If Ever I Return Again

October 28, 1856

My Dearest Abigail-

I could not write for many days. It seems so smooth at first I thought that I would prove a seaman from the start. How wrong I was! Out past the bay in open ocean the waves were peaked with white, and the ship began to pitch and roll. I felt so sick I stumbled to my cabin where I stayed until this morning, when Papa took me up on deck, saying the air would do me good. Which it has done. Perhaps I have my sea legs, as they call it, at last.

When We Left New Bedford

When we left New Bedford it was cold but clear, a fair wind, Papa said. Mother was in her cabin arranging things, but I wanted to be out on deck. I kept my eye on the sweet shoreline till it disappeared from me, bit by bit, till it was just a line. I held it there in memory long after it was gone. Papa passed me his spyglass (a small telescope) and through it I could see what had been lost before. Sometime in the world maybe there will be a spyglass so strong I could see not just New Bedford, but all the way back home, to you in Eastham, or even as far as our cousins in Salem, and beyond.

Mr. Prater's Superstition

Mr. Prater, the steward (a person who works on a ship) said it was bad luck to set sail on a Friday, but Papa would have none of it-"foolish superstition," he called it, and since the winds were right on the seventeenth, on a Friday we set sail. Of course I know that Papa is right and I take no stock in Mr. Prater's notions, still, it made me uneasy when Mr. Prater shook his head and mumbled, "Let no one say I didn't try to warn you, sir."

Reflections on the Sea

I feel much better now and have begun to eat again, but I am nervous as I had not been when we first started out. The Jupiter is sailing smoothly now, but I no longer trust this sea to keep itself this tame, this ship to keep itself this steady. I keep my eye on the modest waves, as if my watching will hold them as they are.

Feelings about William

Dear Abigail, I am not sure now that I should have said that I would come. Is this what I get for my obstinate ways? Remember how I pleaded with Papa and made such a nuisance of myself until he and Mother agreed that I could join them? I knew if he did not take me now he never would. I had thought, poor William, so hard for him to be left behind. Though I imagined he would be happier staying there with you with Charles and Sam for company, than here on board with no boy his age. And Papa promised him next trip he'll be the one to go.

Desolation of the Sea

There is no land in sight now. Not even a speck of it. No other ships. Nothing here but sea and sky. In all directions it is the same. Nothing to amuse the eye except the shape of clouds. How desolate this sea! I have never been so far from land before. So far I have to wonder if it really still is there, and did not simply vanish in the sea.