Sailor

Yeah, I know.

Seaman's jacket.

Beady, blinking eyes.

Scar on the right cheek.

My dad was an E3.

For people who are unfamiliar with the rank, he was a Seaman.

His job was a stoker in the engine maintenance.

He was roughly 115 pounds.

I was Secretary to the Memorial Committee.

After defraying the cost of the statue, we devoted the balance of the money collected to the endowment of Graves Scholars at the Seamen's Orphanage, an institution with which Mr. Graves had been very closely identified.

The parliamentary candidates for the vacancy were Mr. John Torr, a prominent merchant, who stood in the Conservative interest, and Mr. William S. Kane, another Liverpool man, supported by the Radicals and Teetotalers.

I acted as the Honorary Secretary for Mr. Torr.

Only a few months before she met with her sad and tragic death, she said to me, When I am gone, you must write as my epitaph, She opened bazaars.

Liverpool has had few friends more devoted or more capable than the late Lady Latham.

Chapter 16 The Seamen's Orphanage, etc.

On the death of Mr. Alfred Turner in 1896, I was made president of the Seamen's Orphanage.

In the four compartments stood the cook at his stove preparing the midday meal.

Sailors, when no orders were called from above, lay in their bunks, which curved toward the prow.

The pots and pans of the stove moved restlessly about with the swell.

The cook whistled, timbers creaked, the salt spray swished above the hatch, and mingled odors of meats and vegetables combined and thickened the air.

As the waters flow onward, following the trend of the shoreline of Staten Island, they become less and less exposed to the winds of the sea, and soon, as they pass the northernmost end of the island, they make a sharp bend to the west, passing between it and Liberty Statue, where the tranquil Kilbon Cull separates the island from New Jersey.

Long ere they reach this region, the sea winds have spent their force, and the billows, which in clear weather are still visible far out, have sunk to ripples so diminutive that the water is not even disturbed.

And here, in Staten Island, facing the Kilbon Cull, still stands in almost rural quiet and beauty Sailors' Snug Harbor.

Long ago, this was truly a harbor, snug and undisturbed, a place where the storm-harried mariner, escaping the moods and dangers of the seven seas, found a still and safe retreat.

And I'm thinking, oh no, for crying out loud, we had all this fever, now we've got scurvy.

But there are only four afflicted sailors, and they're all these prime, broad-shouldered, powerfully built, Seaman, normally cheerful in an emergency, invaluable to the crew, suddenly glum, listless, apathetic.

And Stephen doesn't get it.

He's thinking, you know, wait, we've got lime juice coming here.