Part 2

“At twelve o’clock, finding that George slept easily, I called one of my shipmates to take my place. He was very willing to do so; but before I left him, I charged him, over and over again, to keep awake and mind the boy. He promised me he would, and I went to my bunk.

“I was so tired that I slept like a rock till eight bells, which was four o’clock in the morning. My first thought was of poor George, and jumping out of my berth, I hastened to his side. My shipmate whom I had left to watch him was fast asleep.

“I felt so very angry with him, that only my desire to learn how the sick boy was, prevented me from kicking him out of the forecastle. I looked into the bunk, and all was still as when I had left, and I thought he was asleep.

“All was still and calm in the berth—so still and calm that I trembled with fear. I listened to hear his breathing, but no sound reached my ear. I then placed my hand upon his brow. It was as cold as marble.

“Poor George was dead!

“O children, I can’t tell you how I felt then. It seemed just as though our angel had been taken out of the ship. I wept as I should have wept if he had been my son or my brother.

“From that sleep in which I had left him he had never awakened, for he lay just as he was at midnight. There was not a dry eye in the ship when it was told that poor George, whom we all loved, was dead.

“We dressed him in his clean clothes, and bore his body upon deck, where we covered it with the American flag. At noon the sad cry of ‘All hands to bury the dead’ sounded gloomily through the ship.

“The body of poor George, sewed up in a piece of sailcloth, was placed on a plank, still covered with the American flag. It was raised upon the rail, ready to be cast into the sea.

“The captain, with his eyes brim full of tears, and hardly able to speak from grief, read prayers; and all was ready to launch the body into the deep. The canvas had been left open at the head, and the wind blew the fair brown locks upon the cold brow of poor George, just as when he had stood by my side on the cross-trees.

“One by one the sailors kissed his marble cheeks,—kissed him for his mother,—and wiped the tears from their brown faces. The canvas was sewed up, the word was given, and the body slid off the plank into the great ocean, there to sleep till the graves give up their dead.

“The ship filled away upon her course, and it was many and many a day before we ceased to think of the poor sailor boy in his ocean grave.

“When I got home, I went to New York to see poor George’s mother. I found her without trouble, and told her the story of her lost child. A few days after she was taken to an insane asylum, where she died. Poor George! Poor mother!”

Every one of the children was crying when Uncle Ben finished his story, and even when they went home, their eyes were red and swollen with weeping.

“What is the matter, Flora?” asked Mrs. Lee, when her two children entered the house.

“Nothing, mother.”

“Why, both of you have been crying! What has happened?”

“Nothing, mother; only Uncle Ben has been telling us a very sad story about a handsome sailor boy, who was killed at sea by a whale,” replied Frank.

“Who told you the story—Uncle Ben?” asked Mrs. Lee, very much surprised.

“Yes, mother,” replied Flora. “He is a real nice man, and not a bit cross when you don’t bother him.”

The children told their father and mother all about the events of the afternoon, and how kind Uncle Ben had been to them. Mr. Lee was very much pleased, as well as surprised, for he looked upon Uncle Ben just as nearly all the people of Riverdale did—as a hard and cross man.

But after what the children had told him, he felt very kindly towards the old man, and wanted to do something for him, so that he need not have to work so hard. He went to see Uncle Ben the next day, and told him how pleased the children had been with him.

A few months after this event Mr. Lee, with the help of his friends, got the place of Postmaster of Riverdale for Uncle Ben, and the old man sold his farm and moved into the village. This place gave him money enough to live without hard work. He had got it by being kind to the children, and after this he tried very hard to be kind to every body.

So you see how much good Flora did by going to Uncle Ben in the right way. She had conquered his cold heart, and the old man, feeling how much he owed to the children, became a great favorite among them.

Many a time, after Uncle Ben had sent off the mail, the children gathered together in the Post Office, to hear an interesting story of the sea; and even the old folks were glad to listen to them.