Jerry; or, the sailor boy ashore

Emily’s soliloquy—Arrival of the doctor and his companion—Jerry—Greetings—The doctor’s plan—The new-comer and the lost one—Confession—Misgivings—Mr. Preston’s business—Oscar Pre...

Goes first to Boston—Ships on board the brig Susan—Sea-sickness—Duties on shipboard—Hard usage, and mean fare—The brighter side—Good sailing—Catching a shark—The albatross—Cross...

Sails from Valparaiso—An iceberg—Off the cape again—Progress northward—Caught in a “pampero”—Terrors of the tempest—The vessel but a wreck—The brig abandoned—Escape by boats—Dav...

The party land upon an island—Explorations—Discouraging prospects—Food—Shelter—Signal of distress—Monotonous life—A sail at last—The rescue—Adverse fortune—Transfer to the “Brid...

Jerry a “lion”—His visitors—Old Mr. Jenkins—His practical hints—Jerry don’t “take”—Explanation—Seeks Clinton—The meeting—Clinton’s thrifty habits—Saving money for a good object—...

The little peninsula—The name the Aborigines gave it—Who called it Charlestown, and why—Scenery in and about Charlestown—Date of Walter Aimwell’s birth—Probable effect of local...

Death of Mr. Simonds—His widow’s removal to Salem—Early hints of Walter Aimwell’s future character—Master Brooks—Walter Aimwell at thirteen—New England boys—Mrs. Simonds’s secon...

Walter Aimwell in Wm. S. Damrell’s office—His note-book—His first essay—A. H. Everett’s lecture—Reads life of Alexander the Great—Criticism—Christianity a new religion to some f...

A preface—Systematic arrangement of facts in the acquisition of knowledge—Book of Sunday reading—Common sense—Practical spirit—Faith in God’s moral laws—Account of religious exp...

Fountains of strength—Growth in grace—Resolutions—How to grow wise—The secret of pleasant faces and happy hearts—The giant and the sugar-plum—Doing right every moment—Speaking t...

Mostly written during his apprenticeship—Poetry and swamp-work—Walter Aimwell’s first poem—Exercises his powers in rhythmic composition for their own benefit—The pious dead—My f...

An inquiry—An answer—The aspiring undertaking—A theme in the Revised Statutes—Secret correspondence—Acceptance of manuscript—The young author “setting up” his own book—Reveals h...

Little hints of innocent delights—How he spends his evenings—Private fast-day—Height and weight—Remarkable dream—Wonderful baby—Lecture—Public fast-day—Music—Works nearly all ni...

A call from a stranger—Consultations, calculations, and contracts—Leaves Mr. Damrell—A good printer—Summary for 1845—Takes the whole of “The Rambler”—Invited to join in the cond...

Walter Aimwell in the world but not of it—Hard for him to think any evil till actions proved it—His own ways—Ways of some with whom he was connected in business—Success in spite...

Visit from Mr. Bullard—Boy’s Book of Morals and Manners—Walter Aimwell’s love of the young—Writes a story for them—Extension of “Clinton”—Published at Christmas—Received with un...

Nature’s forces slowly yielding—Walter Aimwell prepared for a happier world—January, 1859—February and fierce storms—Does not go to Boston—Procures assistance in editorial dutie...

“I wish I could look out and see father coming; here it is the tenth of the month, and he ought to have got home a week ago. February, March, April, May,—it’s over three months...

“Now I’ll spin that yarn, if you would like to hear it,” said Jerry, after tea. “I suppose you don’t want to hear about the voyage out, for nothing very remarkable happened, onl...

“We sailed from Valparaiso on the 4th of July,” continued Jerry. “I was in hopes we should stay in port one day more, for the Americans were going to have a jolly celebration of...

“We had got almost to the island, when I stopped,” he continued. “We found it was a pretty mean-looking place. It was rocky and barren, and there were but few trees, and not muc...

Jerry had not been in town twenty-four hours before he found that he was decidedly a “lion,”—an object of general interest and attention. In the house, he could not stir without...

Once there was a little, green peninsula that lay amid the shining waters like a pear upon a plate of burnished silver. The Indians—whose light canoes, like feathers, now and th...

When Walter Aimwell was about six years of age, his father, a man of kind disposition and religious principle, was removed by death. Soon after their bereavement, the family lef...

On the eleventh day of April, 1837, Walter Aimwell entered as apprentice the printing office of one of the leading printers of Boston. He boarded in the city, not far from the o...

“In the fall of 1838, I commenced keeping a note-book, somewhat similar to this. As I was then a member of the ‘Mechanic Apprentices’ Library Association,’ and consequently read...

I do not know as the next following extracts will strike the reader as anything very brilliant or very novel; but I cannot forbear transcribing them, because they were plucked s...

Probably Walter Aimwell never attempted much poetical composition after his apprenticeship. At least, but very few specimens have been preserved, except such as are recorded in...

“It ought to be the serious inquiry of every true disciple of Christ, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’ or, in other words, ‘How shall I spend the present life?’ And it may...

At the beginning of the year 1841, Walter Aimwell commenced keeping regularly a journal, “hoping,” he said in the preface, “that it may be profitable to me now, and useful and i...

In 1845, soon after completing his twenty-third year, he received a call from a stranger, who wished to establish a new weekly paper in Boston, and who had heard Walter Aimwell...

Although the subject of our memoir was early taken from the shelter of home and placed outside of the usual sphere of the protecting influence of family love, he did not seem to...

Early in February, 1853, Rev. Mr. Bullard called at the office of the “New England Farmer,” and invited Walter Aimwell to write a series of “Letters to Boys,” to be published in...

Slowly but steadily the forces of life yielded before the results of the great efforts he made in those fearful years preceding the sale of the “Rambler.” It hardly seemed as th...