a first prospect of adventure
 though from boyhood mine had been an ], existence of fvicissitudes. Leftan orphan in childhood, I had grown up into my i teens under care of an uncle, an elderly bachelor who treated me with mixture of the fondness he felt for l kinsfolk and the distrust he manifested | toward those debarred from the sui frage by circumstances of age or sex l He-did not understand children, and he 1 feared women. He owned a small fac tory in Rodneytown, village on the l New England coast which had closed its days of progress about the middle of the century, but which still main. tained activity enough to keep it alive. My uncle seldom attempted to inter l H., happened, generally took me out of his sight and hearing, thereby, no doubt | gaining his tacit approval. I was a rather solitary little fellow in those days, with liking for proving about the fields and along the beach or pad
 ding crazy 1aft up and down the ! shallow tidal streams in which the neighborhood abounded, and on the banks of the largest of which Rodney town was built. Behind the village rose a long low ridge, and beyond that in turn was a rolling country, well wooded and fairly fertile. Between the l ridge and the beach stretched lowlands | fringed on the seaward side with salt marshes, and penetrated in many places | by the tidal creeks of which mention has been made For farming purposes 1 the lowlands were of little value, and al no time had they many dwellers. In 1 fact, to this day there is scarcely ha bi- | tation to be found from one end of the 1 plain to the other, though a little way up the slope of the ridge which bounds it are several clusters of farmhouses.
 i I found fascination of kind, in this waste region, which seemed to belong i hardly more to the land than to the sea; and spent many happy days exploring it. Here and there, rising from the marsh, were rocky hillocks, steep
 sided, and dotted with dwarfed trees and bushes wherever, by accident, suf ticient soil had collected to give the 1oots a covering. On one of these islands as they may be called for want of a better term-I discovered house, old
 and long untenanted, but not dilapi- dated. Why it's builder had chosen its site as he had was not to be explained
 for he had long been dead and buried; but his work remained to prove that he, like most of his contemporaries, had been an honest constructor. This old house enchanted my fancy. To the east it commanded a view of the bay, a broad expanse oi water sheltered from ocean gales by long cape jutting out from the mainland some miles to the k<.